The Church Historian’s Press has released the Joseph Smith Papers Financial Records series ebook.
The release follows the completion of the Financial Records series on the Joseph Smith Papers website, where the final group of documents was published in September. The new ebook introduces readers to the completed collection, providing historical context for nearly 2,000 financial documents and their accompanying transcripts and annotations. The series helps illuminate both the Prophet Joseph Smith’s personal finances and the temporal affairs of the early Church, adding an important dimension to the documentary record of the Prophet’s life and ministry.
“This series is so much more than ledgers and promissory notes,” said Elizabeth Kuehn, lead editor of the series. “The financial records document all the work it took to build the entire Latter-day Saint community and the many personal sacrifices Joseph Smith made in the process.”
Kuehn was joined by Jeffrey D. Mahas, Sharalyn D. Howcroft and Naomi W. Raffensparger as volume editors of the ebook.
The book features historical introductions and an extensive glossary written for the complete online publication of the Prophet’s financial papers. The introductions provide context to topics such as the Prophet’s land transactions, the assigning of agents to work on his behalf, and, perhaps most significantly, his role as trustee for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Two people at a table talkiing
Elizabeth Kuehn (right) and Jeffrey Mahas (left) at a Joseph Smith Papers conference in 2022. Along with Sharalyn Howcroft and Naomi Raffensparger, they are the volume editors of the Joseph Smith Papers Financial Records series ebook.© 2026 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.
Joseph Smith’s role in the building of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints led to the creation of a wide variety of financial records. Genres of documents in the online series include invoices and ledgers for stores and a bank as well as promissory notes and pay orders relating to Smith’s personal finances. There are also several large record books of 50 to 400 pages. These primarily contain records of the Prophet’s business endeavors in Nauvoo, Illinois, including tithing donations received in his capacity as church trustee.
The ebook’s introductions place the documents in their historical setting, explaining the geographical areas where Joseph Smith lived, the financial concerns he encountered, and the range of his business, personal, and church-related transactions. The volume also examines arrangements made by agents acting on behalf of Joseph Smith and the Church.
The 26-volume print edition of the Joseph Smith Papers was completed in 2023, while additional documents have continued to be published digitally at josephsmithpapers.org. The Financial Records series was originally included in a larger online-only Legal, Business and Financial Records project. In 2019, this project was divided, and the Financial Records became its own series. The Financial Records series published documents on the Joseph Smith Papers website starting in 2020.
The ebook is available at Deseret Book, Amazon, and other retail outlets. Visit the Joseph Smith Papers website for more information.
Source: newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org
