Richard Bushman

Richard Lyman Bushman (June 20, 1931) is an American historian and Gouverneur Morris Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, having previously taught at Brigham Young University, Harvard University, Boston University, and the University of Delaware. Bushman is the author of Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, an important biography of Joseph Smith, progenitor of the Latter Day Saint movement. Bushman also was an editor for the Joseph Smith Papers Project and now serves on the national advisory board. Bushman has been called "one of the most important scholars of American religious history" of the late-20th century. In 2012, a $3-million donation to the University of Virginia established the Richard Lyman Bushman Chair of Mormon Studies in his honor. Richard L. Bushman was born on 1931, in Salt Lake City, Utah. His father, Ted Bushman (1902–1980), was a fashion illustrator, advertiser, and department store executive, and his mother, Dorothy Lyman; 1908–1995), was a secretary and homemaker. Bushman grew up as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). When he was a young child, Bushman's family moved to Portland, Oregon. After graduating from high school in 1949, Bushman matriculated at Harvard University. After taking time off from those studies to serve for two years as a Latter-day Saint missionary in the northeastern United States, he graduated in 1955 with an Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude in history. Bushman married fellow historian Claudia Lauper Bushman in August 1955, and the couple reared six children. Bushman continued at Harvard, earning Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in the history of American civilization, studying with the early American historian Bernard Bailyn. Bushman received a Sheldon Fellowship to work on his dissertation in London. Bushman taught at Brigham Young University from 1960 to 1968, though two of those years he spent studying history and psychology on a doctoral fellowship at Brown University.