MHA’s Best Book Award and Other Conference Notables

At the Mormon Historical Association conference in June, CHP authors Lisa Olsen Tait, Amber C. Taylor, Kate Holbrook, and James Goldberg received the 2026 Best Book Award for Carry On: The Latter-day Saint Young Women Organization, 1870–2024. “We are gratified to have this work recognized by our peers in the history community,” Tait said. “We feel it reflects the high standards we reached for in the research and writing of the book.”

The award shows not only the project’s scholarly value but also its reach—the volume’s authors worked to create an engaging history that would be accessible to a wide audience. James Goldberg remembered, “After we did a roundtable for the book at MHA last year, I had so many conversations with people who discovered connections to their own fields of interest. Seeing the book recognized this year is meaningful, because it helps reinforce a growing awareness that the history of young women has always been an integral—and interesting!—aspect of Latter-day Saint history." Goldberg also received the 2026 Smith-Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters at the Association for Mormon Letters conference in June.

CHP historians brought attention to other CHP projects at this year’s MHA event. One panel including several Rise Up and Speak editors discussed Eliza R. Snow’s material culture, while another explored insights from the Native Saints project. Many historians presented their research individually at panels throughout the event.

More recently at BYU Education Week, a panel from the CHP presented “More Than a Message: Innovations and Insights from Mission History,” sharing research that will appear in a future publication. Two other sessions, “Accessing Spiritual Power: Lessons from Women in Church History” and “Hiding in Plain Sight: Quiet Marvels of Church History,” also spotlighted CHP historians and publications.