During a recent Utah visit, he gave a lecture at Westminster College on Mormonism and she gave one at Utah State University on Elizabeth Kane, who wrote rich diaries about early Utah. Richard Bushman and Claudia Lauper were demonstrating their now finely tuned empathy as historians.
When these two charismatic Westerners met -- he was a student at Harvard, she was a student at Wellesley -- they had no premonitions about all they would do together. But Bushman and Lauper fell in love, married, became parents of six children -- and all the while wrote numerous award-winning books through a stunning meeting of the minds.Still vigorous, and looking younger than their 60-plus years, they continue to make important scholarly contributions.
Richard was born in Salt Lake City but spent his formative years in Portland, Ore., before studying American history and serving an LDS mission in Boston, Mass. Claudia was born and raised in California, then went to Wellesley, near Boston, where she pursued studies in English and American literature.
When they met, in the LDS chapel in Cambridge, Mass, Claudia had already heard a great deal about Richard. "He was already a legend," she jokes. "I heard about him from a dozen people before I met him."
Richard obtained a doctorate from Harvard and became a professor of history at Brigham Young University. Then he taught at Boston University and the University of Delaware before accepting the prestigious Gouverneur Morris Professorship of History at Columbia University in New York.
As Richard climbed the academic ladder, Claudia gravitated toward historical studies. "This is not the life I would have lived under other circumstances," she says cheerfully. "But Richard has been my great teacher through all these years, and because I was married to someone at a university, going to graduate school was a relatively easy and inexpensive thing to do."
In the late 1970s, Claudia obtained her doctorate in American studies at Boston University.
Individually, she has written seven scholarly books, and Richard has written six. Currently, she has a new book in press about John Walker, an 18th century Virginia farmer, who left a rich diary about his farming and his spiritual life. She is considering writing a biography of Elizabeth Kane who, she says, "was a terrific writer and an astute observer."
Richard, on the other hand, is busy writing what promises to be the definitive biography of the first Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith. It will extend and complete the story of his first Smith book, "Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism." Next year, he will take a two-year leave from Columbia to work exclusively on the book. His aim is to finish it by 2005, the 200th anniversary of Joseph Smith's birth.
He is concerned that previous Smith biographies have emphasized his "adventures," while shortchanging his religious life and thought. Richard plans to correct that and add "a cultural dimension, to place Joseph in his time, so we can see exactly what his contribution was as compared to other religious figures of the period."
Richard has learned, for instance, that stories of visions in 19th century America were surprisingly common, but what made Smith unique in his time was the translation of the Book of Mormon. "It is entirely outlandish in his culture, just inexplicable, that this uneducated person would even think of himself as a translator."
Richard was a prominent expert interviewed on the PBS documentary, "American Prophet: The Story of Joseph Smith," which aired on Channel 11 Sept. 26, and will air on other PBS stations, including Channel 7, sometime in November.
Among Claudia's books are "Mormon Sisters," an edited collection of stories about pioneer women; "America Discovers Columbus," the story of how an Italian explorer became an American hero; and "A Good Poor Man's Wife," the story of Harriet Hanson Robinson and her life in 19th century New England.
Richard's first book, "From Puritan to Yankee," won the prestigious Bancroft Prize in history. It is a study of character and the social life of 18th century Connecticut. His other major books are "King and People in Provincial Massachusetts" and "The Refinement of America," a scholarly fixture on the social life of 18th and 19th century America.
Since 1991, Claudia and Richard have worked together on a comprehensive history of 18th century American farming. In 1998, Oxford University Press published "Mormons in America," the book they wrote together for high school students.
The way the Bushmans work together on scholarly projects is extraordinary.
"We've always read each other's works, which has been very helpful," said Claudia. "I mostly criticize Richard's style. He mostly criticizes my ideas. All of our books are collaborations to some degree, and when we've gone off to various places and spent years in one place or another on sabbatical, we've always worked very closely together. It's been helpful for both of us to have a resident critic."
Richard added, "We're in the fortunate position that we don't think or write alike. So we're always sort of reading against the grain of the other person's writings. Claudia has never been satisfied with my style, so she is always pummeling it and shaping it, and that's very helpful, because she can hear the clunky parts of sentences that I can't hear. Claudia has this marvelous gift for seeing things intuitively, but she doesn't have a conscious control of what her idea is. So my task is sort of to tell her what she really thinks."
Although they criticize each other's work, they both have a strong sense of appreciation for each other's abilities, so that neither takes offense. "Sometimes," said Claudia, "it's painful when your best idea is thrown out. You can't stand it at first, so you put it aside and come back to it in the morning, and then you say, 'Yeah, he really was right.' "
Richard is convinced that Claudia basically respects his imagination, "and I have immense respect for her writing and for her intuitive powers. It's the genuine regard that underlies the criticism that makes it all possible."
According to Claudia, "Since we can't find anything recreational that we like to do together, we manage to WORK together!"
But Richard countered, "Now that's not true. We go to museums, we travel, we do theater together. The real conflict is that Claudia loves to shop, and I love my wife, so I attend her in her shopping. She has a shopping gene that demands fulfillment at regular intervals."
Sometimes, Claudia can't believe she is a historian. Writing history, she said, "is just not the kind of thing I would do. I'm a Californian. I'm not interested in the past. Even now, I think, 'What am I doing in this business? I don't care about these things!' And yet, I find fascinating things about any subject I work on for any length of time. It's worked surprisingly well for us."
Richard admits to having been baffled by her restlessness. "She's always had more energy and need for expression than there were outlets." Claudia explains, "I frequently feel like I have too much to do, but that's only half the time. The other half I feel like I don't have enough to do!"
While Richard presided over the LDS stake in Boston, Claudia and other Mormon women wrote a guide book to Boston for newcomers, prepared an LDS Institute class, "The Roots and Fruits of Mormon Women," and started a Mormon women's newspaper -- "Exponent II," inspired by "The Woman's Exponent," a 19th century newspaper started by Mormon women.
Richard encouraged her in these efforts. "Claudia becomes very impatient with just talking. She always likes to turn talking into projects. So all that energy became productive. She's never been an ideologue or a radical. She's always felt women should have a chance to develop their talents."
When Richard accepted an offer to teach history at the University of Delaware, Claudia had to shift gears. She said, "It's always hard for women to start a new life. Men move from something to something, and women move from something to nothing." She figures it takes her about five years in a new place to "get established."
At the University of Delaware, she taught women's studies, plus a class about Newark, a university town everyone said had no history. Claudia started asking everyone she knew why Newark had no historical society. Finally, one day, she and some of her students started one.
"It was really quite a bombshell, because here was this newcomer who didn't know anything about it, and suddenly, I was this 'doyenne of local history.' We did lots of great stuff. We did publications, celebrations, all sorts of things."
After that, she became director of the Delaware Historical Commission, where she engineered the planning for the bicentennial celebration of the American Revolution in Delaware. She held that position for five years. "It was a wonderful time. There are only about 600,000 people in Delaware, and so we could do programs that made a difference."
Claudia established a relationship with both of Delaware's U.S. senators, Bidden and Roth, and they cooperated with her on a number of historical projects. "They both commute to Washington, and so they're in town all the time. There is really a lot to be said for a small state."
She has found projects more difficult to establish in New York, where Sen. Patrick J. Moynihan does not respond to her communications. "But I've been teaching American studies at Columbia, and it's a great pleasure to teach wonderful students." She and Richard frequently have their students over to their New York apartment for pot-luck suppers and speakers. Claudia recalled that, "Richard's graduate students gave him a great big plaque last year, for 'improving the quality of life for graduate students at Columbia.' "
For the past year and a half, Claudia has been working on the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of Columbia University, to occur in 2003-04. "Any time you have a celebration you have an excuse to do a lot of projects you should do anyway but you have not had the excuse to do them."
When she finishes the Columbia project and Richard completes the Smith biography, they will no doubt churn out that volume on farming in America.
By then, there are bound to be new challenges -- and you can bet they'll tackle them together.