Claudia Lauper Bushman

Claudia Marian Lauper Bushman (born June 11, 1934) is an American historian specializing in domestic women's history, especially as it relates to the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). She helped found, and was the first editor of, the progressive LDS magazine Exponent II, has written American and LDS history books, and established a Mormon women oral history project at Claremont Graduate University.

Early life and education Bushman grew up in the Sunset District of San Francisco, where LDS church attendance was a regular part of her family life. Still, Bushman said that she felt like everyone in her ward was interested in what she was doing as a young person.

Career Bushman is a professor of American Studies emerita at Columbia University. Bushman is the author of many books, most recently Contemporary Mormonism: Latter-day Saints in Modern America (Praeger Publishers, 2006). Her work focuses on the detailed lives of ordinary women. To celebrate their work on the institute course, Bushman and her group held an Exponent dinner, where Jill Mulvay (Derr) met Maureen U. Beecher, a worker in the church history department under Leonard Arrington.

In 1974 Bushman was involved in the founding of Exponent II. The group of about twelve women pasted pages together in their homes, often with children underfoot. Using money Leonard Arrington gave the group for research purposes, they printed their first issue, which they gave out for free to solicit subscriptions.

Bushman has been heavily involved in cultural activities and public relations in New York City. She was the producer of the youth celebration that coincided with the dedication of the Manhattan New York Temple.

From 2008–2011 Claremont University appointed Richard Bushman to start a Mormon studies program, and Claudia taught classes as an adjunct professor. During her time at Claremont, Claudia established an oral history project to document the lives of Mormon women. She found that her children constantly developed in interesting ways, while "a book just sits on a table, never improving by itself at all."

Bushman's attitude to teaching is to put students "in a position where they can learn things."

Personal life Claudia Bushman is married to historian Richard Lyman Bushman. The Bushmans are the parents of six children. Claudia was recognized as mother of the year for the state of New York in 2000. She is the sister of Bonnie Goodliffe, who for forty years was one of the organists for the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.

Published work Mormon Sisters: Women in Early Utah (1997). Utah State University Press. Also published in 1976 by Emmeline Press. So Laudable an Undertaking: The Wilmington Library, 1788-1988 (1989) Delaware Heritage Press. America Discovers Columbus: How an Italian Explorer Became an American Hero (1992). University Press of New England. "A Good Poor Man's Wife": Being a Chronicle of Harriet Hanson Robinson and Her Family in Nineteenth-Century New England (1998). University Press of New England. Mormons in America (1999). Oxford University Press. Building the Kingdom: A History of Mormons in America (2001). Oxford University Press. In Old Virginia: Slavery, Farming and Society in the Journal of John Walker (2001). Johns Hopkins University Press. Mormon Women Have Their Say: Essays from the Claremont Oral History Collection, ed (2013). Greg Kofford Books.