By: Kimberley Mangun
Jeremy J. Chatelain, a longtime AJHA member who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Utah Department of Communication, died on Sept. 15 in Denver. He was 51. 
Dr. Chatelain was a Seminary Teacher for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and an independent historian who studied the power and influence of the 19th-century press in American religious history.
He discovered what he called “an unexpected interest” in First Amendment theory, law, and research during a Free Speech in Society graduate seminar taught by Dave Vergobbi, a past president of AJHA and recipient of AJHA’s National Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Dr. Chatelain found his passion for journalism history in a graduate seminar on historical research methods taught by Kimberley Mangun, a past president of AJHA. They subsequently co-authored a paper for the AEJMC History Division about Abner Cole, publisher of the Palmyra, NY, Reflector and a staunch proponent of the Freethought Movement. Their submission garnered a top-paper award at the 2012 convention held in Chicago. A revised manuscript was published in American Journalism in 2015.
Dr. Chatelain’s 2018 dissertation, chaired by Prof. Mangun, was a deeply researched cultural history of the influence of 19th-century American print on Mormonism in Kirtland, Ohio, between 1831 and 1837. He located and analyzed more than 1,600 articles published in 325 newspapers to demonstrate how “print culture and texts about and by the Mormons created, shaped, changed, and directed the trajectory of Mormonism in its formative years.” Essentially, he tracked the cross-country spread of articles and editorials about Mormons during the 1830s and showed how editors “created and shaped” a consistently negative perception of the uniquely American religion. Dr. Chatelain also studied the early development of the Mormon press and concerted efforts to dispel or correct disparaging commentary on Mormonism.
His dissertation was awarded an honorable mention, Margaret A. Blanchard Dissertation Prize, at AJHA’s conference in Dallas in October 2019. He was delighted to receive the award and discuss his work at the convention, even though quadriplegia made it very difficult for him and his wife, Connie, to travel.
In 2023, Dr. Chatelain received one of the inaugural AJHA–AEJMC History Division diversity microgrants to study anti-Mormon rhetoric in Thomas C. Sharp’s Warsaw (IL) Signal. He discussed that research-in-progress during a panel session at the Columbus, Ohio, convention. His analysis of Sharp’s incendiary articles and Extras, which motivated mob actions and led to the murder of Mormon leader Joseph Smith in 1844, was published in Journalism History in March 2025.
Dr. Chatelain presented additional research at several Sperry Symposiums at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and published peer-reviewed work in books released by the BYU Religious Studies Center.
His ongoing, diligent research ultimately led to the discovery of nearly 14,000 articles about and by the Mormons published in more than 400 newspapers. Shortly before his death, he was drafting a book proposal based on his voluminous archive that he planned to submit to Oxford University Press.
Scholars interested in newspaper history, religious history, First Amendment theory, and many other topics will soon be able to use his vast collection, thanks to Dr. Chatelain’s generous, forthcoming donation of primary sources to the LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City.
