Doctoral Candidate Spears Claims Over $30,000 in Grants, Will Defend Dissertation in September

Robyn Spears defends her dissertation at noon on Sept. 10 at 412 Old Main.

Robyn Spears, a doctoral candidate in the Department of History, will defend her dissertation at noon on Tuesday, Sept. 10, at 412 Old Main. The title of Spears’ dissertation is “First Latter-day Saint Women Baptized in Europe and Oceania: Ann Cottam Dawson (1785-1849) and Terii (ca. 1800-ca. 1860).”

Spears discovered that very little had been written regarding the first Latter-day Saint women baptized in Europe and Polynesia.

So, she decided to look into it herself. Over the past four years, her research has been supported and awarded over $30,000 in grants and scholarships from various groups such as Fulbright College’s Faculty Development Committee, the Department of History, the Gender Studies Bridge Fellowship, the Graduate School, the Church History Library and Museum of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon Women’s History Initiative Team, the John Whitmer Historical Association and Brigham Young University’s Religious Education Center.

Spears has presented her international findings at academic conferences in Laie, Hawaii; Coventry, England; Independence, Missouri; Rochester, New York; Cleveland, Ohio; and Fredericksburg, Texas.

Spears says of the first Latter-day Saint women baptized: 

“Ann Cottam Dawson in Lancashire, England, and a woman known simply as Terii on the island of Tubuai in the Austral Islands (now French Polynesia), did not leave behind diaries. Therefore, my research relied heavily on evidence such as missionary diaries, newspapers, church records, vital records, genealogical records, sermons and even a mutiny narrative. Both women fed and housed the first Latter-day Saint missionaries to their islands and performed women’s blessings of healing in their surrounding communities. Despite church leaders sponsoring their passage to America, the two never left their native islands.” 

This story also appeared in the University of Arkansas News publication.