Interesting Account

Transactive memories of Joseph Smith’s first vision—individual memories in communication and combination with each other—enter the historical record in the 1840s. The most significant and far-reaching of these memories is Orson Pratt’s “Interesting Account,” published in Scotland in 1840 after Smith confided his vision to Pratt in 1839. By sharing his memory, Smith ensured that published accounts of the 1840s consolidated via transaction. Individuals remembered and communicated memories, like Smith telling Pratt, who remembered and communicated via “Interesting Account.” That process placed memories in the saints’ buffer, available for selection, relation to other knowledge, and repetition until they became common knowledge. Otherwise, Smith’s memories would have died with him in 1844.