---
title: "The Founder of Mormonism: A Psychological Study of Joseph Smith, Jr."
description: 1902 study of Joseph Smith by I. Woodbridge Riley, a doctoral thesis presented at Yale University, with an introductory preface by George Trumbull Ladd. Ten chapters on Smith's ancestry, visions, the Book of Mormon, and later activities, with four appendices and a bibliography.
authors:
  - Riley, Isaac Woodbridge
collections:
  - history
tags:
  - history
  - joseph-smith
  - psychology
  - critical-studies
  - 20th-century
published: "1902"
publisher: Dodd, Mead & Company
publisher_place: New York
edition: First edition (New York, May 1902)
language: en
type: book
reference: 'I. Woodbridge Riley, *The Founder of Mormonism: A Psychological Study of Joseph Smith, Jr.* (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1902), "Title Page."'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/foundermormonism00rilerich
  identifier: foundermormonism00rilerich
  scan: University of California copy of the 1902 Dodd, Mead & Company first edition, Internet Archive
  transcription: OCR text of the 1902 scan, with line-break hyphens joined, running heads and page numbers removed, library stamps dropped and obvious scan errors corrected; printed pagination kept as page markers. Footnotes are kept as bracketed notes. The bibliography is set one printed line per paragraph. Not proofread against the page images.
curator_note: A critical academic study by a non-Mormon author, published as a Yale doctoral thesis. Its psychological interpretation reflects early-twentieth-century scholarship and is included as a historical source.
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: 1902 US publication (New York, Dodd, Mead & Company; copyright notice of 1902); published before 1931, so public domain in the United States
  source: https://archive.org/details/foundermormonism00rilerich
  publication_year: 1902
  note: Publication year of the edition used is 1902; any modern rights notice in the Internet Archive metadata does not apply to this 1902 text.
---

# Title Page

THE FOUNDER OF MORMONISM

A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF JOSEPH SMITH, JR. BY

I. WOODBRIDGE RILEY

ONE-TIME INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

WITH AN INTRODUCTORY

PREFACE BY

Prof. GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD

NEW YORK

DODD, MEAD y COMPANY

Copyright, 1902 BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

First edition published in May, 1902

THE CAXTOX PRESS NEW YORK.