Kate Holbrook


Kate Holbrook is a historian and writer and the managing historian of women’s history in the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Holbrook was born in Santa Barbara, California and her father left six weeks after she was born. Her mother later moved to Utah and Holbrook attended schools in Provo, Utah. Holbrook went on to obtain degrees from Brigham Young University and Harvard Divinity School. She received a PhD from Boston University in religion and society. Her primary research interests have been focused on religion, gender, and food. Holbrook was the first recipient of the Eccles Fellowship in Mormon Studies at the University of Utah. While at Harvard College she was voted Teaching Fellow of the Year.
When she was hired by the CHD in 2011, Holbrook became the first historian hired to specialize on women’s history. Historians Jennifer Reeder and Brittany Chapman Nash were later hired to join the research team. During her time in the CHD, the LDS Church has seen the role of women expand and evolve.
This includes prayers offered by women in the church's general conferences, leadership assignments on executive councils, and writings about Heavenly Mother. Holbrook was a collaborator on The First Fifty Years of Relief Society, a collection of original documents that explores nineteenth-century history of the Relief Society--the women's organization of the LDS Church. Along with Matthew Bowman, she also edited Women and Mormonism, a collection of primary documents and oral histories exploring perspectives of Latter-day Saint women.
Holbrook is married to Samuel Brown and has three daughters. She served as an LDS Church missionary from 1993 to 1994 in Samara, Russia. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Publications