Portrait of Joseph F. Smith

Birthday profile

Joseph F. Smith

Joseph F. Smith, American religious leader, 6th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (died 1918)

Born
November 13, 1838
Died
November 19, 1918
Zodiac sign
Scorpio
Birth year
1838

About Joseph F. Smith

Joseph Fielding Smith Sr. was an American religious leader who served as the sixth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was a nephew of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, and the last LDS Church president who had personally known him. At the age of fifteen, Smith was called to go on his first LDS mission to the Sandwich Islands under the direction of apostle Parley P. Among the church members in that city was William Fowler; Smith was present at the meeting where Fowler's hymn "We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet" was first sung.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Joseph F. Smith was born

Joseph F. Smith was born in 1838. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1838

  • Best-selling bookOliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineTrail of Tears — forced removal of Cherokee
  • Technology milestoneFirst transatlantic steamship crossing (SS Great Western)
  • World population~1.18B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderMartin Van Buren
  • U.S. population16.3M

1838 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Joseph F. Smith's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18382026
Population16.3M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.