Joseph Smith III was the eldest surviving son of Joseph Smith and Emma Hale Smith. Joseph Smith III was the Prophet-President of what became the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, renamed Community of Christ in 2001, which considers itself a continuation of the church established by Smith's father in 1830. For fifty-four years until his own death, Smith presided over the church. Smith's moderate ideas and nature set much of the tone for the church's development, earning him the sobriquet of "the pragmatic prophet".

The Latter Day Saint movement is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded by Joseph Smith in the late 1820s.