Overview

This is the first biography of Dale L. Morgan, preeminent historian of the Latter Day Saints, the fur trade, and the trails of the American West. The book explores how, despite personal struggles, Morgan remained committed to interpreting the past on the strength of documentary evidence, leaving a legacy to inspire contemporary historians. Connecting Morgan’s life with some of the broad cultural changes that shaped his experiences, this book engages with the methodological shifts that coincided with his career: the mid-twentieth-century collision of interpretations within Latter Day Saint history and the development of a descriptive, scholarly approach to that history. Morgan’s work signaled the start of new ways of understanding, studying, and retelling history, and he motivated a generation of historians from the 1930s to the 1970s to transform their historical approaches. Sounding board, mentor, and close friend to Nels Anderson, Leonard Arrington, Fawn Brodie, Juanita Brooks, Bernard DeVoto, and Wallace Stegner, Dale Morgan is the common factor linking this influential generation of mid-twentieth-century historians of western America.

Full Product Details

Author:   Richard L Saunders
Publisher:   University of Utah Press,U.S.
Imprint:   University of Utah Press,U.S.
ISBN:  

9781647691219

ISBN 10:   1647691214
Pages:   536
Publication Date:   29 February 2024
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Foreword by Daniel Walker Howe Acknowledgments A Note on Sources List of Abbreviations Introduction: “A Thousand Utterly Trivial Things” Part I: Mormon, Historian 1. “Under the Shadow of Her Love”: Family and a Salt Lake City Childhood, 1914–1929 2. “A Sense of Being Socially Maimed”: Salt Lake City’s West High School, 1929–1933 3. “The Strange Mixture of Emotion and Intellect”: The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, 1933–1938 4. Digression: Telling the Past in Latter-day Saint Utah, 1930s Style 5. “One of Those Minds Which Dwell in a Typewriter”: The Historical Records Survey, Ogden, Utah, 1938–1940 6. “This May Not Last, but It’s Fine While It Does”: The Utah Writers’ Project, Salt Lake City, 1940–1942 7. “Not So Dull as It Sounds”: Office of Price Administration, Washington, DC, 1942–1947 8. “It Is Best to Make the Most of My Opportunities”: The Guggenheim Fellowship Travel and Salt Lake City, 1947–1949 Part II: An Uncomfortable Interlude 9. Digression: Books and History in the Postwar Context 10. “I Am in for a Long Pull”: Job Seeker in Washington, DC, and Salt Lake City, 1950–1952 11. “Sundry Kinds of Hackwork”: Writing in Washington, DC, 1950–1952 12. “Half an Easterner and Three-Quarters a Westerner”: Writing Jedediah Smith and Salt Lake City, 1952–1953 Part III: Western American Historian 13. “It Is Something to Be On My Way Again”: Bancroft Library and the Navajo Project, Berkeley, California, 1954–1962 14. “Too Many Things Have Been Going On at the Same Time”: Writing, 1954–1963 15. “Too Many Obligations Out Here”: Turning Points and Departures 16. “Struggling to Get My Disordered Life Back Under Control”: Bancroft Library, Berkeley 1964–1965 17. “I Seem to Work All the Time”: Shifting Priorities, Berkeley, 1966–1968 18. “There Are All Sorts of Problems That Will Have to Be Worked Out”: New Directions, Berkeley, California, 1969–1970 19. “As Liable to Happen to Me as to Anyone Else”: Lafayette, California, and Accokeek, Maryland, 1970–1971 Epilogue. “If History Is Going to Stay Viable”: A Historian’s Life and Contexts A Dale L. Morgan Bibliography Works Cited Index

Reviews

Richard Saunders charts the life and career of Dale Morgan in this deeply researched biography. Saunders places Morgan's career in the context of the evolution of Mormon and western American history as well as changes in the publishing world. Although Morgan's papers illuminate his scholarly work more than his personal life, Saunders manages to vividly illuminate chapters in his personal life--especially his childhood, adolescence, and final years. --Brian Q. Cannon, Brigham Young University

Richard Saunders charts the life and career of Dale Morgan in this deeply researched biography. Saunders places Morgan's career in the context of the evolution of Mormon and western American history as well as changes in the publishing world. Although Morgan's papers illuminate his scholarly work more than his personal life, Saunders manages to vividly illuminate chapters in his personal life-especially his childhood, adolescence, and final years. -Brian Q. Cannon, Brigham Young University

"Richard Saunders charts the life and career of Dale Morgan in this deeply researched biography. Saunders places Morgan’s career in the context of the evolution of Mormon and western American history as well as changes in the publishing world. Although Morgan’s papers illuminate his scholarly work more than his personal life, Saunders manages to vividly illuminate chapters in his personal life—especially his childhood, adolescence, and final years."" —Brian Q. Cannon, Brigham Young University"

Author Information

Richard L. Saunders is a librarian at Southern Utah University. He is the author of Eloquence from a Silent World: A Descriptive Bibliography of the Published Writings of Dale L. Morgan, and editor of Morgan’s writing in Shoshonean Peoples and the Overland Trails: Frontiers of the Utah Superintendency of Indian Affairs, 1849–1869, and Dale Morgan on the Mormons: Collected Works, 1939–1970.

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