What's True in Mormon Folklore?: The Contribution of Folklore to Mormon Studies

Introduction

iii Introduction F. Ross Peterson The establishment of a lecture series honoring a library’s special collections and a donor to that collection is unique. Utah State University’s Merrill-Cazier Library houses the personal and historical collection of Leonard J. Arrington, a renowned scholar of the American West. As part of Arrington’s gift to the university, he requested that the university’s historical collection become the focus for an annual lecture on an aspect of Mormon history. Utah State agreed to the request and in 1995 inaugurated the annual Leonard J. Arrington Mormon History Lecture. Utah State University’s Special Collections and Archives is ideally suited as the host for the lecture series. The state’s land grant university began collecting records very early, and in the 1960s became a major depository for Utah and Mormon records. Leonard and his wife Grace joined the USU faculty and family in 1946, and the Arringtons and their colleagues worked to collect original diaries, journals, letters , and photographs. Although trained as an economist at the University of North Carolina, Arrington became a Mormon historian of international repute. Working with numerous colleagues, the Twin Falls, Idaho, native produced the classic Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints in 1958. Utilizing available collections at USU, Arrington embarked on a prolific publishing and editing career. He and his close ally, Dr. S. George Ellsworth, helped organize the Western History Association, and they created the Western Historical Quarterly as the scholarly voice of the WHA. While serving with Ellsworth as editor of the new journal, Arrington also helped both the Mormon History Association and the independent journal Dialogue get established. One of Arrington’s great talents was to encourage and inspire other scholars or writers. While he worked on biographies or institutional histories, he employed many young scholars as researchers. He fostered many careers as well as arranged for the publication of numerous books and articles. In 1973, Arrington accepted appointments as the official historian of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Lemuel Redd Chair of Western History at Brigham Young University. More and more Arrington focused on Mormon, rather than economic, historical topics . His own career flourished with the publication of The Mormon Experience, co-authored with Davis Bitton, and American Moses: A Biography of Brigham Young. He and his staff produced many research papers and position papers for the LDS Church as well. Nevertheless, tension developed over the historical process, and Arrington chose to move full time to BYU with his entire staff. The Joseph Fielding Smith Institute of History was established, and Leonard continued to mentor new scholars as well as publish biographies. He also produced a very significant two-volume study, The History of Idaho. After Grace Arrington passed away, Leonard married Harriet Horne of Salt Lake City. They made the decision to deposit the vast Arrington collection of research documents, letters, files, books, and journals at Utah State University. The Leonard J. Arrington Historical Archives is part of the university’s Special Collections. The Arrington Lecture Committee works with Special Collections to sponsor the annual lecture. William A. (Bert) Wilson holds a Ph.D. in folklore from Indiana University. He has taught at Indiana University, UCLA, Utah State University, the University of Oregon, and Brigham Young University, where he is currently Humanities Professor Emeritus of Folklore and Literature. At USU he served as the Director of the Folklore Program and developed the annual Fife Folklore Conference. He also helped develop the Fife Folklore Archive and was instrumental in incorporating that archive into the Merrill Library’s holdings. At BYU he served as chair of the English Department, as director of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, and as director of the BYU Folklore Archives. He has served as editor of Western Folklore, as president of the Utah Folklore Society, as president of the Association for Mormon Letters, as a member of the executive board of the American Folklore Society, as a member of the board of directors of the Utah Arts Council, iv Arrington Mormon History Lecture v What's True in Mormon Folklore? as chair of the Utah Folk Arts Panel, as chair of the board of trustees of the Western Folklife Center, and as chair of the Folk Arts Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts. His research interests have taken him to Finland, to the American West, and to his own Mormon culture. He has done...