Dale Morgan on the Mormons – Collected Works, Part 1, 1939–1951

Dale L. Morgan (1914–1971) remains one of the most respected historians of the American West—and his career, one of the least understood. Among today’s scholars his reputation rests largely on his studies of the fur trade and overland trails, yet throughout his life, Morgan’s primary interest was the history of the Latter Day Saints. In this volume—the first of a two-part set—Morgan’s writings on the Mormons finally receive the attention and analysis they merit.
Dale Morgan on the Mormons is a far-reaching compilation of the historian’s published and unpublished writings. Edited and annotated by Richard L. Saunders, the collection includes not only essays but also book reviews and bibliographic studies, many published here for the first time. This first volume includes key extracts from Morgan’s contribution to the WPA guide to Utah (1941), which remains an excellent introduction to the complex history of the Beehive State. It further provides a new historiographic introduction to his seminal work The State of Deseret and presents important previously unpublished works on the Kingdom of God, the Deseret Alphabet, and the origins of the infamous Danite society. In addition, the volume illuminates Morgan’s legacy as a bibliographer and the significance of that contribution to Latter Day Saint studies. Throughout, Saunders provides informative introductions that place each of the writings or groups of writings into biographical and historical context.

Dale Morgan is the author of Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the West and The Great Salt Lake, among other publications.

Richard L. Saunders was a professor at the University of Tennessee, Martin, where he headed the library’s public services department and taught U.S. history. He is the author of Dale Morgan on the Mormons and A Lady’s Ranch Life in Montana.

Will Bagley (1950–2021) was an independent historian who wrote about overland emigration, frontier violence, railroads, mining, and the Mormons. Bagley published extensively over the years and is the author and editor of many books, articles, and reviews in professional journals. Bagley was the general editor of Arthur H. Clark Company's documentary history series KINGDOM IN THE WEST: The Mormons and the American Frontier. Bagley was a Wallace Stegner Centennial Fellow at the University of Utah and a Archibald Hanna Jr. Fellow in American History at Yale University's Beinecke Library. Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows has won numerous awards, including a Spur Award from Western Writers of America, the Bancroft History Prize from the Denver Public Library, Westerners International Best Book, and the Western History Association Caughey Book Prize for the most distinguished book on the history of the American West. So Rugged and Mountainous: Blazing the Trails to Oregon and California, 1812–1848 is the first of the two-volume Overland West: The Story of the Oregon and California Trails series.