Salt Lake City:: 1890-1930 (Postcards of America)

History

Topping, Gary

Coy Ferguson, Melissa

Americas

Arcadia Publishing

Between 1890 and 1930, Salt Lake City experienced some of the most rapid and profound changes of any city in U.S. history. In its pioneer period, from the beginning of white settlement in 1847 to about 1890, the city struggled against outside pressures to maintain its identity as a self-sufficient Mormon utopian community, with its theocratic government, agricultural economy, and polygamous society. But by the turn of the 20th century, Mormonism had largely abandoned those features, and Salt Lake City was becoming like most other American cities as it embraced capitalism, the evolution of transportation and industry, ethnic and cultural diversity, women's rights, and modern entertainment.

Salt Lake City:: 1890-1930 (Images of America)

Arts & Photography

Utah State Historical Society

Photography & Video

Explores the abandoned towns that stand as remnants of the Old West, and reveals the causes of their growth and decline

Ghost Towns of the Old West

Bdd Promotional Book Co

Among historians of Utah and the American West, few names have greater resonance than Bernard DeVoto, Dale Morgan, Juanita Brooks, Wallace Stegner, and Fawn Brodie. Each of these writers made enduring contributions not only to our knowledge of the American West but also to our view of the region and its history. In many ways their writing set the standard for scholarship and interpretation, and their influence is still felt today. Yet they were not flawless. As Gary Topping explains in this, the first comprehensive appraisal of their work, each had serious shortcomings. DeVoto and Stegner, master storytellers, distorted their histories with excessive use of literary and artistic techniques; Morgan, the thorough researcher, failed to see larger contexts and interpretive possibilities; Brooks, courageous in finding damning new information on the Mountain Meadows massacre, stopped short of drawing conclusions that might alienate her from her fellow Mormons; and Brodie, psychobiographer extraordinaire, nonetheless succumbed to reading too much into the lives of her subjects based on her own emotions and conflicts. All five writers experienced Mormon Utah in the formative stages of their lives and, whether they wanted to or not, fashioned their work on the American West under that indelible influence. Topping shows ultimately how, despite weaknesses, each created exemplary models of diligent research and narrative elegance while establishing new traditions in western historical scholarship.

Utah Historians and the Reconstruction of Western History

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

University of Oklahoma Press

One of the foremost American historians of his generation, Leonard J. Arrington (1913-1999) revolutionized the writing of Mormon history. Through the publication of his groundbreaking Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, as well as numerous other publications, he established the dominant interpretation of the Mormon experience. Yet until now, there has been little analysis of his contribution to western history. Focusing on Arrington’s intellectual career, Gary Topping examines the facets of Arrington’s life that influenced his historical ideas: how his Idaho farm background shaped his values and interests, and how his nontraditional upbringing differed from that of other young Mormons. Topping also offers a critical evaluation and major new interpretation of Arrington’s works that will likely spark controversy in the scholarly community. Topping re-examines Arrington’s role in founding and promoting what is known as the New Mormon History. Arrington has been criticized for relying on the assistance of numerous staff members in the church’s History Division, but Topping shows this collaborative approach to have been in keeping with the cooperative spirit of Mormonism. Yet, as Topping relates, Arrington’s efforts to make archival material more accessible to the public were undermined by the more conservative wing of the church hierarchy, which released him from his position as Church Historian in 1982. Both an engaging biography and a sharp appraisal of Arrington’s methods and interpretive work, Topping’s book expands on Arrington’s own autobiography by offering the first thorough analysis of his contributions.

Leonard J. Arrington: A Historian's Life

The Arthur H. Clark Company

Probably Utah's most widely recognized topographical feature, the Great Salt Lake is possibly also the state's least appreciated and understood one. While visitors often feel compelled to take a closer look at it and even test its salinity by dipping a finger or a toe, many native Utahns and tourists never take the time to explore the lake more extensively or to learn about its many facets. Awaiting those who do so is the discovery of just how fascinating a place the lake is. As Gary Topping points out in his introduction, Great Salt Lake "sounds like someone's literary fantasy: a vast interior sea bordered by marshes and dotted with islands that support thousands of shore birds of a great variety of species, yet flanked on other sides by an immense salt waste that forbids human habitation... Great Salt Lake remains one of the world's most remarkable geological phenomena, a place of beauty, drama, and complexity to challenge the most ambitious curiosity and imagination." To encourage a deeper knowledge and understanding of this unique body of water, Topping has assembled some of the best historical and contemporary writing on Great Salt Lake. The authors include historical figures such as Osborne Russell, Jedediah Smith, John C. Fr?mont, Howard Stansbury, and, less known, Alfred Lambourne, a turn-of-the-century artist and western Thoreau who sought solitude and contemplation by building a house on remote Gunnison Island. Also included are selections from more recent writing about the lake, among them pieces by well-known historians Dale Morgan and Brigham Madsen and other essays that look at the varied ways, recreational and economic, that people have used or sought to use the lake. The subjects of the collected pieces range from fantastic stories people tell about this odd inland sea to attempts they have made to exploit it for commercial value; from exploration and emigration to recreation and resorts; from the lake's prehistory to its future, as development and population growth near its shores create conflicting demands and pressures.

Great Salt Lake

Utah State University Press

Glen Canyon and the San Juan Country

Univ of Idaho Pr

Between 1890 and 1930, Salt Lake City experienced some of the most rapid and profound changes of any city in U.S. history. In its pioneer period, from the beginning of white settlement in 1847 to about 1890, the city struggled against outside pressures to maintain its identity as a self-sufficient Mormon utopian community, with its theocratic government, agricultural economy, and polygamous society. But by the turn of the 20th century, Mormonism had largely abandoned those features, and Salt Lake City was becoming like most other American cities as it embraced capitalism, the evolution of transportation and industry, ethnic and cultural diversity, women's rights, and modern entertainment.

Salt Lake City: 1890-1930

Ferguson, Melissa Coy

The, Utah State Historical Society

Arcadia Publishing Library Editions

D. Michael Quinn (1944-2021) was one of Mormonism's greatest historians, though his books have profound relevance to Utah and western history as well. After completing his doctorate in history at Yale University in three years, he taught at Brigham Young University from 1976 to 1988. His treatment of difficult themes in Mormon history drew controversy, which led to resignation from his academic position and to his eventual excommunication from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His large, elaborately documented books, such as his three volumes on the Mormon hierarchy and his Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, set a new standard for Mormon historical scholarship.

D. Michael Quinn: Mormon Historian

Arts & Literature

Signature Books

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Books by Topping, Gary