Engaging in the Business of Silk Cultures

In 1880, the women of the Ogden 4th Ward Relief Society petitioned the Ogden City council to provide them with an acre of land for them to begin “engaging in the business of silk cultures”. The acreage to be used for cultivating mulberry trees, the essential food for silkworms. Further research suggests that the women of Ogden, like many other

While working on older birth certificates, I happened to notice an unusual residence of both parents in one from 1923: “Kambove Katanga Kongo Belgian Africa.” Normally, I’d expect parents to reside in the same place as the birth of the child. However, Mack Donald Sullivan, the son of Eugene and Lora Sullivan, was born in Salt Lake City on August

Every April, students in grades 4–12 from across Utah take part in Utah History Day, part of the larger National History Day (NHD) competition. Participants choose a historical topic related to an annual theme, then conduct primary and secondary research using sources from libraries, archives, and museums. Final projects are presented as an exhibit, documentary, performance, paper, or website. The

While Utah is known for its spectacular natural bridges, our thousands of man-made bridges are not as noteworthy. No Golden Gate Bridge, no Brooklyn Bridge, and no London Bridge. Most Utah bridges do their jobs without much show, carrying traffic over roads, rivers, creeks, washes, and canyons, without travelers even being aware of what they’ve crossed over. Nevertheless, over the

Like the landscape paintings of famed French artist Claude Monet, this hand-colored 1935 photograph from Larsen Studio of the Provo City Cemetery comes to life; this once  monochromatic image of a nature scene was painted with washes of color and speckled with details to bring audiences vivid representations of landscapes that they may have experienced in real life. The colorist

October marked the 20th anniversary of the formal opening of the current home of the Utah State Archives and Records Service at 346 S. Rio Grande Street. The anniversary gives us at the Archives the opportunity to reflect on how past visions of a purpose-built facility for the Archives brought us to where we are today. The Archives first became

In September 1996, President Bill Clinton made the controversial decision to draw on powers reserved to him by the 1906 Antiquities Act, and designate 1,880,461 aces of land in southern Utah as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. But did you know that sixty years earlier federal officials were pondering the designation of a similar monument that would have dwarfed the area

The Superconducting Super Collider The history of human activity in Utah’s Great Salt Lake Desert suggests that it is a place where the biggest of human ideas can take root. During the 1980’s this tendency took the shape of a detailed proposal to turn a section of Great Basin desert into the world’s most cutting edge science and research destination.

The MX Missile The MX Missile was an intercontinental ballistic missile utilized by the United States between 1985 and 2005. Development began on the MX missile (which stood for “Missile Experimental”) in 1971 and in 1979 U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced that 200 MX missiles would be deployed throughout western Utah and eastern Nevada. This proposed basing system was immediately

Every year in April, 4th through 12th grade students from across the state embark on a research project for Utah History Day, part of the larger National History Day (NHD) contest. Students choose a historical topic related to the annual theme, and then conduct primary and secondary research in libraries, archives, and museums. The final projects are presented in one of five ways: an