Utah Historical Society

This series contains manuscripts submitted and accepted for publication in the Utah Historical Quarterly. Manuscripts are accompanied by illustrations, maps, and related documents. Additional information includes authors' names, submission dates, Quarterly volume and issue numbers, manuscript versions, CDs, and correspondence.Any record, regardless of format, that is issued by a governmental entity for public distribution at the total or partial expense of that governmental entity. See Utah Code Section 9-7-101 8(a)(b) (2010) and 9-7-208 (2006)

About a dozen Utahns founded the Utah State Historical Society in 1897 at the Templeton Hotel in Salt Lake City. Jerrold Ranson Letcher, a transplant to Utah from Missouri, pushed its formation as a society that would balance prominent Mormons with non-Mormons, and involve government officials and women. Letcher had four goals for the Historical Society: to explore and investigate prehistoric artifacts and monuments; to collect and preserve papers, manuscripts, and documents; to hold scheduled meetings to share research and ideas; and to involve all parts of the state to contribute to furthering Utah history. At the first meeting on 22 July 1897, Governor Heber M. Wells appointed Letcher as chairman of the Society.

The State Legislature granted a large sum of money to the Society, allowing the Society to establish the Utah Historical Quarterly in 1928. Early issues were devoted to printing primary sources, especially edited versions or translations of journals or diaries. However, because of limited resources during the Great Depression, the Society suspended publication of the Quarterly from 1933 to 1939.

Under the direction of Arlington Russell Mortensen beginning in 1950, the Society began its transformation into a more academic, scholarly society. The first person to fill a management role with any training in history, Mortensen had earned a Ph.D. in history and brought his training to the society and especially the Quarterly. During the 1950s, the Quarterly attracted more scholarly authors. Mortensen also used special issues of the Quarterly to appeal to a wider audience, selling these special issues at public newsstands and supermarkets magazine racks. The modernized typography and format, special topics interesting to tourists, and colorful pages of these special issues appealed to a broader interest.

In the early 1960s, the Quarterly was redesigned and resembles its modern format. The Society changed its 6 by 9 inch format to a 7 1/4 by 10 3/8 format used today, and included more color covers. The Quarterly continues publishing innovative, scholarly articles based upon primary resources, book reviews, and documents to further knowledge of Utah history.