Date: December 2, 2019 (Season 1, Episode 4 - Part 2: 20 minutes long). Click here for the Utah Dept. of Culture and Community Engagement version of this Speak Your Piece episode. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click Here. This episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with help (sound engineering and post-production editing) from Conner Sorenson (Studio Underground) and Jason Powers (Utah State Library Recording Studio).This two-part episode series is an interview with Richard E. Turley Jr., former Assistant Church Historian of The Church of Latter-Day Saints, with SYP host Brad Westwood in 2019. Turley discusses his thirty-five-year long career in Mormon history including the creation of the Joseph Smith Papers Project. In this near decade quest, Turley and the Church History Department (hereafter CHD) tracked down every known and newly discovered historical source (books, manuscripts, letters, government documents, etc.) about the church founder, in every conceivable location, and then digitized them, ensuring instant digital availability to anyone around the world. During Turley’s tenure the church also created regional history centers across the globe, and digitized millions of other manuscripts, photographs and historical records. To see the church's vast holdings on-line, without a paywall, click on digital holdings. All this and more is discussed in this two-part episode series.  For the speakers' bios, please click here for the full show notes plus additional resources and readings. Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.

Date: December 2, 2019 (Season 1, Episode 4 - Part 1: 31 min. & 18 sec. long). Click here for the Utah Dept. of Culture and Community Engagement version of this Speak Your Piece episode. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click Here. This episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with help (sound engineering and post-production editing) from Conner Sorenson (Studio Underground) and Jason Powers (Utah State Library Recording Studio).This two-part episode series is an interview with Richard E. Turley Jr., former Assistant Church Historian of The Church of Latter-Day Saints, with SYP host Brad Westwood in 2019. Turley discusses his thirty-five-year long career in Mormon history including the creation of the Joseph Smith Papers Project. In this near decade quest, Turley and the Church History Department (hereafter CHD) tracked down every known and newly discovered historical source (books, manuscripts, letters, government documents, etc.) about the church founder, in every conceivable location, and then digitized them, ensuring instant digital availability to anyone around the world. During Turley’s tenure the church also created regional history centers across the globe, and digitized millions of other manuscripts, photographs and historical records. To see the church's vast holdings on-line, without a paywall, click on digital holdings. All this and more is discussed in this two-part episode series.  For the speakers' bios, please click here for the full show notes plus additional resources and readings. Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.

Date: March 10, 2023 (Season 5, Episode 10: 53 minutes long). For the entire show notes and additional resources for this episode, click here. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click here. The episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with sound engineering and post-production editing by Jason T. Powers, from the Utah State Library Recording Studio.This episode is a conversation with Speak Your Piece host Brad Westwood and Gary Bergera, Mormon and Western historian, book publisher and editor, and recently retired managing director of Smith-Pettit Foundation, and former managing director of Signature Books (established in 1981). In this episode, Bergera discusses personal stories as an historian and book publisher. Bergera covers the value of reading and writing history, what sparked his interest in the field of history, and the beginning story of the newspaper the Seventh East Press (1981-1983). Bergera also notes some of the works he’s most proud of, in both writing history and in shepherding history, through the publication process.Bergera’s contributions and nearly fifty years’ work in the field of history, reflect the curiosity and passions of one who has always been intellectually curious. Bergera discusses his years as a Mormon and western historian; the beginning story of his work, publishing and editing and serving as managing director of Signature Books and the Smith-Pettit Foundation, including founders George D. Smith and Scott Kenney; his and Ron Priddis’s book Brigham Young University: A House of Faith (1985); the edited volume regarding Everett Ruess, a young artist and solo-adventurer who disappeared in Utah’s wilderness in 1934, called On Desert Trails with Everett Ruess (Gibbs Smith, 2000); and what Bergera sees as one of his most important contributions, a three-volume edited work Confessions of a Mormon Historian: The Diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997 (Signature Books, 2018). Bergera describes Arrington’s history creating processes; how he was a conscientious diarist, knowing his diaries would be appreciated as a primary source; and finally, Arrington's devotion to his faith, alongside his pursuit of evidence-based scholarship and sound historical methods. This candid conversation is a refreshing reflection on the work of another contributor to the history of Utah. For the guest's bio, please click here for the full show notes plus additional resources and readings. Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.

Date: December 16, 2019 (Season 1, Episode 6 – Part 2: 17 min. & 26 sec. long). Click here for the Utah Dept. of Culture and Community Engagement version of this Speak Your Piece episode. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click Here. This episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with help (sound engineering and post-production editing) from Conner Sorenson of Studio Underground.This SYP episode is an interview with Rodney Decker, former reporter on KUTV Channel 2, with SYP host Brad Westwood on his 2019 book Utah Politics: The Elephant in the Room. Decker’s experiences as an intelligence officer during the Vietnam War, developed in him a healthy measure of skepticism. Add a knack for deep journalistic research, and an equal measure of careful and thoughtful thinking, Decker developed a “tell it like it is” approach in his writing and later in his televised reporting. The same may be said of Decker’s book which discusses Utah’s political climate from the 1890s to 1970s.Decker’s task in writing this book was to describe, plainly, Utah’s complicated late 19th and early 20th century political climate, which led, in the mid-20th century, to Utah becoming a bastion of social conservative thinking, along with a near religious alignment with the Republican Party. Although the state and the Republican Party haven’t always been inextricably linked, Decker argues that starting after World War II, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (hereafter LDS Church) started to align with the socially conservative and business-friendly Republican Party, mostly in reaction to the changes in civil rights, political and social mores, and sexual attitudes that rippled through mid- to late-20th century America.Why listen to this SYP episode? Because there are rapid changes in social and religious attitudes today in Utah, and a near imperceptible change demographically in Utah’s population. Utah appears to once again be poised for social-political change. Understanding the political story that frames up the last 50 to 75 years, may help Utahns understand future changing conditions.For the guest's bio, please click here for the full show notes plus additional resources and readings. Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.

Date: December 16, 2019 (Season 1, Episode 6 – Part 1: 30 min. long). Click here for the Utah Dept. of Culture and Community Engagement version of this Speak Your Piece episode. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click Here. This episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with help (sound engineering and post-production editing) from Conner Sorenson of Studio Underground.This SYP episode is an interview with Rodney Decker, former reporter on KUTV Channel 2, with SYP host Brad Westwood on his 2019 book Utah Politics: The Elephant in the Room. Decker’s experiences as an intelligence officer during the Vietnam War, developed in him a healthy measure of skepticism. Add a knack for deep journalistic research, and an equal measure of careful and thoughtful thinking, Decker developed a “tell it like it is” approach in his writing and later in his televised reporting. The same may be said of Decker’s book which discusses Utah’s political climate from the 1890s to 1970s.Decker’s task in writing this book was to describe, plainly, Utah’s complicated late 19th and early 20th century political climate, which led, in the mid-20th century, to Utah becoming a bastion of social conservative thinking, along with a near religious alignment with the Republican Party. Although the state and the Republican Party haven’t always been inextricably linked, Decker argues that starting after World War II, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (hereafter LDS Church) started to align with the socially conservative and business-friendly Republican Party, mostly in reaction to the changes in civil rights, political and social mores, and sexual attitudes that rippled through mid- to late-20th century America.Why listen to this SYP episode? Because there are rapid changes in social and religious attitudes today in Utah, and a near imperceptible change demographically in Utah’s population. Utah appears to once again be poised for social-political change. Understanding the political story that frames up the last 50 to 75 years, may help Utahns understand future changing conditions.For the guest's bio, please click here for the full show notes plus additional resources and readings. Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.

Date: December 23, 2019 (Season 1, Episode 7 - Part 2: 26 min. & 1 sec. long). Click here for the Utah Dept. of Culture and Community Engagement version of this Speak Your Piece episode. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click Here. This episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with help (sound engineering and post-production editing) from Conner Sorenson of Studio Underground. This SYP episode is an interview with Amy Barry, the program manager for Utah Division of State History’s Utah Cemeteries and Burials Program, with SYP host Brad Westwood. At the time of this recording, Barry has managed the Utah Cemeteries and Burials Program for nearly 5 years. With a background in public administration, Barry enjoys using those skills to make government more accessible to everyone. The public can visit the Cemeteries and Burial Program online where they can search for a specific Utah burial plot by name, find a specific cemetery within the state, find out further information about Barry’s gravestone preservation program and efforts, and search for death certificates. The state of Utah is the only state mandated (since 1997) to collect burial information for cemeteries and import it into a searchable database, plus maintain a list of all cemeteries in Utah. As Barry puts it, her job will “never be done.” In this episode, Barry tells four stories of individuals who are buried in Utah, three of which are women with compelling political backgrounds: Sarah Elizabeth Nelson Anderson, Lucy Augusta Rice Clark, and Elise Furer Musser. The fourth and final story is of Leopold Antone Yost a beloved trumpet player who led a 40-year long military career. Barry concludes this episode by stating that although many of these stories told are of immigrants, not originally from Utah, these people had a major impact in their communities. Whether it was fighting for and elevating women’s rights or playing in a band that brought a lot of spirit during wartime, these stories detail the otherwise unknown lives of people who contributed to our communities and whose influences live on. Stories which Barry attempts to encapsulate and immortalize within her detailed database. For the guest's bio, please click here for the full show notes plus additional resources and readings.   Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.

Date: December 23, 2019 (Season 1, Episode 7 - Part 1: 25 min. & 3 sec. long). Click here for the Utah Dept. of Culture and Community Engagement version of this Speak Your Piece episode. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click Here. This episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with help (sound engineering and post-production editing) from Conner Sorenson of Studio Underground.  This SYP episode is an interview with Amy Barry, the program manager for Utah Division of State History’s Utah Cemeteries and Burials Program, with SYP host Brad Westwood. At the time of this recording, Barry has managed the Utah Cemeteries and Burials Program for nearly 5 years. With a background in public administration, Barry enjoys using those skills to make government more accessible to everyone. The public can visit the Cemeteries and Burial Program online where they can search for a specific Utah burial plot by name, find a specific cemetery within the state, find out further information about Barry’s gravestone preservation program and efforts, and search for death certificates. The state of Utah is the only state mandated (since 1997) to collect burial information for cemeteries and import it into a searchable database, plus maintain a list of all cemeteries in Utah. As Barry puts it, her job will “never be done.” What makes this database a unique and different resource? Most cemetery or burial databases are often user-created while this database is based on independent research with government related resources plus Sexton Records (records kept by the sexton, or “caretaker” of a government, corporate, or church cemetery). Every Monday, Barry posts on Utah State History’s Facebook page where she posts a biography of a person buried in Utah who has a compelling story and has contributed to their community. She specifically focuses on people who, very often, are people you may not know about or have heard of. Barry concludes Part 1 of this episode by stating that although Utah’s interest in cemeteries is growing, with many undertaking well-meaning efforts of gravestone preservation themselves, this is often doing more harm than good. For this exact reason, Barry put together a gravestone preservation workshop as well as an instructional pamphlet and guide to clean and correctly preserve gravestones. She states her rules for preservation: 1. Do no harm, 2. Don’t do anything that can’t be undone! For the guest's bio, please click here for the full show notes plus additional resources and readings.   Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.

Date: February 3, 2023 (Season 5, Episode 8: 62 minutes long). For the entire show notes and additional resources for this episode, click here. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click here. The episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with sound engineering and post-production editing by Jason T. Powers, from the Utah State Library Recording Studio.Host Brad Westwood interviews Dr. Todd M. Compton regarding his award-winning book: A Frontier Life: Jacob Hamblin, Explorer and Indian Missionary (University of Utah Press, 2013). In this episode, Compton offers a more fully rendered story of Jacob Hamblin, beyond the long-held popular stories. Hamblin’s life was  filled with constant exploration and resettling,  while he survived many harrowing events; however, he was also a religious seeker, something of a mystic, combining his faith with that of the spiritual life he encountered among Native Americans. Hamblin worked and hunted, rested, recreated, and sought to speak fluently among them, developing a mutual respect and trust. Hamblin’s story starts in Tooele, then he lived for many years in Southern Utah where he aided in the settlement of Santa Clara (Washington County), then Kanab (Kane County), before he moved on to Arizona and New Mexico. Hamblin worked among the Gosuite, Paiute, Hopi and Navajo, and hoped to convert them despite the cultural chasm between them; but equally so – and in conflict with his missionary work – Hamblin was an ardent colonizer, accepting multiple missions from Salt Lake City to identify viable lands for settlement. Compton wrestles with, then helps us understand, the many paradoxes in Hamblin’s life. Hamblin’s dogged work as an explorer and early settler would inescapably lead to the loss of traditional lifeways, and eventually to the dispossession of Native American homelands.For the guest's bio, please click here for the full show notes plus additional resources and readings. Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.

Date: February 6, 2023 (Season 5, Episode 9: 40 minutes long). For the entire show notes and additional resources for this episode, click here. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click here. The episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with sound engineering and post-production editing by Jason T. Powers, from the Utah State Library Recording Studio.In this episode, we talk about growing up Hispanic in Utah. Maria Garciaz (chief executive officer of NeighborWorks Salt Lake, a nonprofit organization created to revitalize Salt Lake City neighborhoods), speaks about growing up in the late 1960s and 1970s Salt Lake City, mostly west of the Jordan River. Lee Martinez (longtime activist, school counselor, and political advisor) speaks of growing up near Clearfield and Layton; for a time in Anchorage, a temporary housing development (1942-1962) built outside of the U.S. Naval Supply Depot. Both Lee and Maria speak of their parents and families, their childhood memories, and how their horizons were expanded, and their life’s work were set in motion, through their pursuit of education, civic engagement, and their involvement in the University of Utah’s Chicano Student Association, and other Hispanic and Latino based organizations, which were established in 1960s to 1980s Utah.Their memories shared include early memories of family life as itinerant farm workers; their lives as temporary renters, moving constantly; their memories of moving in to predominantly white neighborhoods and being treated poorly as their new neighbors resisted their presence; their families working hard, caring for their homes, as a means of demonstrating their equal value; feeling hostilities as teenagers, observing the discrimination their parents and families endured; and growing up Roman Catholic in Utah. For the guests' bios, please click here for the full show notes plus additional resources and readings. Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.

Date: January 13, 2020 (Season 1, Episode 9 — Part 2: 23 minutes long). For the entire show notes and additional resources for this episode, click here. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click here. The episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with help (sound engineering and post-production editing) from Conner Sorenson of Studio Underground. This SYP episode is a conversation with Brigham Young University historian Brenden Rensink with SYP host Brad Westwood, regarding his 2018 book “Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands” (Texas A&M University), his website and app “Intermountain Histories,” and his podcast “Writing Westward.” Rensink discusses the central arguments for his book, the inspiration behind his public history website, including a few post examples therein, and what his periodic podcast is all about. Of note for listeners: as of 2023 there are 650 posted stories on the “Intermountain Histories” site, some of which are part of the 55 different “tours” with unique themes. For the guest's bio, please click here for the full show notes plus additional resources and readings. Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.

Date: January 13, 2020 (Season 1, Episode 9 — Part 1: 26 min. and 39 sec. long). For the entire show notes and additional resources for this episode, click here. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click here. The episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with help (sound engineering and post-production editing) from Conner Sorenson of Studio Underground.  This SYP episode is a conversation with Brigham Young University historian Brenden Rensink with SYP host Brad Westwood, regarding his 2018 book “Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands” (Texas A&M University), his website and app “Intermountain Histories,” and his podcast “Writing Westward.” Rensink discusses the central arguments for his book, the inspiration behind his public history website, including a few post examples therein, and what his periodic podcast is all about. Of note for listeners: as of 2023 there are 650 posted stories on the “Intermountain Histories” site, some of which are part of the 55 different “tours” with unique themes. For the guest's bio, please click here for the full show notes plus additional resources and readings. Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.

Date: July 7, 2022 (Season 5, Episode 7: 75 minutes long). For the entire show notes and additional resources for this episode, click here. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click here. The episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with sound engineering and post-production editing by Jason T. Powers, from the Utah State Library Recording Studio.This episode of Speak Your Piece is an interview with Barbara Jones Brown, director of Signature Books, and Richard E. Turley, Jr., former assistant Church Historian of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on their book Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath (Oxford University Press), to be released May 30, 2023, with SYP host Brad Westwood. This book is a sequel to the 2008 Massacre at Mountain Meadows (Walker, Leonard and Turley). In Vengeance is Mine, the authors exhaustively cover the motives that led to the massacre at Mountain Meadows of the 120-plus victims, followed by the complex aftermath that includes cover-up attempts with the entirety of the blame placed on the neighboring Paiutes, as well as governmental and political intrigue. Also detailed are the delayed, if not coordinated, efforts to obstruct justice in indicting the nine key individuals involved. For the speakers' bios, please click here for the full show notes plus additional resources and readings. Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.

Date: July 7, 2022 (Season 4, Episode 15: 63 min. & 52 sec. long). For the entire show notes and additional resources for this episode, click here. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click Here. This episode was co-produced by Cassandra Clark, Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir. Post-production editing was completed by Cassandra Clark and Kennedy Oringdulph.This SYP episode is part of an ongoing series about women’s history in Utah. It involves a discussion with SYP host Brad Westwood, Dr. Cassandra Clark (at the time of this recording, Utah Division of State History’s first named women’s historian), Alice Faulkner Burch (director of special events for Sema Hadithi Foundation), and Tiffany Greene (education director for Better Days and team leader of the research group for the Black Women Working Group at Sema Hadithi Foundation) about the mural unveiled in Richmond Park (444 East 600 South, Salt Lake City) in summer 2022 as part of Utah’s Juneteenth celebrations. This episode will better acquaint listeners to the historical significance, the personal stories, and the broader context surrounding the lives of these four remarkable Black women featured on this mural: Jane Elizabeth Manning James (1821-1908), Elizabeth “Lizzie” Taylor (1873-1932), Elnora Dudley (1883-1956) , and Mignon Barker Richmond (1897-1984). The partnering organizations for this mural were the Sema Hadithi Foundation, African American Heritage and Culture Foundation, and Better Days 2020 (rebranded to Better Days). Wasatch Community Gardens, the Utah Division of State History, and the Utah Division of Arts and Museums were also part of this important effort.Greene, Burch, and Clark conclude this conversation by summarizing the influence these women have made. Greene notes that these four women bring to the forefront of what it really means to establish Utah history – they each played an important role being here in the state. Burch hopes that this mural means something to Black American women in Utah, that they can look at this mural and see that Black women have been in this state since the 1800s and have had such an immense impact and can say “I, too, belong here.”This mural is open to the public in the community garden at Richmond Park. The women’s names and date ranges of their lives are on the mural. We encourage listeners, after finishing this episode, to please visit the mural and enjoy it with some context. For all of the speakers' bios, please click here for the full show notes. Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.

Date: November 25, 2019 (S1 E3 - Part 2: 21 min. & 23 seconds). For the entire show notes and additional resources for this episode, click here.  Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click Here. This episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with help (sound engineering and post-production editing) from Jason Powers from the Utah State Library Recording Studio.In Part 2 of this episode, Reeve begins by telling listeners of SYP about some surprises he discovered while working on the  Century of Black Mormons database. The database, Reeve notes, pinpoints locations of baptisms of African Americans. One interesting thing that emerged was a significant amount of baptisms that took place in Utah. Reeve states his surprise in finding in the source materials documentation of 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and even 5th generations of African American LDS Church members, and not just pioneer converts to the faith, but that the faith was passed on for generations.Reeve’s other works on race include his 2015 award-winning book Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (Oxford University Press). Reeve notes that the thesis of this book is to address how Mormons, historically, have been seen through a racial lens. Starting in the nineteenth century, Reeve continues, Mormons were deemed as not “white” enough. This determination was largely based on Mormon policies of isolation and polygamy. At this time, members of the scientific and medical communities argued that the Mormon practice of polygamy contributed to the creation of a “denigrated” and “deformed” race and eventual sterility. In 1879, under the Hayes administration, the U.S. Government even went so far as to attempt to cut off European immigration to Utah, as large populations at the time were immigrating to Utah to convert to Mormonism. These immigrants, combined with the integration and conversion of Native American communities, contributed to “race mixing.” All of these policies and tactics contributed to the Mormon’s reputation as a suspect racial group, a real problem.Reeve concludes Part 2 of this episode in stating that one can’t really understand the present without understanding the past. While still unforgivable, in understanding the racial history of the Mormons, it helps us to make sense of the attempts by the Mormons to impose racial restrictions within church practices. Understanding this past will hopefully teach us some very valuable lessons. Reeve hopes that his project is an attempt at bringing that history, and the stories of those silenced, back to public knowledge.Bio: W. Paul Reeve was raised in Hurricane (Washington County) Utah. Since 2008, Reeve has been professor of American, Western, Mormon and Utah history at the University of Utah. Reeve is the first-ever Simmons Professor of Mormon Studies at the University of Utah, and has written a number of books, including: Making Space on the Western Frontier: Mormons, Miners, and Southern Paiutes (2007), Between Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore (with Michael Scott Van Wagenen, 2011), and Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (2015).Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.

Date: November 25, 2019 (S1 E3 - Part 1: 23 min. & 44 seconds). For the entire show notes and additional resources for this episode, click here.  Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click Here. This episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with help (sound engineering and post-production editing) from Jason Powers from the Utah State Library Recording Studio.This SYP episode is an interview with W. Paul Reeve, University of Utah professor of History, with SYP host Brad Westwood about his public history project, Century of Black Mormons database, hosted by the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah, where he serves as the site’s general editor. In this database, Reeve highlights the Mormon African American experience in Utah from 1830-1930, which brings to light the stories of people that have been largely erased from public memory. The project aims to recover those stories and to ensure they will not be forgotten. Why is the Century of Black Mormons database so important to Utah history? Reeve states that, at heart, he’s a social historian and thus attempts to understand history from the bottom up, as opposed to the top down – a perspective that allows for historians, such as himself, to understand the average person and, too often, those written off the historical narratives. Reeve also adds that he wanted a digital public history project that would engage the public in a different way and allow access to sources, names, numbers, and the identities of people of Black-African descent baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (hereafter LDS Church) between 1830-1930.Reeve and Westwood conclude Part 1 of this episode in discussing why this project is of value today with such a large community of African Americans as current members of the LDS Church. Reeve states that there are approximately one million people in the faith who are of Black-African descent. It matters, Reeve continues, to give people a pioneer past they may not have been aware of. It demonstrates that they didn’t show up to this faith only after 1978, even though sometimes that’s how it has been portrayed only because it’s too uncomfortable to speak about Mormon African Americans prior to 1978, as that would mean recognizing the racism that barred them from certain rituals within the faith. The database seeks to address those issues and allow the lives of those African Americans named in the site to speak their own stories.Bio: W. Paul Reeve was raised in Hurricane (Washington County) Utah. Since 2008, Reeve has been professor of American, Western, Mormon and Utah history at the University of Utah. Reeve is the first-ever Simmons Professor of Mormon Studies at the University of Utah, and has written a number of books, including: Making Space on the Western Frontier: Mormons, Miners, and Southern Paiutes (2007), Between Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore (with Michael Scott Van Wagenen, 2011), and Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (2015). Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.

Date: June 27, 2022 (Season 4, Episode 14: 59 minutes & 21 seconds long). For the entire show notes and additional resources for this episode Click Here. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click Here. This episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with help (sound engineering and post-production editing) from Jason Powers from the Utah State Library Recording Studio.Dr. Gregory E. Smoak, longtime director of the American West Center (Univ. of Utah) and associate professor of history, discusses with SYP host Brad Westwood his 2021 book entitled, “Western Lands, Western Voices: Essays on Public History in the American West,” (The University of Utah Press). Smoak describes the U of U American West Center, and its 50 plus years of public facing history work. Smoak also defines, in this series of essays, what makes up “Public History.” The essays explore the American West and the academic or formal interpretation of it. The book is a wonderful collection of defensible and peer-reviewed writing on public history. The collection aspires to address the questions most perplexing to Smoak’s history colleagues: what makes public history “public” and what makes a “public historian?” Sometimes, public history is wrongly conflated with “popular history,” often reducing it to a matter of audience, and associating it with a “lesser” type of history. The essays address questions and ideas via collaboration with many historians’ contributions to the collection. This book, Smoak hopes, will educate the public on what public history really is in hopes of inspiring a positive effect on communities. What is the American West Center? Founded in 1964, it’s one of the oldest regional studies centers in the country in the pursuit of western history. It was founded by two professors Russ Mortensen and C. Gregory Crampton as a partnership with the Western History Association to produce a second journal/magazine on the American West. That endeavor only lasted for a couple of years, which left the American West Center (hereafter AWC) needing a solid reason for existing which was filled by the tobacco industry heiress, Doris Duke, who in 1967, gave sizable financial grants to several universities including the AWC, to conduct hundreds of oral histories with Native Americans across the Intermountain West. The AWC became the manager of this massive oral history undertaking, available here. Today, the AWC focuses on oral history projects; provides research assistantship positions to students during their masters and doctoral studies; and conducts contracted research projects related to Native American treaties, environmental, architectural and water rights history. Work completed by the AWC is available to the public via the Marriott Library, Special Collections Department.  Bio: Dr. Gregory E. Smoak is an associate professor of history at the University of Utah, the director of the American West Center since 2012, and 2021 president of the National Council on Public History. Dr. Smoak focuses on public history, Native American history, and American West history with special interest on water rights. Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.

Date: June 15, 2022 (Season 4, Episode 13: 1 hour, 11 min. & 50 sec. long). For the entire show notes and additional resources for this episode Click here.  Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click Here.  This episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with help (sound engineering and post-production editing) from Jason Powers from the Utah State Library Recording Studio.This episode is with Brent F. Ashworth, someone who knew Mark W. Hofmann, well, or at least among those collectors and dealers that frequently bought and sold with him. Ashworth met, traded and wrangled with Hofmann, every week or every other week in person, meeting either at Hofmann's home or at a bench outside Walden Books in the Crossroads Plaza Mall in Salt Lake City (replaced in 2012 by the City Creek Center) for over four years.“Swinging for the fences,” as the old sports analogy goes, Hofmann was not content to forge and fool collectors of just Mormon, Western Americana and literary materials, he sought to deceive the nation's most distinguished and respected historical institutions, subject specialists, and rare book and antiquity dealers. He may very well have completed his diabolical transactions except for what unfolded in Salt Lake City in fall 1985, including the murders of Steven Christensen and Kathy Sheets. For a basic historical context and timeline see: David J. Whittaker, “The Hofmann Maze, the Book Review Essay With Chronology of the Hofmann Case,” BYU Studies, Vol. 29, Issue 1 (Jan 1, 1989).  Ashworth opens the discussion by explaining his first interaction with Hofmann in May 1981. Ashworth had been in the SLC bookstore and head shop, the Cosmic Aeroplane, the day before he met Hofmann. A friend who worked at the store mentioned that Mark Hofmann had come in the day before and sold what he described as samples of Joseph and Hyrum Smith’s hair, which piqued Ashworth’s interest. At the time, Ashworth had been a well-known collector for nearly 20 years, and so he called Hofmann the next day and introduced himself as a collector and had been hoping to track down a letter signed by Joseph Smith. As it turned out Hofmann said he just so happened to have a holographic letter, signed by Joseph Smith to his wife, Emma Smith. Ashworth made a deal to obtain the letter, and the following day he received it in the mail. Ashworth now unintentionally sees that he had “ordered up” this, and many other forgeries he acquired from Hofmann.  What was Hofmann’s motive for his forgeries? According to a statement given by Dorie Hofmann, Mark Hofmann’s wife, "he wanted publicity and money." According to Ashworth, he believes Hofmann was trying to negatively affect Mormon history, and by extension the church he had been born and raised in. Bio: Brent Ashworth is the owner of B. Ashworth’s Inc., a Provo, Utah rare book, document, and artifact company, which opened in 2006. Ashworth has been a collector of rare historical materials since childhood. Concurrent to a lifetime of collecting, Ashworth has served as general counsel for a series of personal health and supplement corporations. Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.

Date: March 7, 2022 (Season 4, Episode 7: 59 min. & 28 sec. long). For the entire show notes and additional resources for this episode Click here. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click Here.  This episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with help (sound engineering and post-production editing) from Jason Powers from the Utah State Library Recording Studio. This episode is an interview with Dr. Brandon Plewe, BYU geographer and cartographer, with SYP host Brad Westwood. It involves a discussion about Plewe’s 2022 Utah Historical Quarterly article entitled “Placing Immigrants in Salt Lake City, 1900,” Utah Historical Quarterly, (Winter, 2022: Vol. 90, No. 1).Why use geography and cartography to tell this story?  Plewe describes that geography, particularly spatial data or mapping of locations, offer researchers entirely different ways of seeing and thinking about history.  In this case, Plewe and his BYU students mapped the exact addresses of those picked up in 1900 Census data. In mapping these addresses, they discovered a pattern of immigration across downtown SLC. In order to discover the larger picture that this data would tell, they examined the distribution of immigrants, the different countries they emigrated from, and where exactly in SLC they settled. This geographical data renders an otherwise undetected picture that shows Mormons were seen through a racial lens. This research fits into that which was pioneered by Dr. Paul Reeve – Mormons, at this time, were seen as different from other Americans. The Mormon Church was successful in bringing many immigrants from Great Britain, Western Europe and Scandinavia, and assimilating them into Utah’s existing dominant culture. Less effective were their attempts to assimilate immigrants from Italy, Spain, Ireland, Poland, etc., into Utah society. The latter group of immigrants were considered “less white,” and Mormons were viewed by many Americans as “less American.” Obsessed with their national image, the members of the Mormon Church aspired to be seen as equally American and concurrently predominantly white. Unknowingly or at times knowingly, SLC society segregated certain “less white” groups to specific areas, so as to differentiate themselves from these communities.  Plewe concludes in this discussion that religion, race, economics, and the way each population of immigrants had different influences on SLC. English, German, and Scandinavian immigrants primarily migrated for religious purposes and were actively assimilated into the culture and, therefore, spatially distributed. Whereas, non-English speaking and Irish immigrants emigrated not for religious purposes, but for economic and labor reasons and for cheaper housing.Bio: Dr. Brandon S. Plewe, an associate professor of geography at BYU (Provo), has been teaching there since 1997. Plewe is a committed trail preservationist and his research focuses on mapmaking and map uses related to Mormonism and the American West. To experience Plewe’s most recent mapping ideas go to #30DayMapChallenge on his Twitter feed. Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov

Date: April 11, 2022 (Season 4, Episode 12: 55 min. & 40 sec. long). For the entire show notes and additional resources for this episode Click here. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click Here.  This episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with help (sound engineering and post-production editing) from Jason Powers from the Utah State Library Recording Studio.This SYP episode is an interview with Mary Dickson, a Downwinder and thyroid cancer survivor, with SYP host Brad Westwood. The episode details Dickson’s personal history and her research regarding the implications of America’s nuclear testing. This captivating and devastating story outlines the historical intersections between Utah, the Intermountain West, and the US’s nuclear government testing, mostly done at the Nevada Test Site (300 miles from SLC), during and after America’s Cold War (1947-1991). Dickson explains the historical context of the western USA during the era of the Cold War. A nation on edge due to the “Red Scare,” the USA rushed to win a nuclear arms race after Russia announced it has the technology necessary to build its own nuclear capabilities. Wanting to build a nuclear arsenal in response, the USA sought out a permanent bomb test site, finally landing on Utah’s neighbor, Nevada (the Las Vegas Bombing and Gunnery Range), where the Nevada Test Site would come to be. Starting in 1951-1962, nearly 100 atmospheric nuclear tests were conducted, some of these bombs even more powerful than the bombs that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Health claims from the surrounding population started to pile up including miscarriages and other largely unexplained ailments. In an attempt to tamper down concerns, the US government released a statement: these blasts aren’t harmful and, in fact, so safe that people were encouraged to watch the blasts. Behind the scenes, the actual story was kept a secret for nearly forty years. Overall, throughout the eleven years of testing, as Dickson noted, about 160 million Americans suffered the consequences, knowingly or unknowingly becoming Downwinders, what Dickson defines as one who has been exposed, and/or lived downwind from the nuclear tests and became ill from the radiation.Dickson concludes that many people today still do not fully understand the fallout from America’s nuclear testing. The knowledge of how widespread the exposure really was is still not widely known.  She’s also worked with many community members to advocate for the passage of the US congress bill that will expand Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (bills S.2798 and H.R.5338). After several years of advocacy work, Dickson compiled a series of monologues that consisted of interviews from fellow Downwinders and meeting minutes from the Atomic Energy Commission into a playwright titled “Exposed” which was picked up by Plan B Theater Company and continues as stage readings to this day.Bio: Mary Dickson is a former KUED TV creative director (now retired) and is the host of Contact with Mary Dickson on PBS Utah. She is an award-winning writer and playwright for “Exposed,” and is an internationally recognized advocate for survivors of nuclear weapon testing.Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov

Date: April 27, 2022 (Season 4, Episode 11: 1 hour, 12 minutes & 49 seconds long). For the entire show notes and additional resources for this episode Click Here. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click Here. This episode was produced by Brad Westwood with help (sound engineering and post-production editing) from Jason Powers from the Utah State Library Recording Studio. Utah and Western historian John Sillito, saw many things to admire in his subject B. H. (Brigham Henry) Roberts (1857-1933). His dogged resistance to embracing women's suffrage [women’s right to vote] was definitely not one of them. A quote in Sillito’s book on Roberts however, underscores how beloved and respected, and tells of his amazing oratory skills, even among those who were staunchly opposed to him. “It took him some time to gather himself but once he did he was an oratorical avalanche. A stream of language, potent and pleasing, flowed from his lips and caught his listeners until even those who were most bitterly opposed to him were compelled to pay compliment to his power with rapture supplies…the suffragists themselves could not but admire his courage, and when he had finished they crowded around him and shook his hands enthusiastically.” “Suffrage is the Theme,” Salt Lake Herald, May 29, 1895. There are, to John Sillito’s count, three other pre-existing biographies of Roberts. This did not stop Sillito, in writing an entirely new biography; and for this we are grateful. Yes, this is a “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” story; however, it is almost equally a Utah story; and even more so, a personal story about a scrappy, near-illiterate immigrant child, who in an Horatio Alger-like effort, reached the highest levels of religious, political and intellectual accomplishment in late 19th and early 20 c. Utah.   Sillito’s biography offers loads of insights into a rapidly changing Utah (circa 1880-1930s), and besides Robert’s childhood life in England and then 1860-70s Utah, and his personal life and friends, the larger themes include local and national politics, the abandonment of a central religious tenet (polygamy), Utah gradually joining national markets (intellectually and economically), and Utah and the LDS Church imbracing larger political trends including Jim Crow (a body of statutes that legalized racial discrimination and segregation).  Roberts is best known as a church historian and one of Utah's most beloved public intellectuals, some of his published works include:The Life of John Taylor, Third President… (1892); The History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, (7 vol., 1919); The Mormon Battalion; its History and Achievements (1919), and The Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (6 vol., 1930).Bio: John Sillito, Emeritus Professor, Weber State University (1977- 2018), is a native Salt Laker, and besides this book in discussion, he is the co-author of A History of Utah Radicalism: Startling, Socialistic & Decidedly Revolutionary with historian John S. McCormick (Utah State Historical Society’s Best Book in 2011). John’s edited collection of B. H. Roberts diaries—published as History’s Apprentice—received the Mormon History Association’s best documentary award in 2005. Sillito is the recipient of a lifetime service award from CIMA (Conference of Intermountain Archivists) in 2013