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Stanley S. Ivins's father, Anthony W. Ivins, crossed the plains to the Salt Lake Valley in 1853 as a child along with thousands of other Mormons headed towards Zion, the Promised Land. During his lifetime, A. W. Ivins was a pioneer, colonizer, legislator, author, and apostle of the Mormon church. He was called by church officials to leave St. George, Utah and preside over the Mexican Mission. Later, he was called "home" to Salt Lake to become a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles. When Anthony W. Ivins died, he was eulogized, by a non-Mormon, as "the most widely known and best loved man in Utah."
Stanley's mother, Elizabeth Ashby Snow Ivins, was the daughter of Erastus Snow who, among many accomplishment, was (with Orson Pratt) the first Mormon to enter Salt Lake Valley on 21 July 1847. He went on numerous missions for the Church; was instrumental in settling southern Utah; and was also a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles.
Thus, Stanley Ivlns was born into a family who had seen Mormon history from the beginning and had been instrumental in directing its course.
Ivins was born 27 July 1891 in St. George, Utah, the seventh of eight children. When he was four years old, his father was called to take charge of eight Mormon colonies in Mexico. These settlements had been established for polygamous families as a result of increasing persecution by non-Mormons against this particular facet of Mormon practice. Florence Ivins Hyde remembered life in Colonia Juarez as being "free and open." The Ivins's home was the finest around and was always open to visitors. Though polygamy had been disavowed by the Mormon Church when President Wilford Woodruff issued the Manifesto in 1890, the Ivins family was one of very few having only one mother.
In 1907 the Ivins returned to Salt Lake where Anthony W. became an apostle and, later, counselor to President Heber J. Grant, a first cousin. Stanley, after leaving Colonia Juarez, attended LDS High School in Salt Lake City and Utah State Agriculture College in Logan. Later, he did graduate work, in animal husbandry, at Iowa State College (later Iowa State University) in Ames, Iowa. He also went on a Mormon mission to California, participated in World War I, and taught at the College of Southern Utah in Cedar City.
He did well in school. His father, in a letter to one of his brothers, noted that "Stanley, as usual, is reading . . . ." He came from a family where education was an imperative goal. All the children had college training. And, as his sister Florence put it, "Stanley also took a Masters degree. The others married."
The Ivins family was comfortable financially. So much so, in fact, that Stanley never felt compelled to work at a career--for money, at least. He did teach briefly, then spent some time working as a bookkeeper and manager of the Ivins Investment Company which had been incorporated in 1910 to handle family resources. He also sold insurance for the N.W. Clayton Company in Salt Lake.
But his consuming interest was history--specifically, Utah and Mormon history. It is interesting to note that Ivins was active in the Mormon church until his father died in 1934 and, that his serious research on polygamy was initiated at almost the same time.
Ivins's hobby became an obsession and he traveled widely to appease an insatiable hunger for information. His principle sources for material included the Utah State Historical Society, the Coe Collection at Yale, and the New York Public Library. He also researched the collections of hundreds of other public, academic, and archival libraries for Mormon-related items. He was interested in every possible source--from census records in the National Archives to the Iron County Minute Book; from Mormon church records to family legends; and from 1831 newspaper transcripts to the morning's
When Stanley Ivins died in 1967, he willed his work of over thirty years to the Utah State Historical Society, including hundreds of books, 52 notebooks, many original manuscripts and/or copies, as well as a subject card index to his accumulated material. The document case collection occupies 8 linear feet and is composed of his notebooks (handwritten), newspaper transcripts and correspondence (typed), and index (written). Separate from the cases are eleven manuscripts filed under the author's name; 236 separate pamphlets, 11 bound volumes of pamphlets, 23 periodicals with varying degrees of coverage; and 425 books.
The Ivins's collection has been microfilmed and is available in many of the major libraries of the country, including Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Bancroft, Huntington, and New York Public.
Stanley Ivins had an orderly mind. As his material increased, he saw the need for organization and his subject card index was the result. The index fills two boxes with 3" x 5" notecards, each card having about ten entries. Ivins developed his own method of indexing. He used a two letter abbreviation for printed sources, i.e. MS for
The index is the most helpful part of the collection. It is the only access to Ivins's notebooks and becomes also a selected subject index to newspapers, particularly the
There are, of course, problems with the index. It is exclusive - in several senses. First, Ivins made notes only on those subjects which interested him at the time. In the beginning, all sources were searched for reference to polygamy, while ignoring other aspects of Mormon history. Subject headings were evidently determined by mood and range from the very specific ("Bear Lake Monster") to very general ("Utah--Early Settlement"). There were a number of ambiguous, sometimes whimsical, headings, i.e. "Times of the End," "Literary Gems," and "Cursings." Entries on polygamy occupy nearly one-quarter of the index. Other large sections cover politics in Utah and there are many divisions under a general "Mormon Church" heading. Because Ivins designed the index to conform to his needs, it is sometimes a challenge to use. There are, for example, no cross references. Nor are there enough subject headings for the amount of information contained in the collection. Only a handful of names appear in the index; but the notebooks contain references to practically every major figure in early Utah and Mormon history. Ivins made notes on dozens of personal pioneer histories, but the index provides no access to these. In short, the index is a valuable addition to the Ivins's collection, but has inherent faults which often make it a frustrating tool.
The index provides the only systematic retrieval device for the Ivins notebooks, awkward though it may be. The notebooks contain a random collection of notes without chronological, subject, or time order. The common denominator is the source--New York Public Library, Coe Collection, etc. Each entry has a specific bibliographic reference and a summary of contents. If the item was particularly interesting, Ivins continued his notes for several pages and occasionally quoted pertinent segments exactly. If the article or book disappointed him, a citation appeared with "Nothing" as the only comment. Using this method, Ivins created an extensive bibliography of journal articles, newspapers, pamphlets, and hooks dating from the early 1830s and continuing until his death in 1967.
In the beginning, Ivins was primarily interested in polygamy as shown by such editorial asides as "strong anti-Mormon article. Nothing on pol." From the first notebook through the next five or six, references not related to plural marriage are rare. Notebook no. 6 begins with a discussion of election contests in Jackson County, Missouri, during the Mormon era there. But even in this, and later notebooks, polygamy still occupies a great deal of space.
Ivins was usually careful about labeling the depository for each item, although he often labeled a large section as being from Stanford or Bancroft or Sanpete County instead of placing each item individually.
Besides these notebooks, the collection also contains 36 manuscripts (mostly handwritten) by Ivins on subjects such as the "Mormon War," Nauvoo, and the United Order. These are usually compilations of notes with little of Ivins himself in them. There are 27 other manuscripts, with six being Ivins' notes, and the rest coming from friends--Jerald Tanner--or historical figures--Hosea Stout, B. H. Roberts. A scrapbook contains newspaper clippings; many of which concern the modern polygamy raids in Utah (1936, 1944, 1946). He also accumulated transcripts of newspapers, principally the
Ivins had precise standards of evaluating history. In a review of Kimball Young's Isn't One Wife Enough?, he says:
There has long been a demand for a careful, complete, and well-documented story of the attempt of the Mormon Church to inflict upon the American society a system of "plurality of wives." The facetiously titled
Isn't One Wife Enough? does not satisfy this demand. (Pacific Historical Review , November 1954, p.394)
He disliked "carelessness in writing and research" and wished instead for thoroughness, accuracy, and objectivity. Above all, he valued knowing "both sides of the story." In Ivins's few published pieces, he followed his own rules. His style runs to strict narration of facts. He was particularly fond of numbers, "Fifty-four members did nearly 95 per cent of the talk, leaving less than 6 per cent for the other 53." (Ivins, "A Constitution for Utah,
This mass of information was the result of a desire, on Ivins' part, to learn about polygamy. Nearly one-quarter of the index is on various aspects of plural marriage beginning with its advent, continuing through active practice, persecution, rejection by the Mormon church, and its continued practice by diehards. In a letter to Dale Morgan (another Utah historian) on 21 December 1948, Ivins commented on a source brought to his attention by Morgan and indicated that he had already seen it in 1936 but "paid little attention to it because it had nothing in it about polygamy which was all I was interested in at that time ..."
Exactly why Ivins was so taken with polygamy is something of a mystery. Ivins, in spite of his passion for collecting, was negligent about his personal history. What there is of Stan Ivins himself in the collection has to be extracted bit by bit from the mass of statistics, paraphrase, and quotation which comprise it.
There are, however, several theories to explain Ivins' interest in polygamy. First, plural marriage was an integral part of the Ivins family history. Both his grandfathers had more than one wife. And Anthony W. Ivins was sent to Mexico to preside over the polygamous colonies there. In fact, there is some evidence to suggest that he performed polygamous marriages in Mexico after the Manifesto forbidding the practice was issued by the Mormon church in 1890. A. W. Ivins may have been given offical permission to perform these marriages. In a letter written in 1911 to his son Grant, Ivins adds a postscript saying,
You may depend upon it, I have never performed a marriage seremony [sic] without proper authority. You are at liberty to show what I have written. This you can tear off. (My emphasis) (AWI to HGI, 3/7/11)
An interesting note is that although A. W. Ivins performed the ceremonies himself, he steadfastly refused to take another wife. Thus, the fact that polygamy, as an institution, was so much a part of Stanley's early years could have triggered an interest in the practice. In addition, there was a doctrinal aspect to plural marriage which may have had an effect on Stanley Ivins. His sister, Florence, remembers feeling "most uncomfortable because of the fact that our family was practically the only non-poligamous [sic] family in the whole Juarez Stake." ("My Story,"n.p.) There was a stigma attached to noninvolvment in polygamy. The doctrine evolved "to mean that the choicest spirits should be sent to earth through the polygamist marriages." (Hyde, n.p.) Florence Ivins was bothered by this development:
Why should that be? There were not enough girls for all the boys to have several wives. Not a very just principle. I was a mature person, now, most of my cousins on my mother's side were the result of polygamy. I loved them all, but I didn't feel inferior to any of them. (Hyde, n.p.)
A third reason for research on Mormon marriage customs could have been that at the time Stan Ivins was beginning (mid 1930s) very little work had been done on polygamy. Possibly because it was still too close to be interesting without being unduly controversial.
Just as the reason behind the initiation of research remains a debatable question, Ivins's attitude towards polygamy, as well as his other later interests, remains hidden behind his cherished objectivity. Except that there is a clue to his feelings. In a letter written to Israel Smith, president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Ivins stated,
I think that whoever introduced the doctrine of plurality of wives could have been altogether honest and sincere in it, thinking that they were doing the right thing. Honest and sincere people can make mistakes. (SSI to IS, 11/19/56)
Although Ivins did begin with polygamy, he eventually developed a much broader range of interests, as typified by the change in his editorial comments from "nothing on polygamy" to "nothing on Mormonism." He basically loved to do research. In a letter to Juanita Brooks, he mentions that there is one pamphlet he wants to examine. Unfortunately, he is in Salt Lake and it is in the Huntington Library, so "I have been trying to decide whether to go down and see it or first look into the possibility of getting a photostatic copy . . . ." (SSI to JB, 7/30/48)
He liked details, especially when they added a new dimension to a much larger scheme, usually existing only in his mind. He and Dale Morgan conducted a healthy correspondence dealing with how many wives Brigham Young really had, whether anyone knew there were two priesthoods in the Mormon church before 1835, and the number of grammatical changes there were in the various editions of the
Besides his interest in polygamy and his love of research, there is some evidence that Ivins felt a degree of compulsion about his work. To Leslie E. Bliss, Librarian of the Bancroft Library, Ivins said:
I am glad that you have been gathering and copying some of this old material. I have searched for Mormon and Utah history in libraries all the way from Harvard to Huntington, and have found them practically unanimous in their neglect of this method of preserving history. (SSI to LEB, 7/2/50)
The results of Ivins' work as seen in the collection at the Utah State Historical Society show that he wanted to be fair; he wanted a lot; he did not feel a need to publish excessively; and he enjoyed helping others.
As has been noted, his notebooks contain few of his own thoughts beyond "full of inaccuracies" and "This is good for a photostatic copy." An interesting question to consider is whether or not Ivins was selective in the notes he made--whether context would be a real problem. Apparently it is not. Ivins went in for quantity and used everything he could find on Utah from the most anti-Mormon broadside to a Mormon church-sponsored doctrinal treatise. Though Ivins would defend the church historically, he felt the need to get the clearest picture possible with his methods. To Israel Smith he wrote:
Because of my feelings of friendliness and admiration for your church and for you personally, I very much regret that my brief article on Mormon polygamy should have offended you, but I suppose that if we are to be honest, such things cannot always be avoided. I have been making an intensive study of this subject for more than 20 years, and I long ago realized that if the facts about it were to be told, the chance of offending someone must be taken. (SSI to IS, 9/17/56)
He had a lot of information. It could be argued, in fact, that he fell into a trap common in historical research. That is, he never felt he had enough material to complete his project. He also may have been slightly insecure about his writing abilities. In 1946 he wrote a letter to Alfred A. Knopf explaining that he planned to write on two facets of the "Mormon problem"--politics of the Church and polygamy.
On the assumption that it would save much time and work, I have chosen to do my research on the two subjects simultaneously, and it has been a long task. But I can now see ahead an end to research, or at least a point where I can begin writing. I am sure there is material for two good stories, but whether or not I can tell them well enough is another question. (SSI to AAK, 1/3/46)
However, by the time of his death twenty years later, Ivins had published one article on polygamy plus another on Utah's constitution--the only two pieces resulting from his professed goals. In fact, with these two articles, his total published work included five articles and three book reviews. If Ivins did not care to publish, he did like to spread his knowledge around informally. In his later years, he visited the Utah State Historical Society at least once a week, so regularly that the librarian would keep a continuing list of questions "to ask Stan Ivins." (John James, 7/7/75) Most of the correspondence included in the Ivins collection is with people who had questions on Utah and Mormon history. Ivins helped Juanita Brooks with genealogical details and other miscellaneous items on the Mountain Meadows Massacre. He and Fawn Brodie uncovered a great deal of information on Joseph Srnith's trial in 1826. Dale Morgan and Ivins covered all kinds of questions in their long correspondence, particularly concerning the wives of Brigham Young and Joseph Smith. Ivins apparently helped anyone who asked, including professionals, students, and the merely curious. And he did it happily.
The Stanley S. Ivins collection includes an incredible amount of information on polygamy first, then other subjects in Mormon history. Access to the material is through his self-devised index, an occasionally frustrating, but nonetheless helpful tool. If there are faults in the collection, they might include some difficulty in retrieval and context. On the other hand, there is not another collection in Utah quite like it. As Juanita Brooks said in tribute when he died in 1967, "Every student of early Mormon history in any of its phases will be benefitted by the work done by Stanley S. Ivins." (J3, 7/13/67)
Stanley Snow Ivins Papers, 1850-1968, Utah State Historical Society.
Received from Florence Ivins Hyde.
The Stanley Snow Ivins Papers are the physical property of the Utah Historical Society, Salt Lake City, Utah. Literary rights, including copyright, may belong to the authors or their heirs and assigns. Please contact the Historical Society for information regarding specific use of this collection.
Register available. Internally indexed by subject.
Items removed from the collection include 11 manuscripts, 236 separate pamphlets, 11 bound volumes of pamphlets, 23 periodicals with varying degrees of coverage; and 425 books.