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Western history abounds in colorful characters and episodes, but the story of Dale Morgan's triumph over crushing personal handicaps and limited formal training to become one of the West's most tireless researchers and prolific writers is one of the most inspiring stories to emerge from the region. As the author or editor of some forty books and one hundred scholarly articles, many of which are definitive studies, Dale Morgan's place among the first rank of Western historians seems uncontestable.
A succession of tragic experiences in his youth seemed to predestine Morgan to dependency and obscurity. Born in Salt Lake City in 1914, Morgan suffered the loss of his father at age four, and his mother was faced with the prospect of raising four children on her meager salary as a schoolteacher. Poverty, though, was not to be his greatest handicap. At age fourteen, Morgan contracted spinal meningitis, which left him totally deaf.
Through the help of skillful tutors and his mother, Morgan gradually learned to cope with his handicap and eventually even turned it, in some ways, into an advantage. Largely barred from oral communication, he immersed himself in the printed word. One of the hallmarks of Morgan's later writings was the almost uncanny breadth of reading and research upon which they were based. Also, his deafness freed him from external distractions and made it possible for him to pursue his work with a single-mindedness of which few are capable.
Jobs were exceedingly scarce in the 1930s, and during his training at the University of Utah, Morgan carefully chose courses that would develop his most marketable skills -- primarily art and English courses. Ironically, those choices deprived him of training in history, which would become the field in which he made his enduring mark.
Upon graduation (B.A. 1937) Morgan luckily found work as an editor on the Work Projects Administration (WPA) Writers Project in Utah. Before long, his writing skill and demanding research standards drew attention, and he became director of the project.
During the World War II, Morgan worked for the Office of Price Administration in Washington, D.C. During his off hours, he pursued his research on Western history in the repositories of the national capitol. During the three years he spent in Washington, Morgan worked long hours to accumulate the huge file of notes and transcripts that supported many of his later publications. Of even broader importance, perhaps, was the bibliographic work he accomplished during that period. Primarily in the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library, Morgan began a union catalogue of publications by and about the Mormon Church during its first century, 1830-1930. The thousands of cards he assembled at that time, a gift to the Utah State Historical Society in 1952, eventually became the basis of the Historical Society's Union Catalogue and the core of
It was also during the war that Morgan began the stream of publications that made his national reputation as a historian:
In 1954, Morgan joined the staff at the Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley. Though he continued, on his own time, to add to his torrent of publications on a variety of topics in Western history, the main fruit of his employment there was the series A Guide to the
At the time of his death in 1971, Morgan had still not achieved the professional recognition that his record of first-rate publications deserved; some academics referred to him as a dilettante and an amateur. Partly, no doubt, his neglect resulted from his limitations in oral communication. Morgan's professional activity was almost solely confined to his research, publications and correspondence; he read only two papers at historical conferences in his entire career and never held office in a professional organization. Thus, he was cut off from much of the personal contact with colleagues which plays such a large role in professional advancement. Also, his lack of academic degrees and employment greatly retarded his acceptance by the community of historical scholars. He did receive however, two Guggenheim Research grants, was made a Fellow of the Utah State Historical Society and received the Distinguished Alumni award from the University of Utah.
Those who became acquainted with Morgan, though, found him a charming personality, a loyal friend, and, in spite of his impressive accomplishments, the humblest of men. His letters reveal an intense scholar, but they also reveal a lively sense of humor and an unfailing concern for the personal well-being of his friends and colleagues.
This collection, together with those at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Utah, is one of the three major collections of Dale Morgan papers. It consists of the files of correspondence, manuscript drafts, and other documents that the Utah State Historical Society accumulated during its association with Morgan over a period of almost thirty years. Besides some twelve linear centimeters of correspondence, the collection includes an exhaustive inventory of the WPA Collection now housed at the Society, and transcripts and checklists of numerous Eastern newspapers,
The correspondence is arranged chronologically, with the exception of several groups of letters that were left intact as found: for example, the correspondence relating to the collection of documents on John Wesley Powell's exploration of the Colorado River, which Morgan edited for the
Readers approaching Morgan's correspondence for the first time will be stunned at the industry and energy of the man. His letters sometimes reach six or seven pages of single-spaced elite type, all of it as well reasoned and gracefully written as his books and articles. When one considers the bibliographic work and other research he was doing at the same time, in addition to his full-time government job, the labor he put into his correspondence seems superhuman.
Several themes recur prominently in the correspondence, but none so dramatically as Morgan's burning devotion to the Utah State Historical Society and his earnest desire to see it achieve a strong financial base, adequate housing, an extensive library of books and manuscripts, and a professional staff. It would be only the slightest exaggeration, in fact, to say that during the 1940s, Dale Morgan in effect ran the Society from his Arlington, Virginia apartment. Thereafter, in the early 1950s, he provided such a prolific quantity of free advice and editorial services that he in effect constituted an extra staff member.
Morgan's letters also reveal his masterful skill as a historian and his tenacious devotion to accuracy in even the minutest detail as well as his curiously limited conception of the nature of the historical process. History, to Dale Morgan, meant primarily geographical movement. Larger social forces and the role of personality did not entirely escape him, but he was always at his best when meticulously reconstructing the route followed by a mountain man or emigrant party. On occasion, though, Morgan let his passion for minutiae trap him into applying major emphasis to relatively minor points.
Finally, Morgan's correspondence reveals his bright sense of humor. Upon being informed by Director A. Russell Mortensen of the Society's tentative plans in 1951 to move into the Kearns Mansion, Morgan wanted to know, "How fireproof is that place? And how sure could the Society be that its collection would be safe? A burned-up governor is easily replaced, but not so a library." (Morgan to Mortensen, 19 July 1951).
Immediately following the correspondence is a collection of drafts of published and unpublished works, most of which appeared in the
The rest of the collection -- by far the largest part -- consists mainly of research notes that Western historians will still find extremely useful. Box 3, for example, contains an exhaustive inventory of the WPA Collection, both the Historical Records Survey and the Writers' Project. Morgan's inventory is still the only finding aid for what is one of the potentially most useful research collections ever compiled for Utah history.
The only similar collection that would rival the WPA files in compactness and variety for Utah historians is the
Boxes 6 through 11 contain the most useful items for students of Utah and Western history. They consist of extensive transcripts of newspapers in most Eastern states during the first half of the nineteenth century. Morgan excerpted from those papers virtually every significant reference to the Mormons and the Far West. There are also transcripts of
Given the absence of indexes for practically all of those publications, the transcripts found in this collection provide an invaluable research shortcut for scholars interested in virtually any topic in Western history during the first half of the nineteenth century. Also, most of the newspapers covered in this collection are available only through expensive travel or time-consuming inter-library loan procedures, so the Morgan transcripts are especially handy.
Thus, the Dale Morgan papers rank high in research value among the Utah State Historical Society's manuscript collections. Besides revealing the mind, the craft, and the heart of one of the greatest Western historians, they make available to the scholar the fruits of Morgan's gargantuan research energies across a wide range of materials.
Dale Lowell Morgan Papers,1940-1969, Utah State Historical Society.
Gift of the author.
The Dale Lowell Morgan 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.