Utah Historical Quarterly Reading Lists

Explore Utah’s rich history with carefully curated reading lists spanning a variety of topics, themes, and communities. Each highlighted article comes from a past volume of the Utah Historical Quarterly, our state’s official journal since 1928. Whether you are a scholar, student, or casual lover of history, these lists offer a gateway to exploring stories of our great state in the larger context of the American West.

A bustling crowd waits in line to enter a Utah theater

FILM IN UTAH

Learn how the evolution of silent "moving pictures" into popular entertainment spurred the growth of a Utah moviemaking industry.

The Asian American Experience in Utah

Read excerpts on Utah's Asian American history, highlighting their experiences during the 19th-century railroad construction and the World War II Topaz Incarceration Camp.

ECONOMICS IN UTAH

Explore key aspects of economics in Utah, examining the forces that have shaped the state's prosperity, the challenges it faces, and the unique characteristics that define its economic identity within the broader national context.

Miners near the Blue Blaze Coal Mine in Consumers, Utah. In 1920, Spring Canyon Mine superintendent A. E. Gibson developed the Gibson mine and the town took the same name. In 1924 the Consumers Mutual Coal Company took over both the town and the mine. After a brief peak the town failed and was mostly abandoned by the 1950s.

utah during the great depression

Learn about how Utahns faced the Great Depression with personal strength, demonstrating both resilience and a strong work ethic.

THE FIRST UTAHNS

Archaeological findings indicate that Utah has been inhabited since ~11,000 BC by various groups, including the Paleoindians, Archaic people, Fremont, Ancestral Puebloans, and later the Goshute, Paiute, Shoshone, Navajo, and Ute.

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