11th Annual Arrington History Lecture to Focus on Legal Issues of Polygamy in Territorial Utah

Sarah Barringer Gordon, professor of law and history at the University of Pennsylvania, has been selected as this year's Arrington Lecture speaker. Gordon will present Inlaws and Outlaws: New Lessons from the Archives Thursday, Oct. 20, at 7 p.m. in the Logan LDS Tabernacle.

 

Gordon's appearance marks the 11th annual Leonard J. Arrington Mormon History Lecture hosted by Utah State University. In the lecture, Gordon will focus on new information about the Mormon past, especially the 1870s through the 1890s. Gordon will base her discussion on records from the federal territorial courts of Utah, which had responsibility for enforcing the law imposed on Utah by the national government in Washington. These untapped archives furthered Gordon's research on how law and legal structures were imposed on Utah, how polygamy became the centerpiece of this legal reconstruction, and how many people were caught in the maw of the courts.

 

Gordon is a widely recognized scholar on the role of religion in American public life and the separation of church and state. Her book, The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America (2002) won the Mormon History Association's Best Book Award in May 2003.

 

In keeping with Arrington's tradition of encouraging young scholars, the Arrington Lecture Board is conducting a writing competition and will award three $250 cash prizes in conjunction with the lecture. This year the competition is open to all Utah college students.   Students must attend the lecture, then apply the issues raised at the lecture into their own research. The writing awards will be coordinated by the Mountain West Center for Regional Studies. Entry forms and further details will be available at the Arrington Lecture.

 

The Merrill-Cazier Library's Special Collections and Archives division is home to the Arrington Collection, the fruits of a lifetime of work, including personal and historical papers by the late Leonard J. Arrington. When the scholar and historian left this gift to Utah State, it was stipulated that the collection also become the focus for an annual lecture on an aspect of Mormon history. Upon his death in February 1999, Arrington left a legacy of scholarship and mentoring that earned him the title "Dean of Mormon History," said Brad Cole, head of USU's Special Collections and Archives. The annual lecture supports and continues Arrington's dedication to the scholarly field.