An Interview with Leonard Arrington

Coming to Terms with Mormon History: An Interview with Leonard Arrington DIALOGUE : Leonard, would you tell us something of your family background and childhood, please? Arrington: I grew up on a farm in Twin Falls County, Idaho. My father served on the high council of Twin Falls stake when I was a child and youth. In 1924, when I was seven, he was called on a two-year, full-time mission to the Southern States. He left behind my mother and four children (I was the second son). We rented our twenty-acre farm to a neighbor and moved to a small frame house near my grandparents and two uncles on the south side of Twin Falls. Five months after my father left, my mother gave birth to a fifth child. When Dad returned he resumed farming, and I was happy to work closely with him because I was interested in animals and poultry just as he was. With his encouragement I became a teamster on the farm and also initiated a poultry enterprise that I continued until I went to college. DIALOGUE : What sparked your interest in Mormon history? Arrington: I was first introduced to Mormon history in 1929 when I was twelve years old. Our Twin Falls ward started a junior genealogical society in lieu of our regular Sunday School class, and I became fascinated with family history and genealogy. For this class I wrote an eleven-page autobiography and histories of both my father's and my mother's families. I completed pedi- gree charts and family group sheets, corresponded with my mother's oldest sister to get the history of their family, recorded a number of faith-promoting incidents, and gave several talks about our family history projects in Sunday School. Unfortunately, the program in our ward was dropped after one year because instructions from Salt Lake City discouraged wards from adopting LEONARD ARRINGTON, now retired from Utah State University and Brigham Young University, lives in Salt Lake City, where he continues to work on books, articles, and papers dealing with Mormon, Utah, and Western American history. 40 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT any programs that had not been cleared with Church headquarters. All of the local leaders wept but dutifully discontinued the program. However, my interest in family and Church history had been ignited. When I was fifteen, a neighbor gave me a book that had just come out — Joseph Smith, An American Prophet by John Henry Evans. I read it, enjoyed it very much, and got a new appreciation for the Prophet and for Church history. DIALOGUE : How was your interest in Mormon history heightened as a college student? Arrington: When I went to the University of Idaho (1935), we were fortunate to have George Tanner, in my judgment the finest institute teacher in the Church. A graduate of the University of Chicago, he was very interested in LDS history as well as Christian history and, under his direction, our Sunday School class studied the Comprehensive History of the Church by B. H. Roberts. During the four years I was at the University of Idaho, we went through all six volumes. Brother Tanner also taught classes in Church history, Old and New Testaments, Book of Mormon, and comparative religions, so I had splen- did university-level training in LDS history and doctrine. He welcomed ques- tions and helped me to reconcile what I was learning in my science classes with the gospel. DIALOGUE : What about your doctoral training in graduate school? Arrington: In 1939 I went to the University of North Carolina to do graduate work in economics. I devoted my entire first year there to reading economics journals and books and attending lectures. I was the only Mormon attending the university, and the only Mormon in Chapel Hill. In January 1941, I went to North Carolina State College (now North Carolina State University) in Raleigh to teach, take classes in agricultural economics and rural sociology, and earn credit toward the doctorate. In reading for a rural sociology seminar, I found references to works on the Mormon village by Lowry Nelson, T. Lynn Smith, and other scholars. Indeed, I was delighted to learn of a professional literature on the Latter-day Saints and their social system. Fascinated, I read everything I could find on Mormon economics and sociology in the libraries at State College and at the University of North Carolina. In the process, I dis- covered articles by Bernard DeVoto and Juanita Brooks as well as by Lowry Nelson and other academicians. These stimulated me to write some papers on Mormonism for my graduate seminars. DIALOGUE : Were your studies interrupted by World War II? Arrington: In 1943, I went as a soldier to North Africa for sixteen months and then to Italy for fifteen months. My experience, particularly in Italy, was a "building" one. Although I was a "simple soldier," I was given responsi- bilities in the economic section of the Allied Commission for Italy. As an Arrington Interview 41 Allied coordinator with the Italian Central Institute of Statistics in Rome and with the Office of Price Control for Northern Italy, I had experiences in economic investigation and reporting and in personnel administration, manage- ment, and decision-making that proved to be invaluable in my subsequent career as a teacher and administrator. I learned much about Italy, Europe, and human nature. During my last year in Italy (1945), I thought a great deal about what I wanted to do for a doctoral dissertation and decided to propose to my committee a topic related to the economics of Mormonism. I wrote to John A. Widtsoe, who had been president of both the University of Utah and Utah State Agricultural College — now Utah State University (USU) —and who was then an apostle, asking him if the Church would grant me access to materials to do such a dissertation. His reply was friendly and encouraging. He suggested I talk with him whenever I got to Salt Lake City. I was discharged from the army in January 1946 and resumed teaching at North Carolina State College. Although they offered me a permanent posi- tion, I wanted to get to the West. So I applied for positions at western uni- versities. I was glad when the finest offer came from Utah State Agricultural College in Logan. My wife, Grace Fort Arrington, and I arrived there in July 1946, and I began traveling to Salt Lake City each week to do research in the Church Archives. Dr. Widtsoe's counsel to me was, "They're very hesitant about sharing the abundant resources they have, Brother Arrington, so you must build up their confidence by beginning to use printed material, then asking for theses and dis- sertations, then the Journal History, and eventually you'll be able to see anything because you will have built up their confidence." He used the image of a camel that inches through the tent and eventually carries away the tent on his back. DIALOGUE : Did you take his advice, and were you allowed unlimited access? Arrington: Obediently, I conformed to the policy suggested by Dr. Widtsoe, and during the years that followed I was never denied access to anything in the Archives. Having located an enormous amount of material, I was able to report to my committee that I would write on Mormon economic policies, 1847 to 1900. I worked at the Archives for four summers, 1946 to 1949. Grace and I and our first child, James, then returned to the University of North Carolina (UNC) for the 1949-50 academic year to finish all the course work I needed for the Ph.D. Since I had taught many different economics courses at Utah State, my graduate work at UNC was not difficult, and I spent much of the year putting together my research notes and writing drafts of articles for publication in journals. When I admitted this to one of my advisors, he tried hard to discourage me, but I felt very confident and went ahead working on these papers. I did well in my courses, passed the orals with an "excellent," scored well on the written examinations, and passed the re- quired examinations in two languages — French and Italian. 42 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT By the time I resumed teaching at Utah State in the fall of 1950 I had the drafts of several professional articles, but I hesitated to submit them. Once when Bill Mulder, the editor of the Western Humanities Review, was visiting with us while in Logan for a lecture, I showed him two articles I had written. He was enthusiastic about both and published one in the next Review issue and the other in 1951. In the meantime I published articles in the Journal of Economic History, Rural Sociology, and Pacific Historical Review. Within twelve months after my year at the University of North Carolina I had published seven articles in professional journals. These launched my writing "career." I took leave without pay from Utah State from January to June 1952 to finish up my dissertation and final orals. DIALOGUE: Were all those articles basically out of your dissertation? Arrington: I think that three appeared in somewhat different form in the dissertation. My major professor and principal advisor, Milton Heath, thought I should publish a book on the economic activities of the Latter-day Saints, not necessarily the dissertation but something that would be a comprehensive treatment of the Mormon economy, 1847 to 1900. He arranged for me to receive a grant from the Committee on Research in Economic History, so I could finish a book.

Load more