Morgan, Dale L. (Dale Lowell), 1914-1971

Author and historian of the Amercian West.

From the description of Scrapbook, 1916-1953. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122630659

Dale L. Morgan (1914-1971), Western historian, was born in Salt Lake City and educated at the University of Utah. He was state superintendent for the Utah Writer's Project of the Works Progress Administration (1940-42) and information specialist with the Office of Price Administration during World War II. As a Guggenheim Fellow for 1947-48, Morgan did research on the subject of Mormonism throughout the United States. Morgan wrote books on many Western subjects, including Mormonism and Jedediah Smith.

From the description of Research files of Dale Lowell Morgan, 1809-1895. (Huntington Library, Art Collections & Botanical Gardens). WorldCat record id: 122383183

Historian.

From the description of Papers, 1940-1969. (Utah Historical Society). WorldCat record id: 81792665

Writer, historian.

From the description of Correspondence, 1960-1970. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122537213

Historian and geographer.

From the description of Letters to Carl Wheat, 1958. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122393692

Mr. Fletcher resided in Reno, Nevada.

From the description of Letter to Fred Nathaniel Fletcher : Salt Lake City : LS, 1940 Sept. 17. (University of California, Berkeley). WorldCat record id: 26178569

President of the Utah Historical Society, author, and historian of Utah and the American West.

From the description of Papers, 1930-1967. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122550878

From the guide to the Dale Lowell Morgan papers, 1930-1967, (L. Tom Perry Special Collections)

Member of the WPA Utah Writers' Project, historian, author, and expert on the early American West, research historian at the Bancroft Library.

From the description of Papers, 1933-1071. [microfilm]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122631269

History professor, author, historian. Of Arlington, Va.; Salt Lake City; Berkeley, Calif.

From the description of Dale L. Morgan collection [microform], 1943-1971. (Kansas State Historical Society). WorldCat record id: 62288889

Biographical Note

• 1914 - : Dale Lowell Morgan born in Salt Lake City on December 14, first child of James Lowell and Emily May Holmes Morgan.
• 1920 - : James Lowell Morgan died at age 25, leaving three sons and one daughter.
• 1929 - : Dale Morgan contracted meningitis, which left him totally deaf, and cost him a year of school.
• 1933 - : Graduated from West High School in Salt Lake City.
• 1937 - : Graduated from the University of Utah, with a B.A. degree in art.
• 1937 - 1938 : Studied commercial art and tried without success to find a public relations or advertising position in Salt Lake City and San Francisco.
• 1938 - : Employed as a researcher and writer for the Utah Historical Records Survey, a Works Progress Administration-sponsored program, in Ogden, and then in Salt Lake City. He also worked part-time for the Utah Writers Project.
• 1940 - : Named state supervisor of the UHRS. Wrote sections of, and edited, Utah: A Guide to the State (1941).
• 1940 - 1941 : Won both Salt Lake City and Utah state chess championships.
• 1942 - : Moved to Washington, D. C., to work as an information specialist, Department of Information, Office of Price Administration, and to pursue historical research at the National Archives and the Library of Congress.
• 1943 - : The Humboldt, Highroad of the West, Morgan's first major book, published by Farrar and Rinehart.
• 1945 - : Started a series of book reviews of Western history and fiction, for the Saturday Review of Literature .
• 1947 - : Publication of Morgan's most important completed work on Mormon history, Great Salt Lake, by Bobbs-Merrill Company.
• 1948 - : Awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, which gave him financial support to travel extensively in the eastern, midwestern, and western United States, doing research for a planned three-volume history of the Mormons.
• 1948 - 1953 : Continued to work on Mormon history, and wrote freelance articles, first in Salt Lake City, and then in Washington, D. C. He was unsuccessful in his search for federal employment as an historian.
• 1953 - : Hired by Dr. George P. Hammond, director of The Bancroft Library, as a researcher for Norman Littell, attorney for the Navajo Tribe's land claim case; the work continued for nearly a decade.
• 1954 - : Invited by Dr. Hammond to join The Bancroft Library staff, to prepare a guide to it's manuscript collections. He remained at The Bancroft Library for the rest of his career.
• 1960 - : Elected a Fellow of the Utah State Historical Society.
• 1961 - : Honored by the California Historical Society with the Henry Raup Wagner Memorial Award, for The Overland Diary of James A. Pritchard (1959) and California As I Saw It (1960).
• 1962 - : Given the California Historical Society's Fellowship Award.
• 1963 - : Publication of A Guide to the Manuscript Collections of The Bancroft Library, Volume 1, edited by Morgan and Hammond.
• 1964 - : Recognized by the University of Utah with its Distinguished Alumnus Award.
• 1969 - : Dale Morgan's mother, Emily May Holmes Morgan, died in Salt Lake City.
• 1969 - : Received an Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History, "for outstanding scholarship in the field of Western Americana, and for the authorship of dozens of books and articles of exceptional quality."
• 1970 - : Awarded a second Guggenheim Fellowship, for research on the North American fur trade.
• 1971 - : Dale L. Morgan died of cancer, March 30, in Accokeek, Maryland, at the home of his long-time friend, Louise North.

From the guide to the Dale Lowell Morgan Papers, 1877-1971, (The Bancroft Library.)

Dale Lowell Morgan was born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1914. When he was five years old his father died, and his mother taught school to support the family. When he was fourteen, Morgan contracted meningitis, which left him totally deaf. He graduated from West High School in 1933, and went on to the University of Utah. In 1937 he earned a bachelor's degree in art, with a minor in English.

Morgan's first job was with the Utah Works Progress Administration (WPA). He wrote introductory historical essays for the Historical Records Department, and his talents were soon acknowledged. The WPA published Morgan's first monograph in 1940. In the same year, the Utah Historical Quarterly published his The State of Deseret. He was soon transferred to the writer's program of the WPA, where he edited and did most of the writing for Utah, A Guide to the State, published in 1941.

The WPA project closed in 1942, and Morgan went to Washington, D.C., to work for the Office of Price Administration, until 1946. In 1947, he received his first Guggenheim fellowship. He wrote The Great Salt Lake in 1947, and Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the West in 1953. In 1961, the California Historical Society presented him with the Henry R. Wagner Memorial Award in recognition of his editions of The Overland Diary of James A. Pritchard, 1959. In 1970, he received his second Guggenheim fellowship.

Throughout his career as historian and writer, Morgan contributed chapters and sections to books by other authors, and wrote articles and book reviews, in addition to his own projects. He worked on a project he called "The Mormons and the Far West," which entailed typing more than 2,000 pages of articles from microfilm. Since his move to Washington in 1942, Morgan compiled material for the publication which was eventually published as A Mormon Bibliography in 1978.

In 1954, Morgan took a position with the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. He remained there until his death in 1971. His bibliography was completed and published in 1978 after six years of work on behalf of a committee formed by Dr. Everett L. Cooley, Director of Special Collections at the Marriott Library at the University of Utah, and Chad Flake, Curator of Special Collecttions at the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University.

From the guide to the Dale L. Morgan photograph collection, circa 1850, (J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah)