Arrington Mormon History Lecture is Sept. 23

Susan Arrington Madsen and Carl Arrington present the 2010 Leonard J. Arrington Mormon History Lecture Thursday, Sept. 23, 7 p.m., at the Logan LDS Tabernacle, 50 N. Main, Logan.

 

The lecture, “A Paper Mountain: The Extraordinary Diary of Leonard James Arrington,” takes a look back at the lecture’s namesake and the opening of his diary at Special Collections and Archives at Utah State University’s Merrill-Cazier Library.

 

“We are honored that Susan Madsen and Carl Arrington agreed to present the Arrington Lecture this year,” said Bradford Cole, head of the lecture committee and director of Special Collections and Archives at USU. “They will share their personal insights and, perhaps, a few stories to illustrate the career and personality of this great man.”

 

USU’s Merrill-Cazier Library, host of the lecture, houses the personal and historical collections of the late Leonard Arrington, renowned scholar of the American West. As part of his gift to the university, Arrington requested that the historical collection also become the focus for an annual lecture on an aspect of Mormon history. Honoring that request, the Leonard J. Arrington Mormon History Lecture Series was established in 1995.

 

During a long and distinguished career, Arrington was professor of economics at USU, church historian for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and director of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute of Church History at Brigham Young University. He was the author of numerous books and articles.

 

Included in the Arrington Collection at USU is his personal diary, a document that became available to the public in 2010. The 2010 Arrington Lecture officially marks the diary’s public opening.

 

Arrington’s diary includes much more than the perceived idea of a bound journal. Formal, bound journals are included, but the scale of the diary runs a gamut of items from press clippings and research notes to weekly letters to his family. The diary begins when Arrington was a high school student in Idaho and continues through his adult life. The diary and its contents fill 30-plus boxes in the vault at Special Collections and Archives.

 

“The people of the Great Basin Kingdom are not likely to often witness a scholar, father, friend, mentor and Latter-day Saint of the stature of Leonard James Arrington,” Susan and Carl wrote in an abstract for the lecture. “Along the way, Leonard Arrington was writing about all of these experiences in a diary.

 

“The record includes some 60,000 pages — roughly two pages per day for all of his 83 years until his death in 1999. The diary reveals in gritty detail not just his adventures as a church historian, but the history of many Cache Valley characters. It also provides a treasure-trove of information on his personal trials, triumphs and disappointment, along with his joys as a friend, father and scholar.”

 

Susan Arrington Madsen grew up in Logan were she graduated from Utah State University with a degree in journalism. During her years at USU, she was awarded an internship with the LDS church magazines and wrote for the USU student newspaper as a senior writer. She has penned more than 40 articles for Collier’s Encyclopedia Yearbooks. She lives in Hyde Park, Utah.

 

Carl Arrington, the second son (middle child) of Leonard and Grace Arrington, was born in Logan, Utah, in 1951. He grew up in Cache Valley, attending schools in Logan city and then USU. He works as a freelance writer and media consultant and lives in New York City.

 

The Arrington Mormon History Lecture series has grown into a popular community lecture. It has attracted top flight scholars from across the country.

 

The lecture is sponsored by USU’s Special Collections and Archives and Merrill-Cazier Library, the Leonard J. Arrington Lecture and Archives Foundation and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at USU.

 

For information, contact Cole at (435) 797-8268.

 

 

Writer: Patrick Williams, (435) 797-1354, patrick.williams@usu.edu