Marvin S. Hill papers, 1788-2006

Marvin S. Hill was born in 1930 in Washington D.C. where he attended high school. In 1955 he graduated from Brigham Young University with a B.A. and M.A. in history. Hill continued his post-graduate training at the University of Chicago where he studied with Martin E. Marty and Sidney E. Mead, the latter of whom strongly influenced Hill's approach towards historical research and methodolgy. Before graduating with a doctorate in American intellectual history from Chicago in 1968, Marvin taught history at Chicago City Junior College, Hammond Indiana Junior College, and East Carolina College. Joining the history department at Brigham Young University in 1966, Hill remained on the staff as a Professor of American History until his retirement in 1993. Throughout a highly productive career, Marvin was the recipient of several prestigious awards. Yale University granted him a post-doctoral research fellowship in 1972. Three years later, Marvin and Dallin H. Oaks received the Mormon History Association's annual award for the best book in Mormon history. The book was entitled Carthage Conspiracy: The Trial of the Accused Assassins of Joseph Smith. In 1977 the Mormon History Association deemed Hill's co-authored study of the Kirtland Ohio economy as the best article in the field of Mormon history. A banner year for Marvin was the year of 1989.. During that year he was granted two awards, one from the John Whitmer Historical Association and the other from the Mormon History Association. These awards were for the best article and the best book in Mormon historical studies. The book's title was Quest for Refuge: The Mormon Flight from American Pluralism. The last scholarly award which Professor Hill received occurred in 1990 when the John Whitmer Historical Association honored him with a special citation for his "Quest for Refuge" publication. Marvin has published numerous articles in Church History, B.Y.U. Studies, Dialogue, Journal of Mormon History, Utah Historical Quarterly, New York History, Sunstone, and the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. Hill's professional service was also noteworthy. He served as a member of the Mormon History Association's Council, was elected the Association's President, and worked on the editorial boards of the Journal of Mormon History and Dialogue. Within the community of Mormon scholars, Professor Hill achieved the reputation as a defender of the revisionist school of Mormon historiography known as the "New Mormon History." One of Hill's research projects fell victim to the verbal warfare engendered by the historigraphical controversies associated with the emergence and challenge of the New Mormon approach to historical writing. In the midst of working on a book-length project centering on the ten most prominent figures in the history of the Mormonism, Marvin was informed that further access to archival materials pertinent to his study would no longer be available. Consequently, his investigation of Mormon leaders was jettisoned.