Hugh Taylor Lovin was born outside of Inkom, Idaho in 1928. His formative years were spent on his family's ranch in Marsh Creek, where they moved in 1935. The ranch, which relied on an irrigation system built by local farmers, lacked modern comforts like electricity and indoor plumbing. As a child, Hugh was an avid reader and attended Idaho State College (now Idaho State University) in Pocatello. He received his master's degree from Washington State University in 1956 and his doctoral degree from the University of Washington in 1963, writing a dissertation entitled "The American Communist Party and the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939."
After teaching in Alaska, Oregon, and Nebraska, Hugh returned to Idaho to join the history department at Boise State University (then Boise State College) in 1965. Hugh primarily taught United State History and his scholarly research focused on politics and labor. In the late 1970s he also began writing about irrigation in the west, and especially in Idaho. Lovin retired from Boise State in 1993.
He continued his research and published frequently after his retirement, often in "Idaho Yesterdays," the scholarly journal of the Idaho State Historical Society.
Lovin died in 2014.
The papers of Hugh T. Lovin include research materials on four main topics:
1.) Irrigation projects and related politics in Idaho and other western states including Wyoming, Oregon, and Washington;
2.) The US Labor Movement and Third Party Political Groups including the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and American Federation of Labor (AFL), the United Auto Workers (UAW), the Farmer-Labor Party (FLP), Labor's Non-Partisan League (LNPL), the International Workers of the World (IWW), the Progressive Party, the Socialist Party, and the Communist Party and their influence and reception, especially in Idaho and other western states;
3.) President Lyndon B. Johnson and the Subversive Activities Control Board (SACB); and
4.) The Spanish Civil War, on which he wrote his doctoral dissertation, and was especially interested in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the role of the American Communist Party in the conflict.
Though these topics may seem disparate, it appears as if Lovin saw them as existing on the same continuum. Lovin's research as a PhD student on the Spanish Civil War focused on the American Communist Party's involvement in the conflict. He then spent years researching and publishing on third party political groups and their intersection with the labor movement in teh United States. He was especially interested in third party groups and labor unions in Idaho and western states. The Labor Movement in the west generally, and in Idaho specifically, often revolved around farmer's grievances and their access to water. This reliance on irrigated land, as well as his early early years on the ranch in Marsh Creek, may have sparked his interest in the history of irrigation in the west.
The materials in the collection include binders of research material, including handwritten and typed notes and their citations, photocopied materials from manuscript collections, books and periodicals, and some newspaper clippings. Some binders contain notes on a specific topic (e.g., the Twin Falls Irrigation Project or the Idaho Non-Partisan League) and follow a clear outline while others seem to be used more as a compilation of notes and sources on a broader topic. There are 107 binders on irrigation topics, 37 on Labor Movements and Third Party Political Groups and two on President Johnson and the Subversive Activities Control Board. Lovin seems to have a robust system of reproducing and filing his notes in more than one binder. In the "Socialist Party of Idaho, Part 3" notebook, for instance, one page reads:
"My notes on Pete Seeger incident. One set filed in "CP [Communist Party] of Idaho" notes; the other set filed under "McCarthyism in Idaho" in box of folders."
Lovin reused paper for these notebooks and it is not uncommon to see a copy of a test produced for his students at Boise State University on the back of a note page.
Other research materials in the collection include file folders of loose notes on specific individuals and topics, collections of newspaper clippings, microfilm reels, publications (both bound and photocopied) and finding aids and other guides for archival collections.
The Lovin collection also contains typed manuscripts and physical copies, or citations, of his published works which include articles, book reviews, and abstracts. There are also folders containing documentation of his other accomplishments, including conference papers, listings in Who's Who and indexes, written acknowledgements, and certificates.
His teaching outlines for four courses at Boise State University and two bibliographies are also included in this collection, as is some of his early academic output, including papers written at Washington State University and the University of Washington, and some yearbooks collected from schools he attended and taught at.
Since much of this collection includes research material from other institutions, the dates listed throughout the finding aid may not reflect the true nature of the material (i.e. a letter may have been written in 1910 but the copy was made in the 1980s and we do not have the original letter).
Collection is available for research.
[Item description], Hugh T. Lovin Papers, Box [number] Folder [number], Boise State University Special Collections and Archives.