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A. Russell Mortensen papers, 1830-1996

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Mortensen, A. Russell (Arlington Russell), 1911-1995
Title
A. Russell Mortensen papers
Dates
1830-1996 (inclusive)
Quantity
25 linear feet, (56 boxes and 1 oversize box)
Collection Number
MS 0201
Summary
The A. Russell Mortensen papers (1830-1996) consist of the personal and professional papers of Mortensen (b. 1911), a teacher, administrator, and editor. Included are correspondence, reports, manuscripts, articles, and materials resulting from Mortensen's years as editor of American West magazine.
Repository
University of Utah Libraries, Special Collections
Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library
University of Utah
295 South 1500 East
Salt Lake City, UT
84112-0860

Telephone: 8015818863
special@library.utah.edu
Access Restrictions

Twenty-four hour advanced notice encouraged. Materials must be used on-site. Access to parts of this collection may be restricted under provisions of state or federal law.

Languages
English
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Historical Note

Dividing his time between Utah and California, A. Russell Mortensen spent his early professional years as a teacher, administrator and editor. Born in Salt Lake City to Arlington Peter and Fannie Burnham Mortensen on January 30, 1911, he was raised in southern California. Mortensen returned to Utah in the early 1930s to attend Brigham Young University. While there he met and married Bessie Burch, a native of Spanish Fork, Utah. After receiving a B. S. in history in 1937 Mortensen became principal of the Garfield County Cannonville School for one year.

The Mortensens spent two years in California while he worked on a masters' degree, awarded in 1940 from the University of California at Los Angeles, before returning to Utah. For the next six years Mortensen was a history instructor at Provo High School. His teaching was interrupted during World War II when he served in the Pacific Theatre as a Naval Communications Officer.

Following the war, the couple again returned to California and Mortensen returned to the U.C.L.A. campus. For the next four years Mortensen worked toward a doctorate in history acting as a Teaching Assistant at U.C.L.A. and later as an instructor of U.S. and Latin American History at San Bernardino Valley College. While in San Bernardino, Mortensen continued his association with the U.S. Navy as the Assistant Training Officer at the U.S. Naval Reserve Training Center.

A. Russell Mortensen received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1950. That same year his wife, Bessie, died following the birth of their sixth child. With this blow Mortensen removed his family to Utah where he accepted the position of Director of the Utah Historical Society and editor of its journal Utah Historical Quarterly. During his eleven years as director he wrote a number of articles for the Utah Historical Quarterly, other journals, and local newspapers. In 1958 the book Among the Mormons, co-authored with William Mulder, was published. It was also during these years that he married Florence Page.

In 1961 Mortensen became director of the University of Utah Press, and Professor of History and Library Science at the university. The Western History Association and the university were sponsoring a new quarterly journal, the American West, for which Mortensen served as editor between 1962 and 1967. While editor, his second wife died and he married Dorothy Zackrison Summerhays.

Following his resignation as editor of the American West due to a controversy over his possible conflict of interest as a stockholder in the new American West Publishing Company, Mortensen continued to teach at the University of Utah. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Alabama. During his years with the university he was involved in other historical projects. In 1969 he served as a member of the board of the Utah Historic Survey Committee. With sketches done by Carlos Andreson, the University of Utah Press published Mortensen's Early Utah Sketches in 1970.

Between 1970 and 1976 Mortensen worked in Washington, D. C. with the National Park Service as Assistant and then Chief Historian. He was also the director of the NPS Historic Site Preservation Program and an Advisory Board Member for the "State and the National Bicentennial Series."

The American Association for State and Local History, for which he has served as Council Member, General Editor, Secretary, and President, presented him with an Award of Distinction, for his work in the historical field, in 1979. This one joined his awards for the American West, the Joint Award of Merit with the Utah Historical Society, and his award as co-author of Among the Mormons.

Throughout his career, Mortensen served with a number of Utah groups including the Family Service Society, the State Parks Commission, the State Library Commission and the Utah Folklore Society. He was also a member of professional and special interest organizations which include the Western History Association, the American Association for State and Local History, Utah Westerners' Club and the Utah Sons of Pioneers.

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Content Description

The A. Russell Mortensen papers (1830-1996) consist of the personal and professional papers of Mortensen (b. 1911), a teacher, administrator, and editor. The small amount of personal material consists of a few letters from family embers, letters about his service in the naval reserve, and information about the disposition of the estate of Mary Burnham Jones. The first box holds these personal materials as well as alphabetically arranged correspondence from friends and acquaintances. These letters do not include material related to other portions of the collection.

Mortensen occupied a number of professional positions during his career. Correspondence and information about these jobs, arranged alphabetically by organizational title, are filed together in Box 2. Also contained in this portion are applications and correspondence about a number of positions for which Mortensen applied. There is a small chronological file of recommendations written by Mortensen between 1968 and 1970.

There are four boxes of alphabetically arranged materials from organizations of which Mortensen was a member. These files include correspondence, membership information, general information about the organization, committee reports and recommendations, and other miscellaneous material.

One box of manuscripts, articles, and publication information includes a draft of Early Utah Sketches, written by Mortensen and illustrated with sketches by Carlos Andreson (University of Utah Press, 1970). There are copies of a number of brief articles published in Utah newspapers by Mortensen while he was the Director of the Utah State Historical Society. Also included is correspondence about C. Gregory Crampton's book Standing Up Country, and copies of manuscripts about Utah and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints written by people other than Mortensen.

Among the Mormons, published in 1958, was written in collaboration with William Mulder. There are three different drafts of the book included: a final draft, a complete manuscript with cut-and-paste revisions, and an incomplete draft with written revisions of the front pages and the first three sections of this anthology. There are three boxes of materials from which the extracted portions of the book were taken. As all of these previously published materials are arranged alphabetically by author they do not appear again in the index.

The bulk of the collection consists of the files concerning the American West magazine. Six boxes of material cover the business dealings of the publication. Included are correspondence and other informational material dealing with finances, legal problems, magazine production and promotion, and miscellaneous related subjects.

Under the sponsorship of the Western History Association and the University of Utah, publication and promotion of the magazine was undertaken by Lane Book Company. In 1965 a new company, American West Publishing Company, was formed to take over that function. The business files include correspondence about the controversy which developed because staff members holding paid positions with the University and working on the American West stood to profit from holding stock in the new publishing company. It was at this point that Mortensen resigned as editor, and the files contain very little post-dating 1967.

The following twenty boxes contain manuscripts and correspondence sent to A. Russell Mortensen as editor of the American West. Filed in seventeen of these are manuscripts which were published in the magazine, and correspondence. The letters include those about the manuscripts, many asking about possible publication, those from the magazine to publishing houses seeking books to be reviewed and a few seeking other kinds of information or reprints of articles appearing in the magazine. The other three boxes contain manuscripts, and accompanying correspondence, which were submitted but for various reasons, were never published. These unpublished manuscripts are available for research use, but may not be copied without written permission from the author. All the manuscripts and correspondence are arranged alphabetically. Because of this arrangement not all names reappear in the index.

Some of the manuscripts, both published and unpublished were accompanied by editorial comments or staff evaluations. On the basis of a letter from the Assistant Attorney General for the University of Utah, these evaluations and comments have been declared confidential and removed to closed files until the year 2017.

The final portion of the collection includes papers given at the 1965 North American Fur Trade Conference. Some of these papers were published in a volume titled Aspects of the Fur Trade: Selected Papers of the 1965 North American Fur Trade Conference (Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, 1967). These are filed together alphabetically. The remaining, unpublished papers are also filed in alphabetical order and may be used for research purposes but not copied without written permission of the author.

Addenda to the collection includes correspondence, grant proposals, writings, news clippings, and materials on western history.

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Use of the Collection

Restrictions on Use

NO PHOTOCOPYING ALLOWED FROM BOX 41.

The library does not claim to control copyright for all materials in the collection. An individual depicted in a reproduction has privacy rights as outlined in Title 45 CFR, part 46 (Protection of Human Subjects). For further information, please review the J. Willard Marriott Library's Use Agreement and Reproduction Request forms.

Preferred Citation

Collection Name, Collection Number, Box Number, Folder Number. Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah.

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Administrative Information

Acquisition Information

Boxes 1-43 were donated in 1972 (18 linear feet).

Boxes 44-47 were donated in 1982 (2 linear feet).

Boxes 48-57 were donated in 1993 and 1996 (5 linear feet).

Processing Note

Processed by Marlene Lewis and Kate Kimball in 1980-2002.

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Separated Materials

Photographs and audio-visual materials were transferred to the Multimedia Division of Special Collections (P0201 and A0417).

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Detailed Description of the Collection

Finding aid prepared by Marlene Lewis.
1980 (last modified: 2019)

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