Levi Edgar Young photograph collection, circa 1920s

Levi Edgar Young was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1874, the son of Dr. Seymour B. Young and Ann Elizabeth Riter Young. He attended the University of Utah, from which he graduated with a bachelors degree in 1895. His education continued at Harvard University in 1898, where he principally studied history but also took classes from and became acquainted with the noted American philosopher William James. In 1910, he received a master's degree in History from Columbia University.

After his graduation from the University of Utah, Young began a long career as an educator. He taught in the Salt Lake City public schools from 1895 until 1896. From 1896 to 1898, he taught English at LDS College; and after returning from Harvard in 1899, he was appointed assistant professor in the department of history at the University of Utah. He continued to teach there, with the exception of breaks for further education and missionary service for the LDS Church, until he retired forty years later in 1939.

A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Young served a mission in Germany in 1901. After a year of service he was appointed president of the Swiss Mission. He was 28 years old at the time, making him one of the youngest mission presidents to serve in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both of the journals in the collection resulted from Young's missions to Germany and Switzerland. Young returned to his teaching duties in 1904, and in 1907 he married Valeria Brinton. Together, they had three children. In 1910 he was made a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' First Council of the Seventy and, in time, he became the senior president of that group, a position that both his father and grandfather (Joseph Young--a brother of Brigham Young) had held. From 1922 to 1934 Young served as president of the Temple Square Mission in Salt Lake City, Utah; and after retiring from teaching, he again served as mission president for three years (1939-1942), in the New England Mission.

Throughout both his teaching and ecclesiastical careers, Young was honored several times, particularly for his work teaching history. He was named head of the Utah Historical Society in 1945, and lead the group's celebration of the Utah pioneer centennial in 1947. In 1959 the society awarded Young an honorary life membership in recognition of his fifty years of work with the society. In 1960 the University of Utah bestowed an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree on Young for his long service to that institution. Through Young's intercession the university libraries were also able to acquire several historical book collections and rare volumes. Young died in Salt Lake City in 1963.