Microfilm of Arlington Russell Mortensen's doctoral thesis from the University of California, Los Angeles, entitled "The Deseret News and Utah, 1850-1867," written in 1949. The preface to the paper notes that "in addition to being a history of the birth and early years of a western newspaper, this study proposes to examine significant events and conditions in pioneer Utah as reflected in the pages of its oldest newspaper." The paper is divided into six sections: Genesis and Early Problems, News Gathering and Later Editors, Federal Relations 1850-1856, The News and the Utah War, Federal Relations 1859-1867, the Breaking of Isolation, and Zion Grows. Includes bibliography. All inquiries about this item should be directed to the H. Russell Smith Curator of Western Historical Manuscripts at the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. Microfilm. San Marino, Calif. : Huntington Library Photographic Dept., 1949. 1 microfilm reel : negative 35 mm. Forms part of the Manuscripts Department's Mormon file, c.1805-1995. Utah historian Arlington Russell Mortensen (1911-1995) was born in Salt Lake City. He graduated from Brigham Young University in 1937 and earned a doctorate in history from UCLA in 1950. He became the first full time editor-director for the Utah State Historical Society in 1950 and the director of the University of Utah Press in 1961. Between 1961 and 1974 he taught library science and history at the University of Utah. He was made president of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters in 1962, and also served as general editor for the American Association for State and Local History, founding editor of The American West Magazine, assistant direct of the National Park Service, chief historian of the Park Service, and head of the Branch of Park History. He co-edited Among the Mormons: Historic Accounts by Contemporary Observers (1958) and wrote Early Utah Sketches: Historic Buildings and Scenes in Mormon Country (1969). Mortensen died in Escondido, California, in 1995.
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