Dale Morgan was an indefatigable researcher who wrote vivid history. Celebrated for studies of the fur trade and trails, he planned a multivolume history of Mormonism, but never found the time to complete it.
To create Dale Morgan on the Mormons: Collected Works, Part 1, 1939-1951, Richard Saunders edited “scattered shards,” many of them previously unpublished, including essays on the Deseret Alphabet and the Danites. These essays demonstrate Morgan’s strength—their foundation in evidence—and some weaknesses, not all his fault. He wrote them before virtually any scholarly history of Mormonism existed, and important archives had not been created or access to them was limited. These essays remind us of the import our society should place on historians such as Morgan. He deserves to be read, and we look forward to Part II.
—Jeff Nichols, author of Prostitution, Polygamy, and Power: Salt Lake City, 1847-1918
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