Utah in the Twentieth Century

Description

The twentieth could easily be Utah’s most interesting, complex century, yet popular ideas of what is history seem mired in the nineteenth. One reason may be the lack of readily available writing on more recent Utah history. This collection of essays shifts historical focus forward to the twentieth, which began and ended with questions of Utah’s fit with the rest of the nation. In between was an extended period of getting acquainted in an uneasy but necessary marriage, which was complicated by the push of economic development and pull of traditional culture, demand for natural resources from a fragile and scenic environment, and questions of who governs and how, who gets a vote, and who controls what is done on and to the contested public lands. Outside trade and a tourist economy increasingly challenged and fed an insular society. Activists left and right declaimed constitutional liberties while Utah’s Native Americans become the last enfranchised in the nation. Proud contributions to national wars contrasted with denial of deep dependence on federal money; the skepticism of provocative writers, with boosters eager for growth; and reflexive patriotism somehow bonded to ingrained distrust of federal government. Cover Frontmatter Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: Utah in the Twentieth Century I. Getting to Know the Place: Image and Experience 1. The Disappearance of Everett Ruess and the Discovery of Utah’s Red Rock Country 2 “The Famous Blue Valley” and a Century of Hopes 3. Selling Sleep: The Rise and Fall of Utah’s Historic Motels 4. Bernard DeVoto’s Utah II. Connecting to the Nation: Utah and the U.S.A. 5. “Proud to Send Those Parachutes Off ”: Central Utah’s Rosies during World War II 6. Educating the Mormon Hierarchy: The Grassroots Oppositionto the MX in Utah 8. The Battle over Tariff Reduction: The Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, Senator Reed Smoot, and the 1913 Underwood Act 9. Public Opinion, Culture, and Religion in Utah 11. “We are not seeking trouble and so will just go along quietly just now”: The IWW’s 1913 Free-Speech Fight in Salt Lake City 12. What Is the Best Way to Govern a City? IV. Growing Challenges: People and Resources 13. Utah’s Public Schools: Problems, Controversies, and Achievements, 1945–2000 16. Utah’s Recent Growth: The St. George/Washington County Example Contributors Index