PROPOSAL TYPE
Orphan Paper in need of a wider group
SEEKING
- Seeking General Feedback and Interest
- Seeking Additional Presenters
- Seeking Specific Expertise
RELATED TOPICS
- Government Historians
- Material Culture
- Memory
- Museums/Exhibits
- Place
- Reflections on the Field
- Social Justice
ABSTRACT
This paper will address to founding of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP) using their recently-opened museum archives. The DUP are a Mormon-led public history organization that account for about a fourth of all museums in Utah. As a flagship organization in Utah history, at the heart of the political struggles of the DUP is the tension between Mormon versus non-Mormon histories and how to share a cohesive story about all of Utah. This paper will illustrate the problems with “pioneer” commemoration using primary sources such as minutes and newspapers from the 1901 founding of the group to address the DUP’s at-times fraught relationship with race, religion, gender, and white settler colonialism as a public history institution.
DESCRIPTION
I would like to get feedback on this proposal as well as get an idea of if it can be paired with other papers in a larger panel or working group. I am open to anything, this is my first NCPH conference. This proposal is adapted from the research I intend to do this Summer/Fall for a chapter of my PhD dissertation about the DUP. Themes that it relates to are: public history & gender, women’s history, Whiteness, religion, organizational history, memory-making, commemoration, imperialism/white settler colonialism in the West, the American West, etc.
If you have a direct offer of assistance, sensitive criticism, or wish to pass along someone’s contact information confidentially, please get in contact directly: Megan Weiss, University of Utah, [email protected]
ALL FEEDBACK AND OFFERS OF ASSISTANCE SHOULD BE SUBMITTED BY JULY 7, 2022. If you have general ideas or feedback to share, please feel free to use the comments feature below.
Megan: what a fantastic topic. Do you know this project: https://pioneermonuments.net/
Perhaps you could reach out to the project creator https://pioneermonuments.net/about-us/
It’s possible you could join forces to present a panel that puts formal scholarship (your dissertation) in conversation with public facing content (the web-based project)
This is an interesting topic. I can’t wait to hear more.
To give it more of a national context and relevance it might be helpful to have this as a panel discussion that includes people who could provide background on other groups such as the Colonial Dames, the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, etc. Understanding some of their historic similarities and differences along with social/cultural context, pivotal role in historic preservation (regionally and nationally), and the formation of a national narrative would be fascinating.