In This Issue

It is the Utah Historical Quarterly’s custom to entice you, the reader, to read on, with engaging article descriptions in the opening pages of the issue. This custom will be continued—in a few minutes.

As the publisher and editor of UHQ, I want to reflect on some small but, I hope, valuable changes made at the quarterly and share some about the UHQ’s future, its publications, and public offerings. This is my request for a sound check: how are we doing; how do we sound out there? We want to hear from you, so please visit history.utah.gov/uhqextras.

It is our hope to hold fast to the most beloved features of the UHQ, while offering new methods of delivering thoughtful, peer-reviewed Utah history—history that the UHQ and the Utah Division of State History want to make available to all interested households in Utah and beyond. This is a goal of the UHQ: to make this resource available to as many citizens and friends as possible. Over the years, a long line of remarkable, devoted historians and editors have been at the helm of the quarterly. In the last three years, UHQ hired two historians, Dr. Holly George and Dr. Jedediah Rogers, to join this tradition and manage the journal’s complex day-to-day operations.

For six issues the quarterly has offered supplemental materials beyond the printed page: podcasts, photo and map galleries, bibliographic essays, and primary sources. These “extras” offer the back story to the printed article, a chance to examine original sources, and an opportunity to dig deeper into historical events. Start with the print journal and, if you like, explore an expanded narrative online.

In the last year we have launched each new issue with a public program, allowing us to engage our readers and to connect with local history, archaeology, and preservation groups. These events feature scholars speaking about their work or themes published in the latest issue.

Also in 2015, we reestablished lapsed publishing partnerships with the University of Utah Press and other entities to foster and make accessible praiseworthy work that expands the frontiers of Utah’s history. State History and the UHQ have also launched annual statewide themes and encouraged Utah’s historical societies, museums, and groups to address these themes at the local level. Our 2016 theme is “Rural Utah and Western Issues,” with a thoughtful focus beyond the Wasatch Front urban corridor. This theme will be followed throughout 2016, including during all of May for Preservation and Archeology Month, concluding on September 30, 2016, at the statewide public history conference, held at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center.

Now, here is a look at what is in store for you in this issue. Our opening essay tackles a subject common in Utah history—the relationship between those inside and outside the LDS church—through the prism of public health. Ben Cater explores the dynamics that pitted working and lower middle-class Mormons accustomed to folk medicine against professionally trained doctors and public health officials over smallpox vaccination. Utah’s news print also reflected religious and political divisions, as surveyed in our second piece. Michael Eldredge provides a useful overview of how newspapers and their prominent editors in Ogden served as political and social instruments in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Our third piece keeps us in the early twentieth century by examining a governmental body during the First World War charged with coordinating home-front activities. Whereas our first two articles highlight religious divisions, Allan Kent Powell details how Mormons and non-Mormons came together in the war effort. And, finally, Lorrie Rands introduces us to the women of Ogden’s canteen and their dedication to serving soldiers during the Second World War.

Brad Westwood Publisher/Editor