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Hidden History
Hidden History of Utah
In the 1840s, land west of the Missouri River was a new frontier for courage, adventure, freedom and true grit. During this era and the decades that followed, Utah became the focal point for many brave settlers yearning for a new way of life. While Utah's proud Mormon legacy is well documented, there are lesser-known stories that contribute to the state's fascinating history. Join public historian, author and history columnist Eileen Hallet Stone for a look into the state's forgotten past as she presents a revelatory collection of tales culled from her popular "Salt Lake Tribune" "Living History" column. From newly freed slaves, early suffragists, desert farmers and union men to railroad kings, cattle barons, influential statesmen and more, this is "Hidden History of Utah."
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
208 pages, Paperback
First published November 10, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 9, 2014
This book is a collection of articles originally printed in the Salt Lake Tribune. It is supposed to be a history of the minority peoples of Utah, basically, of those other than white Mormon males. And it is this, to a point.
Hallet Stone gives a great deal of coverage to Jewish Utahns, a decent coverage of Greeks, Chinese, and Japanese, a tiny nod to Blacks, the Basques, and Hispanics -- and that's it. Granted, the African-American population of Utah has never been very high, but the Hispanic population has been significant, yet these peoples are fairly ignored. Also, there is no mention of Polynesians or Native Americans, nor of whites of other religious preferences, such as Catholics or Protestants. Thus, the book is quite selective.
Also, the articles are very abrupt. It is my understanding that there was a word limit for the newspaper articles, but certainly a paragraph or two might have been added where necessary for the book format.
But the biggest problem for me was the lack of editing. Hallet Stone is quite the mistress of misplaced and dangling modifiers which either add unintentional hilarity or else garble the meaning. Furthermore, sometimes the research is a bit lacking in the articles. In Chapter 58, she implies that "Czechoslovakian" is a language (speakers of Czech and Slovak will likely tell you they're not identical), and in Chapter 24, Hallet Stone consistently uses the terms "shepherd," "sheepman," and "sheepherder" interchangeably, as if they were all synonyms, while, in actuality, they mean different things.
Thus, while the book is fairly interesting, I found that I couldn't take it as all truth. How can I trust the author's claims when a single read-through brought to light a number of errors? How much does she change or leave out to make that snappy, 600-word article? Clearly, her editor wasn't very thorough in either fact-checking or grammar-checking.
In retrospect, I wish I hadn't purchased it; borrowing from the library would have been enough.
Hallet Stone gives a great deal of coverage to Jewish Utahns, a decent coverage of Greeks, Chinese, and Japanese, a tiny nod to Blacks, the Basques, and Hispanics -- and that's it. Granted, the African-American population of Utah has never been very high, but the Hispanic population has been significant, yet these peoples are fairly ignored. Also, there is no mention of Polynesians or Native Americans, nor of whites of other religious preferences, such as Catholics or Protestants. Thus, the book is quite selective.
Also, the articles are very abrupt. It is my understanding that there was a word limit for the newspaper articles, but certainly a paragraph or two might have been added where necessary for the book format.
But the biggest problem for me was the lack of editing. Hallet Stone is quite the mistress of misplaced and dangling modifiers which either add unintentional hilarity or else garble the meaning. Furthermore, sometimes the research is a bit lacking in the articles. In Chapter 58, she implies that "Czechoslovakian" is a language (speakers of Czech and Slovak will likely tell you they're not identical), and in Chapter 24, Hallet Stone consistently uses the terms "shepherd," "sheepman," and "sheepherder" interchangeably, as if they were all synonyms, while, in actuality, they mean different things.
Thus, while the book is fairly interesting, I found that I couldn't take it as all truth. How can I trust the author's claims when a single read-through brought to light a number of errors? How much does she change or leave out to make that snappy, 600-word article? Clearly, her editor wasn't very thorough in either fact-checking or grammar-checking.
In retrospect, I wish I hadn't purchased it; borrowing from the library would have been enough.
February 18, 2014
There's a misconception outside of Utah, and okay, even inside Utah, that all of Utah's history is about the Mormons. Mormon pioneers coming to the Beehive State in 1847, setting up their polygamist kingdom, and then fighting against the U.S. government for fifty years to become a state. It wasn't until the Mormons agreed to give up polygamy in 1890 that the United States allowed them to move from being a territory to a state, which finally happened in 1896. For many people, that is the history of Utah. But it's much more than that.
Eileen Hallet Stone is a reporter and columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune. One of her ongoing columns has been Living History, revived after being dormant for some time. As a Utah History teacher, I've enjoyed the articles in the paper when I've caught them--but there have been many I've missed. Thankfully, 58 of those short stories have now been collected in Hidden History of Utah, a 2013 book published by The History Press. The 200 page book is an interesting series of snapshots into the "other history" of Utah, and it's a great resource for Utah residents or simply history buffs who want to know more about the Western United States.
Most of the stories cover the century from 1850 to 1950, and are each only two to three pages long. It's a great one to read in short batches, when you've only got a few minutes to get your history on. The articles are grouped into categories:
Early Towns, Different Stories
Western Entrepreneur's True Grit
Matters of Inequity
Rails, Wires, Wheels and Roads,
Uniquely Utah
Suffragists in the West
Working the Mines
...you get the idea. There are stories from World War II, from the Great Depression, about Prostitution and Prohibition. Many of her stories are meant to bust the myths that Utah has always been dry (it hasn't, and still isn't), or that we're all a bunch of white bread Mormons (okay, I am, but there's more diversity here than people realize). The stories are entertaining, succinct, and well-written. The one caution is that Stone seems to be so interested in telling the "other stories" of Utah's History that she doesn't include the traditional Mormon stories at all. Filling in gaps is good, but if a reader picked this up expecting to cover all of Utah's History, there would be some series chunks missing.
with that caveat in mind, if you're interested in Utah History, this is a good place to start. There are other contributors to the Living History column, including longtime Salt Lake Tribune cartoonist Pat Bagley--I'd love to see more collections in this series. Past publications by the Salt Lake Tribune have included It Happened in Utah by Gayen and Tom Wharton, and In Another Time, by the late Harold Schindler. All are worth tracking down, for the same reasons that Hidden History of Utah is.
Eileen Hallet Stone is a reporter and columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune. One of her ongoing columns has been Living History, revived after being dormant for some time. As a Utah History teacher, I've enjoyed the articles in the paper when I've caught them--but there have been many I've missed. Thankfully, 58 of those short stories have now been collected in Hidden History of Utah, a 2013 book published by The History Press. The 200 page book is an interesting series of snapshots into the "other history" of Utah, and it's a great resource for Utah residents or simply history buffs who want to know more about the Western United States.
Most of the stories cover the century from 1850 to 1950, and are each only two to three pages long. It's a great one to read in short batches, when you've only got a few minutes to get your history on. The articles are grouped into categories:
Early Towns, Different Stories
Western Entrepreneur's True Grit
Matters of Inequity
Rails, Wires, Wheels and Roads,
Uniquely Utah
Suffragists in the West
Working the Mines
...you get the idea. There are stories from World War II, from the Great Depression, about Prostitution and Prohibition. Many of her stories are meant to bust the myths that Utah has always been dry (it hasn't, and still isn't), or that we're all a bunch of white bread Mormons (okay, I am, but there's more diversity here than people realize). The stories are entertaining, succinct, and well-written. The one caution is that Stone seems to be so interested in telling the "other stories" of Utah's History that she doesn't include the traditional Mormon stories at all. Filling in gaps is good, but if a reader picked this up expecting to cover all of Utah's History, there would be some series chunks missing.
with that caveat in mind, if you're interested in Utah History, this is a good place to start. There are other contributors to the Living History column, including longtime Salt Lake Tribune cartoonist Pat Bagley--I'd love to see more collections in this series. Past publications by the Salt Lake Tribune have included It Happened in Utah by Gayen and Tom Wharton, and In Another Time, by the late Harold Schindler. All are worth tracking down, for the same reasons that Hidden History of Utah is.
August 27, 2017
I'm a new UT transplant, absorbing all I can about my new state. This book is pretty much what I hoped - historical snapshots of Utah, and something different from the prominent Brigham Young narrative. It tells a story of the state through individual people, industry, and events. But it's so brief, it's hard to grasp the larger historical picture.
The book is a compilation of articles from Stone's "Living History" column in the Salt Lake Tribune. 650 words doesn't leave a lot of room for analysis, so the stories seem unfinished at times, and there are a lot of things left out of the overall narrative. For instance, the Utes are barely mentioned, which doesn't seem quite right. I enjoyed it, and learned a lot, but it's the sort of book for reading wide rather than deep.
The book is a compilation of articles from Stone's "Living History" column in the Salt Lake Tribune. 650 words doesn't leave a lot of room for analysis, so the stories seem unfinished at times, and there are a lot of things left out of the overall narrative. For instance, the Utes are barely mentioned, which doesn't seem quite right. I enjoyed it, and learned a lot, but it's the sort of book for reading wide rather than deep.
September 14, 2019
This collection of newspaper columns was an interesting insight into Utah history for the relative newcomer I am (32 years ago). I learned a lot for every column. Maybe I will FB what I learned from each column. It really tied together some things I've heard over the years - novels and other news stories and friends from different communities. So much history already forgotten - like Japantown. Italians in Price. Even the Basques made an appearance. Also I am now interested in white celery.
April 22, 2021
I enjoyed these short historical essays. I realize they had to be kept to 650 words or less, but I wished for more. It was especially interesting to read about what was going on outside the LDS culture and I imagined my own family in California and so many others having similar experiences. This would be a good "bathroom book" with short 2-3 page stories of interesting people. Again, I wished the stories had more room to fly.
February 6, 2017
Interesting book about the times and people of Utah you don't typically hear about. However if your looking for lots of history and facts this isn't the book for you. Each chapter is short. Maybe 1-3 pages. It touches upon things but never goes into detail. I really wish I could have read more in some chapters.
December 28, 2023
Very interesting. The long untold stories of the other brave settlers of Utah. It was interesting to see the Jewish connection of many of the other settlers on the Utah frontier . Howver I I detected an underlying dislike of the Mormon legacy.
March 14, 2024
I have written for newspapers and magazines for years, so needless to say the grammar errors were a bit annoying. Some of the chapters were very interesting, but many were quite boring.
However, I did learn a lot and appreciated the historical pictures!
However, I did learn a lot and appreciated the historical pictures!
February 3, 2016
It would be silly to rail against the length of the pieces in this book, as the author makes it clear that her editor at the Salt Lake Tribune set a hard upper limit at 600 words for each of the pieces that compose this book. For the most part, this is enough to give you precisely the taste you are meant to get - short, intimate glimpses into some of the more interesting lives that have shaped the history of the west. Even growing up in Utah, one doesn't hear anything about the short-lived kibbutzes established on barren land here or the prostitution that practically swallowed Salt Lake City at the turn of the century. These short, digestible stories are great at shedding light on these fascinating little episodes.
They are much less effective, however, at covering the larger stories the author (sometimes unadvisedly) makes a run for: Holocaust survivors who happened to have settled in Utah after the war cannot have their stories adequately told in only 600 words, and it is somewhat ridiculous for the story of liberation from an extermination camp to end with little more than "and they settled in Utah. The end." A more obvious complaint one might make against this book, however, is its total lack of any mention of Native American history in Utah. This is, perhaps, more of a complaint against the Salt Lake Tribune for not asking for such an article for its Living History series. But it is a serious blindspot in an otherwise very interesting and entertaining book treating often overlooked aspects of western American history.
They are much less effective, however, at covering the larger stories the author (sometimes unadvisedly) makes a run for: Holocaust survivors who happened to have settled in Utah after the war cannot have their stories adequately told in only 600 words, and it is somewhat ridiculous for the story of liberation from an extermination camp to end with little more than "and they settled in Utah. The end." A more obvious complaint one might make against this book, however, is its total lack of any mention of Native American history in Utah. This is, perhaps, more of a complaint against the Salt Lake Tribune for not asking for such an article for its Living History series. But it is a serious blindspot in an otherwise very interesting and entertaining book treating often overlooked aspects of western American history.
June 9, 2016
This is a collection of short articles from the Salt Lake Tribune about the people and history you don't read about often. Some cool stories and a good place to start if you're looking to find the not so common history of Utah.
July 14, 2015
I love all things local and this book is no exception. Respectfully well written. An easy read that will inspire you to explore the diverse and, at times, progressive nature of Utah's post "this is the place" history.
June 4, 2015
Fascinating!!! I learned so many things about which I had no idea.
July 16, 2016
Interesting tidbits but I wanted more information. Of course this is a collection of newspaper articles so that just wasn't going to happen.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews