Leonard J. Arrington

While teaching at the Utah State Agricultural College in Logan, Utah, Harvard University Press published his book Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830–1900 in 1958.

After a Fulbright professorship at the University of Genoa in Italy, Arrington raised funds to pay for research and writing on LDS (Mormon) biographies.

Since 1842, he was the first non-general authority Church Historian for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), from 1972 to 1982, and was director of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History from 1982 until 1986.

Arrington grew up in a large family in Idaho, where he and his family were members of the LDS Church.

After high school, he studied agricultural economics at the University of Idaho and continued studying economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Leonard James Arrington (July 2, 1917 – February 11, 1999) was an American author, academic and the founder of the Mormon History Association.

He is known as the "Dean of Mormon History" and "the Father of Mormon History" because of his many influential contributions to the field.

Leonard Arrington was born in Twin Falls, Idaho on July 2, 1917, the third of eleven children.

His parents, Noah and Edna, were farmers and devout Latter-day Saints, the most well-known branch of Mormonism.

Arrington grew up as an aspiring farmer and active member and one of the first national officers of the National FFA Organization.

For his FFA independent project, he raised several hundred Rhode Island Red chickens and won a prize for them at the Idaho State Fair in 1934.

The chicken project helped him win a Union Pacific Railroad scholarship.

Arrington was also a member of the Boy Scouts and read books by Ernest Thompson Seton, naturalist co-founder of the Boy Scouts.

In the summers, he slept outside in the family orchard to have a quiet place to read and enjoyed an idyllic country life.

On one evening observing nature, Arrington had a transcendent experience where he felt "an intimate kinship with the world" which he said "made it easy for me [...] to integrate personal religious experiences and intuitions with the more formal affirmations, practices, forms, and ceremonies of the organized church."

During the Great Depression, Arrington was curious about the price of potatoes and set about his first economic experiment.

He put slips of paper in some of the sacks of potatoes his family harvested, with the information that the potatoes were sold for five cents per hundred pound sack, and requested that the recipient tell him the price they paid via his address.

Several people responded, and one person had paid two dollars for the same sack of potatoes.

Arrington's father offered to pay for Arrington to serve as an LDS missionary, but not for a university education.

Arrington did not serve an LDS mission, but considered his educational endeavors a form of church service.

Under a scholarship to the University of Idaho, Arrington studied agricultural science in 1935, later changing to agricultural economics.

George S. Tanner, the director of the LDS Institute at the University of Idaho, was a progressive intellectual Mormon who taught Arrington that Christianity and science could be compatible and that other translations of the Bible could assist in its interpretation.

One of the university's newest economics professors, Erwin Graue, taught the ideas of Alfred Marshall and influenced Arrington to see economics as a study of human relationships and not just mathematical economic forces.

Marshall wrote that religious fervor could influence people to act altruistically.

Arrington graduated cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1939.

Arrington then began graduate work under a Kenan teaching fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

and married Grace Fort in 1942.

Grace joined the LDS Church in 1946.

He taught Western American History at Brigham Young University (BYU) from 1972 to 1987.

In conjunction with his teaching appointment at BYU, Arrington was also appointed as the first Church Historian for the LDS Church from 1972 to 1982.

It was the first time a professional historian was given this job.

Arrington and his team of researchers, forming the church Historical Department, began many projects to document LDS Church history, ranging from articles for the church's official magazine to scholarly books written for a non-LDS audience.

The Historical Department was not subject to the church's Correlation Program and enjoyed some freedom of research.

However, over time, various church members and apostles disliked the historical articles.

The new director of the Historical Department, G. Homer Durham, required that all publications go through him and halted the hiring of new employees.

In 1982, the LDS Church released Arrington as Church Historian and transferred the History Division to BYU, creating the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History.

Arrington published over 20 books and articles, including several biographies, with the help of many research assistants.

Arrington donated his research and personal papers to Utah State University, and also donated microfilms of his pre-1982 diaries to the LDS Church Archives, with the condition that the diaries not be read until 25 years after his death.

However, the LDS Church broke the agreement when shortly after Arrington's death they argued that they owned part of the collection, and asked Arrington's daughter to excise portions of Arrington's diary.

After legal negotiation, half of a box of the collection was given to the LDS Church Archives.