News from the George Sutherland Archives

By Catherine McIntyre, Archivist


Welcome back! We’ve had a busy spring and summer and are looking forward to adding more archival and digital collections throughout the coming year. Toward that end, I’d also like to ask all of you to contribute any historical or scholarly materials that you or your students may have, such as departmental or committee proceedings, publications, research materials, scholarly class projects (oral histories, etc.) student theses, and so on. These types of items help document and preserve the ongoing
history and scholarly endeavors of Utah Valley University faculty and students.

New Archives Collection

Unknown Civil War soldier.
Tintype with gold foil.
From the Sutherland Archives.

We received a donation last spring from area businessman Steve Zolman which consists of materials collected by and about the John Varah Long family, his descendants, and their families. John Varah Long (1826–1869) was a personal clerk to LDS Church second president Brigham Young, but  fell out
of favor with him, was excommunicated, and reportedly died mysteriously. Long’s death was, as the
rumor goes, because he had overheard Brigham Young’s instructions to George Albert Smith regarding actions related to the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

The majority of this collection is from the Hance and Watson families, who were in-laws, descendants, or other relatives of John V. Long. It includes many ambrotypes and photographs, as well as scrapbooks, personal papers, correspondence, legal documents, mining documents,  genealogical records, stock certificates, and other miscellaneous items. It is now completely processed and ready for use by interested researchers, with a detailed finding aid available online at http://contentdm.uvu.edu/u?/UVUfindaid,290.

Digitization

We have been awarded a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant of $10,000 toward digitizing the student newspaper back to 1966! Just like UVU, the student newspaper has gone by several names reflecting its changing role, from The Tradewinds to the UTC Press, to the College Times and now the UVU Review.

These papers, which contain a wealth of historical information, have been housed in the student newspaper--morgue--under the care of Robbin Anthony, and we are looking forward to working with her to make them freely searchable and accessible online for the first time!

UVU Digital Repository  

We now have 183 student theses online in our UVU Digital Repository. This collection Includes undergraduate Honors and Integrated Studies theses as well as Master’s theses from the Education and Nursing graduate programs.