Dialogue Lectures #39 w/ William MacKinnon and Richard E. Turley

September 18, 2018
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In this Dialogue podcast William MacKinnon and Richard E. Turley discuss insights from their research on the Utah War and the Mountain Meadows Massacre. From the Miller Eccles website:

Rick Turley was formerly Assistant Church Historian and is currently managing director of the Public Affairs Department of the Church. Bill MacKinnon is an independent, award winning historian of the American West, who was recently president of the Mormon History Association.

THE TOPIC: Over the decades, Richard Turley and William MacKinnon have researched and written extensively about Utah’s long, contentious territorial period. They approach the subject from quite different religious, educational, military, professional, geographical, and even generational backgrounds. Despite (or perhaps because of) such differences, these two historians are close personal friends and respectful colleagues, whose work has been enriched by the informal and stimulating exchange of discoveries and ideas over more than twenty years. Rick and Bill have often shared a platform to discuss their findings and to learn from audiences in such varied settings as the LDS stake center in Norman, Oklahoma and annual conferences of the Mormon History Association in many parts of the country.

Rick and Bill will share vignettes about the ways in which their views of the Utah War and its principal atrocity, the Mountain Meadows massacre, have changed since they began their examination of these inter-related subjects in the late 1990s and 1950s, respectively, and the surprises they (and their readers) have encountered along the way. Many of these stories are rooted in the discoveries associated with MacKinnon’s two-volume At Sword’s Point: A Documentary History of the Utah War and Turley’s collaboration with Glen Leonard and the late Ron Walker on Massacre at Mountain Meadows. However, much of what Rick and Bill will share also flows from their subsequent work on these subjects — some of it as-yet unpublished — and will be discussed publicly for the first time at these meetings. The intent and format of the sessions will enable maximum opportunity for audience questions and interactions, so attendees are urged to come to Fullerton and La Canada Flintridge with any queries for which they have been seeking answers.

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