Leonard J. Arrington
American Mormon historian
Leonard James Arrington (July 2, 1917 – February 11, 1999) was an American author, academic and the founder of the Mormon History Association (MHA). He is known as the "Dean of Mormon History" and "the Father of Mormon History" because of his contributions to the field. From 1972 to 1982, he was Church Historian for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), the first non-general authority to fill the assignment since it began in 1842. He 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 (U of I) and continued studying economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). While teaching at the Utah State Agricultural College (later Utah State University (USU)) in Logan, Utah, Harvard University Press (HUP) 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 Mormon biographies. 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.
“Leonard J. Arrington” enters the record as american Mormon historian. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Leonard, Arrington and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Leonard J. Arrington” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Leonard, Arrington and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6525415. VIAF identifies the subject as 46779720. The Library of Congress control number is n78086398. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1917, 1999, 1972 and 1982.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Leonard J. Arrington”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Leonard J. Arrington primary sources, Leonard J. Arrington archive and Leonard research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Leonard J. Arrington”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Leonard J. Arrington” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.