A new podcast about Utah history, offered through the Utah Department of Heritage & Arts, and recorded at the Underground Studio is titled “Speak Your Piece”
The podcast involves two twenty-five minute segments (listen to the first or listen to both each week). Speak Your Piece webpage is: https://heritageandarts.utah.gov/speak-your-piece/
“Speak Your Piece” is a podcast where contributors share their insights and discoveries about Utah’s past, hosted by Brad Westwood.
Weekly segments of “Speak Your Piece” will be released starting in mid-January. The podcast will explore compelling stories you may not have heard before, told by a cross-section of Utah historians, archeologists and curators, as well as preservationists, rare book dealers, archivists, librarians, and more.
The sneak peek includes two programs:
#1 Bagley on the Value and Purpose of History (https://heritageandarts.utah.gov/speak-your-piece/)
Guest — Will Bagley, Utah and Western historian, author or editor of over twenty books, and former columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune (including the column “History Matters” 2000–2004).
A former journalist and, for the last thirty-five years, as a one of Utah’s most outspoken historians, Bagley answers questions regarding why people should study history, how Utah’s history has been approached in the past, and why understanding it is important to contemporary Utahns.
#2 Utah, Race Relations, and African American in the 19th and early 20th Century Utah (at the two links below)
Guest — W. Paul Reeve, University of Utah’s inaugural Simmons Professor of Mormon Studies
https://www.buzzsprout.com/780380/2340887-speak-your-piece-w-paul-reeve-part-1
https://www.buzzsprout.com/780380/2340911-speak-your-piece-w-paul-reeve-part-2
Reeve describes his public history project “Century of Black Mormons,” designed to name and identify all known African American members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1830 and 1930). The Utah period (1847-1930) being the focus of this conversation. Reeves also describes the key arguments of his award winning book Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness, which describes the complex ways Americans and Utahns approached race, including how many 19th century Americans saw the Mormons evolving into something of a new race of their own.
In the middle of January 2020 all the above, and all the previously recorded interviews (listed below) will be accessible on the above website and will be available on most podcast platforms
Alexander on the Latest Scholarship about Utah’s Most Well Known Historical Figure — Brigham Young, Guest — Thomas G. Alexander, former Director of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies and retired Professor of History at Brigham Young University.
The Last Thirty-Five Years of the History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Guest — Richard E. Turley, former Assistant Church Historian (and before this, Executive Director) of the Church History Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
When Hollywood Came to Utah, Guest – James V. D’Arc retired curator of the Motion Pictures Archives and the Film Music Archives at Brigham Young University.
Utah’s Cemetery & Burials Database at Utah State History, Guest — Amy Barry, the Utah Division of State History’s Program Manager, for the state’s Cemeteries and Burials Database. Go to: history.utah.gov/cemeteries