Paul Reeve | Professor, Department Chair
Simmons Chair of Mormon Studies
Paul Reeve
Professor, Department Chair,
Simmons Chair of Mormon Studies
801/585-9231
CTIHB 323
About
Paul Reeve is the chair of the History Department and Simmons Chair of Mormon Studies at the University of Utah where he teaches courses on Utah history, Mormon history, and the history of the U.S. West. His book, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness, (Oxford, 2015) received three best book awards. He is the recipient of the Utah Council for the Social Studies’ University Teacher of the Year award, the University of Utah’s Early Career Teaching Award, and the College of Humanities’ Ramona W. Cannon Award for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities. He is author of Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood, published by Deseret Book in 2023 with a foreword by Darius Gray. He is Project Manager and General Editor of an award-winning digital database, Century of Black Mormons, designed to name and identify all known Black Latter-day Saints baptized into the faith between 1830 and 1930. The database is live at CenturyofBlackMormons.org.
- BA, History, Brigham Young University
- MA, History, Brigham Young University
- PhD, History, University of Utah
19th Century Utah History, Mormon History, U.S. West, Race, and Religion
Books
This Abominable Slavery: Race, Religion and the Battle over Human Bondage in Antebellum Utah, coauthor with LaJean Carruth and Christopher Rich, forthcoming, Oxford University Press, 2024.
Let’s Talk About Race and the Priesthood. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2023.
Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Between Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore, co-editor with Michael Van Wagenen. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2011.
Mormonism: A Historical Encyclopedia, co-editor with Ardis E. Parshall, Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2010.
Making Space on the Western Frontier: Mormons, Miners, and Southern Paiutes. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006.
Articles
“‘I Dug the Graves’: Isaac Lewis Manning, Joseph Smith, and Racial Connections in Two Latter Day Saint Traditions,” Journal of Mormon History, 47, No. 1 (January 2021), 29-67.
“Reconstruction, Religion, and the West: The Great Impeacher Meets the Mormons,” Journal of Mormon History, 46, No. 2 (April 2020), 5-45.
“Century of Black Mormons: A Preliminary Interpretation of the Data,” Current Research in Digital History, vol. 2 (2019).
“‘Places that can be Easily Defended’: A Case Study in the Economics of Abandonment During Utah’s Black Hawk War,” Utah Historical Quarterly 75 (Summer 2007): 220-237.
“‘As Ugly as Evil’ and ‘As Wicked as Hell’: Gadianton Robbers and the Legend Process Among the Mormons,” Journal of Mormon History 27 (Fall 2001): 125-149.
HIST 1700 American Civilization
HIST 4660/6660 Utah History
HIST 4795/6795 Mormonism and the American Experience
HIST 7620 US West Colloquium
HIST 7870 Seminar in the American West
Best Book Award, Mormon History Association, Religion of a Different Color, June 2016.
Francis Armstrong Madsen Best History Book Award, Utah Division of State History, Religion of a Different Color, September 2016.
Smith-Pettit Best Book Award, John Whitmer Historical Association, Religion of a Different Color, September 2016.
Greg Kofford Best Historical Article, John Whitmer Historical Association, 2022, for “’I Dug the Graves’: Isaac Lewis Manning, Joseph Smith, and Racial Connections in Two Latter Day Saint Traditions,” Journal of Mormon History 47, no. 1 (2021): 29-67.
Best Journal of Mormon History article, Mormon History Association, 2022, for “‘I Dug the Graves’: Isaac Lewis Manning, Joseph Smith, and Racial Connections in two Latter Day Saint Traditions,” Journal of Mormon History 47, no. 1 (2021): 29-67.
Ardis E. Parshall Best Public History Award, Mormon History Association, Century of Black Mormons, June 2022.
Elijah Able Service Award, Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage, Century of Black Mormons, May 2021.
University Teacher of the Year, Utah Council for the Social Studies, 2016.
Early Career Teaching Award, The Center for Teaching & Learning Excellence, University of Utah, April 2011.
Ramona W. Cannon Award for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities, University of Utah, April 2011.