Register of the Juanita Leone Leavitt Pulsipher Brooks Papers,

Juanita Leavitt Pulsipher Brooks was born in Bunkerville, Nevada in 1898. She is the granddaughter of Dudley Leavitt, one of the first pioneers of Utah's "Dixie," and is related by blood or marriage to many of the other families who settled that region. Her early interest in the history of her family and the region in which they lived developed and expanded to become her life's work, and today she is considered the foremost authority on the history of southern Utah.

Although Mrs. Brooks has made her reputation as a historian, most of her formal education was in the field of English language and literature. After graduating from Virgin Valley High School in Bunkerville in 1916, she attended Dixie Junior College in St. George, Utah, then Brigham Young University, from which she graduated with a Bachelor's degree in 1925. She returned to Dixie to teach English and serve as Dean of Women from 1925-1933, but took the school year of 1928-1929 to complete her Master's degree at Columbia University.

Her first marriage lasted only a year, ending in 1920 when her husband, Ernest Pulsipher, died of throat cancer. She acquired a son from that marriage, and completed her entire college and graduate work in spite of her encumbrances as a widowed mother. The experience forced upon her a high degree of discipline, a discipline that made possible her later career as a historian, for she wrote most of her later outpouring of books, articles, and edited documents while caring for a large family. Rising well before daylight, she wrote for several hours before preparing breakfast for her family, then crowded in whatever writing time she could during busy days as a housekeeper and active church woman.

Her domestic responsibilities increased in 1933 when she quit teaching at Dixie to marry the local sheriff, William Brooks. In addition to her son, Brooks had four sons from a previous marriage, and together they had four more children.

Juanita Brooks's career as a historian developed during the years 1933-1950, a period which began with her project of collecting and transcribing manuscript diaries and other sources in southern Utah and culminated with the publication by Stanford University Press of her classic study of The Mountain Meadows Massacre. The manuscript collecting project grew out of her earlier interest in the history of her region, but began in earnest when sociologist Nels Anderson, who lived at the time across the street from the Brooks family in St. George, suggested that Federal funds from New Deal relief programs might be available. Mrs. Brooks secured funds first from the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and later from the Works Progress Administration's Historical Records Survey to pay for several typists who worked in an office in her spare bedroom. Will Brooks' position as the man who knew everyone in Washington County opened many doors for his wife on her manuscript collecting forays. Before long the quantity and quality of the work done on her project began to attract wider attention. One of the most fruitful results of the reputation Mrs. Brooks acquired during the project was a deep and long lasting friendship with Dale L. Morgan, who was at the time director of the WPA Federal Writers' Project and beginning to attract national attention as a first-rate historian with a consuming zeal for accuracy, an appetite for hard work, and a graceful literary style -- all qualities that came to characterize Mrs. Brooks' work as well.

During the 1930s an almost constant stream of writing began to flow from Mrs. Brooks' typewriter, practically all of which demonstrated an unparalleled depth of acquaintance with the sources for southern Utah history and an equally unparalleled objectivity and maturity of interpretation. But it was the appearance in 1950 of The Mountain Meadows Massacre that established her beyond question as a historian of the first rank. Her interest in that dark episode of Utah history dated from her girlhood acquaintance with Nephi Johnson, one of the central participants, and a terrifying scene at the side of his deathbed, where he deliriously recalled that day. During the intervening years, she quietly began to collect notes and sources relating to the massacre, and her book, particularly in its revised version (1962) remains the definitive account.

The thesis of the book, which blames the heightened passions of the Mormon Reformation, the Utah War and the over-reaction of the stake leadership at Cedar City for the massacre rather than Brigham Young (as skeptical Gentiles had always suspected) or John D. Lee (whom the Mormon church allowed to suffer alone as a scapegoat to avoid further investigation), would seem to have been a moderate, reasonable statement. For southern Utah Mormons, though, who had avoided all discussion of the event for almost a century, the book pricked sensitive folk and family memories, and Mrs. Brooks, even though she was a loyal and active Mormon before and since, suffered considerable ostracism in her community.

A great deal of her research for The Mountain Meadows Massacre took place during a long association with the Henry E. Huntington Library as a manuscript collector and later as a researcher. Her acquaintance with the John D. Lee sources at that institution and with the Lee family led her to follow her Meadows Massacre book with a biography of John Doyle Lee: Zealot--Pioneer Builder--Scapegoat (1961). She has also edited for publication the diaries of Lee, Thomas D. Brown, Hosea Stout, and other important pioneers of southern Utah.

During the 1950s Mrs. Brooks returned to teaching at Dixie College in addition to devoting a large part of her time to the numerous requests to speak at academic functions and meetings of historical societies. During the 1960s she held a staff position at the Utah State Historical Society while she edited the Hosea Stout diary. Although she has been retired in St. George for several years, she still publishes occasionally. Recent publications were manuscripts written many years ago and published with the editorial assistance of others, such as her biography of Jacob Hamblin and her autobiography, Quicksand and Cactus.

1898 Born in Bunkerville, Nevada. 1919Married Leonard Ernest Pulsipher; he would die just over a year later. 1925Received bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University. 1933 Married William "Will" Brooks, sheriff of Washington County, Utah. 1930sWorked part-time for the Works Progress Administration's Historical Records Survey, and for the Huntington Library, San Marino, California. 1940sBegan collecting and transcribing pioneer manuscripts and diaries. 1942Biography of her grandfather, On the Ragged Edge: the Life and Times of Dudley Leavitt published. 1950Mountain Meadows Massacre published. 1955Co-edited A Mormon Chronicle: the Diaries of John D. Lee, 1848-1876. 1961Biography of John D. Lee, John Doyle Lee: Zealot, Pioneer, Scapegoat, published. 1970 William Brooks died. 1973Elected to honorary life membership in the Western History Association. 1978Awarded the Charles Redd Prize in Humanities and Science by the Utah Academy of Science, Arts and Letters. 1989Died.

The papers of Juanita Brooks come to the Utah State Historical Society as a result of an informal commitment of long standing. They constitute an extraordinarily rich collection, representing as they do the accumulation of correspondence, manuscripts and collected sources from a long, busy, and distinguished career.

The first seven boxes contain correspondence, which is in some ways the most interesting and significant part of the collection, for it shows the development of her thinking as a historian and the course of her friendships with numerous other scholars, both amateur and professional. The correspondence has been arranged chronologically, with undated and fragmentary items at the end of the series.

During her life as an active member of the Mormon church, and especially after she achieved fame as a historian, Juanita Brooks was in considerable demand as a speaker. The first series in Box 8 consists of notes or texts of eulogies or tributes given at funerals or other special occasions. The second series in Box 8 is notes or texts of speeches given on various other occasions. Also in Box 8 begins a long series of unpublished manuscripts, some of which eventually found their way into print, but many of which were simply written and laid aside or rejected by various editors. The series continues to the midst of Box 11.

The next series, which continues through Box 13, consists of manuscripts sent to Mrs. Brooks by other authors. These essays are arranged alphabetically by author, with anonymous items at the end of the series. Boxes 14 through 18 contain a staggering series of pioneer diaries and autobiographies collected by Mrs. Brooks throughout her career. The series is arranged alphabetically by author.

Boxes 19 through 21 contain family records and genealogical materials relating to the Brooks, Leavitt, and Pulsipher families. The folders are labeled according to the family, person, or type of record they contain. The series includes patriarchal blessings, certificates of marriage and ordination, family group sheets, and notes assembled by Mrs. Brooks for her biographies of Dudley Leavitt, George Brooks, and William Brooks. At the end of the series is a group of legal and financial records, including publishing contracts and royalty records.

Boxes 22 through 30 contain a massive quantity of research notes assembled in support of some of Mrs. Brooks's major projects. They include general notes on the St. George - Washington County area, the major figures in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and other figures such as Thomas D. Brown and Hosea Stout in whom she maintained an abiding interest.

In Boxes 31 and 32 are miscellaneous notes and documents relating to a wide variety of topics. These arrived at the Society in no discernible order and have been labeled as well as possible and placed in alphabetical order. Boxes 33-35 contain various fragmentary notes and jottings that the processor has not been able to fit into any other series.

Restrictions on Access:

Restrictions on Access

Arrangement:

Creator:

Brooks, Juanita Leone Leavitt Pulsipher, 1898-1990

Language:

English.

Sponsor:

Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant, 2007-2008

Quantity:

41 boxes (28 linear ft.) and 29 reels of microfilm

Language of the Finding Aid:

Finding aid written in Englishin Latin script

EAD Creation Date:

1999.