Archives West Finding Aid

Brigham Dwaine Madsen (b.1914), was raised in Pocatello, Idaho. In 1935 he served a Mormon mission to the Cumberland Mountains. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he received a Ph.D. in history. Travels abroad to Germany during World War II saw him act as chief historian for Patton's Third Army, where he observed the War Crimes Trials in Nuremberg, among other significant experiences.

After the war, he accepted a faculty position at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. His curiosity about Mormon history soon brought him head to head with the limits of academic freedom there at that time, ultimately resulting in his resignation and forcing him to work in construction for seven years until a Utah State University position opened. Madsen turned his attention to Native American history. In pursuing the truth about an 1862 military campaign against the Northwestern Shoshoni, he discovered that the engagement was not a battle but a brutal slaughter. His dogged persistence in this area resulted in the establishment of the Bear River Massacre National Historic Landmark. There was similar controversy in his writings on other Western topics, including Mormon history.

Dr. Madsen also served as chair of the University of Utah History Department, director of libraries, deputy academic vice president, and administrative vice president. He was honored for his efforts with a Distinguished Service Award from the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters and two awards from the University of Utah: Honorary Doctor of Humanities and Distinguished Teacher of the Year.

He is the author of eight books: Against the Grain: Memoirs of a Western Historian, The Bannock of Idaho, Corinne: The Gentile Capital of Utah, Exploring the Great Salt Lake: The Stansbury Expedition of 1848-50, Glory Hunter: A Biography of Patrick Edward Connor, The Lemhi: Sacajawea's People, The Northern Shoshoni, and The Shoshoni Frontier and the Bear River Massacre. He is the co-author of: North to Montana! Jehus, Bullwhackers, and Mule Skinners on the Montana Trail. He is the editor of three works:A Forty-Niner in Utah with the Stansbury Exploration of Great Salt Lake: Letters and Journal of John Hudson, 1848-1850, The Now Generation: Student Essays on Social Change in the Sixties, and Studies of the Book of Mormon. He has also authored several monograph-length studies and contributed to such books as The Feminine Frontier: Wyoming Women, 1850-1900.