Gary Bergera on his Life’s Work as an Author and Publisher of History (S5, E10)

**Brad Westwood** (0:02)
Welcome to the podcast Speak Your Piece. This is a podcast about Utah's history produced by the Utah Department of Culture and Community Engagement. I'm Brad Westwood, Senior Public Historian.
It's my assignment to make the very best, the most interesting, the most accurate history about Utah, accessible to the widest audience.
We hope if there is one place, one podcast, you get your Utah history fix, this is the place. Today's episode is with longtime Mormon and Western historian, book publisher and editor, Gary James Bergera. Gary has recently retired as Managing Director of the Smith-Pettit Foundation here in Salt Lake City. Before this, he served as Managing Director of Signature Books, one of Utah's most influential publishers of Western and Mormon history, fiction, essays, humor and art.
Gary also served as Managing Editor of Dialogue, a journal of Mormon thought. Welcome to Speak Your Piece, Gary.

**Gary Bergera** (1:04)
Thanks, Brad. It's a pleasure to be here.

**Brad Westwood** (1:06)
I am hard-pressed to think of other living individuals or organizations outside of the massive historical enterprise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, basically the Church Historical Department, that has had such a demonstrable impact in framing up arguments or offering new history as it relates to 19th and 20th century Utah, then Gary Bergera, Smith-Pettit and the Signature Books Organization. Now, Gary has received many awards towards the second half of his career. In 2015, the Utah Division of State History, while I was director, we honored Gary with the Outstanding Contribution in History Award. Once more, Gary, welcome, welcome to Speak Your Piece.
Gary's own personal writings and the works published by Signature Books deal with nearly two century experience of Mormonism. The framework of Speak Your Piece and my conversation today with Gary will, however, center only on Gary's personal stories as a historian and a publisher and on the history of Utah. Our show notes will direct you to more information about Gary and the organizations that he has led.
Gary, thank you, thank you. Let's jump right in.

**Gary Bergera** (2:27)
Sounds good.

**Brad Westwood** (2:27)
What do you know you wish you had known when you started your career?

**Gary Bergera** (2:32)
I'm glad that there's a lot of stuff that I didn't know because I'm not sure that I would have done things. I'm not even sure if I'd be here talking to you right now if I had known. Back then when I started what I had known, I didn't know how hard it was going to be.
By my career, I assume you're talking about Signature and Smith-Pettit.

**Brad Westwood** (2:51)
Absolutely, as well as your works, your writing.

**Gary Bergera** (2:54)
In terms of my work at Signature and Smith-Pettit, let's start there. It was one of those things where Signature was founded in 1981 Scott Kenney was the director of publishing for the first three and a half years. When he decided to go back to school, I was offered the position to replace him. All I thought at the time was this is a really exciting thing. I'd heard about Signature. Ron Priddis and I, who were under contract with Signature to write a history of BYU, that started in 83 We had a connection to Signature to begin with. When the opportunity came to work at Signature, it just seemed like a dream because we weren't sure we had a two-year contract to produce this, the history of BYU.
After that, we didn't know what was going to happen. This came along and it was great because it answered that question. Sometimes when you don't know what you can't do, it makes it easier to try to do it anyway. That was pretty much how it was at the beginning of Signature. We moved the office from, I think it was in Midvale and we moved it to downtown, to the old Ochre Elementary School Building, which had been refurbished as an office building. Now it's something else, I think. So we started there and just kind of did what we thought we were supposed to do, in starting to work at a publishing company.
That was toward the end of 1984 I was there for the next 15 or so years.
We went through, let me think, we were at the Ochre Elementary School Building for about 10 years. We were looking to expand a little bit. We had hired a few more people in the space in the Ochre Elementary School Building.
It really just wasn't adequate for what we wanted to do. We were looking around for something and I found on the west side, a couple of blocks north and west from West High School, this old pioneer building called the Nelson Wheeler Whipple House. It was what I understand is that it is the oldest continuously inhabited house at least in the valley that hasn't been relocated. I don't know 100% if that's true, but that's what I was told. So we acquired that.