Leo Lyman's Deep Dive into the “Sausage Making” of Utah's Statehood (Season 2, Ep. 3 - Part 1)

**Brad Westwood** (0:10)
Welcome to the podcast Speak Your Piece. This is a podcast about Utah's history, produced by the Utah Department of Heritage and Arts. I'm Brad Westwood. My job is to make the very best, the most fascinating, most accurate, peer-reviewed history about Utah accessible to the widest audience.
Speak Your Piece is a podcast where writers, historians, curators and all those who contribute to Utah's history share their insights and discoveries.
If there's one place, one podcast to get your Utah history fix, I hope this is the place.
My guest today is Dr. Edward Leo Lyman. Hello, Leo. Thanks for being here.

**Edward Leo Lyman** (0:49)
Thank you, Brad. I'm glad to be here.

**Brad Westwood** (0:51)
We will be speaking to Dr. Lyman in a series of in-depth interviews about his 2019 book, Finally, Statehood! Utah's Struggle, 1849-1896, published by Signature Books.
In the year 2021, Utah will celebrate its 125th anniversary since statehood was granted in 1896 Utah became the 45th state to join the Union. Altogether, the road to statehood took nearly a half a century. Had Utah been granted statehood when it had first applied in 1849, it could have been maybe the 31st state to join the Union. Now, California took that number. Perhaps no one knows as much or can tell the story as well as Dr. Lyman.
Longtime KUED documentary producer Ken Verdoya, who co-produced the 1996 book and documentary Utah, The Struggle for Statehood, stated this about Leo's book. Lyman's fast-paced page-turning narrative should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand Utah. It's a compelling history of conflict and grudging progress as a nation tried to control this unique people who for their part did their best to hold on to their political aspirations. The State Historical Society also said of Leo's book, Finally Statehood, Utah Struggle 1849-1896 is painstakingly researched and showcases a variety of new sources. Edward Leo Lyman is retired from the Victor Valley College in Victorville outside of Los Angeles, but for the last six years he's been teaching part-time at Dixie State University in St. George. Leo also taught at California Polytechnic University and at the California State University San Bernardino. He is the author of eight books including Amasa, Mason, Lyman, Mormon Apostle and Apostate, A Study and Dedication. He's published numerous peer review articles in journals such as BYU Studies, California History, Idaho Yesterday's Journal of Mormon History, Southern California Quarterly and the Utah Historical Quarterly.
Leo is someone who has studied almost a lifetime this topic and so we are fortunate to have him with us for this series of Speak Your Piece interviews.

**Edward Leo Lyman** (3:30)
Thank you very much. That was very nice.

**Brad Westwood** (3:32)
I want to say that Leo was made in 2019 a fellow of the State Historical Society. It's a rare and distinct honor as there are hundreds and hundreds of historians who've researched and have written in Utah's history. However, there are only 46 historians, 23 living, who have contributed so much to the understanding of Utah's history that they've been made a fellow of the society and Leo is one of these. Well, with that, Leo, let me ask you this. I'm going to quote the preface of your book. It says, Nowhere else had the federal government ever faced the problem of turning a desert frontier theocracy into a standard democratic American state. Latter-day Saints violated virtually every norm, politically, economically and socially, at a time that did not appear to want to join a union as much as leave it.
Sometimes we don't understand just how radical the Mormons were in the American 19th-century frontier. The idea of building a city out of nowhere, the fact that they were waiting anxiously for a second coming, the notion that they wanted to build a theocracy, and that they would in fact hold a government ready when the Savior was to arrive.
Talk about just what was going on. Tell us, Leo, about the whole Mormon experience, getting to Utah and how statehood was first attempted.

**Edward Leo Lyman** (5:17)
First of all, statehood is self-government. When you're at territory, you're governed by outside politicians and Congress. So statehood is political independence, and they wanted that badly. Brigham Young literally conceived of a theocracy, no separation of church faith. The church dominated Utah whenever he got a chance to rule. There was nothing like government of the people, by the people. There was a sustaining vote, a raise of hands.
I have studied this for over half a century, and I'm proud of the story.
He really despises almost all non-Mormons, especially politicians, and he could not possibly have violated more of the rules of how you get political independence. He did everything to alienate, nothing to conform to the rules. It wasn't going to happen in his lifetime. In fact, I say in the book, some congressmen held so much resentment, that it took another 10 years after he died in 1877, before Congress really even considered. And it would be another 9 years after that, 19 years, before they would finally get stated that there were 7 of them. And interestingly, Brad mentioned California.