W. PAUL REEVE

Professor

History

BIO

W. Paul Reeve is the Simmons Chair of Mormon Studies and former chair of the History Department 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 www.CenturyofBlackMormons.org. With Christopher Rich Jr., and LaJean Purcell Carruth, he is the author of the multiple award winning, This Abominable Slavery: Race, Religion, and the Battle over Human Bondage in Antebellum Utah (Oxford, 2024). The primary source documents upon which the narrative history is based are publicly available at www.ThisAbominableSlavery.org.

INSTITUTIONAL APPOINTMENTS

  • Professor
    History1 Jul 2016 - present

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

  • Assistant Professor
    University of Utah, History1 Jul 2005 - 30 Jun 2009
  • Associate Professor
    University of Utah, History1 Jul 2009 - 30 Jun 2016

DEGREES

  • BA, History
    Brigham Young University1992
  • MA, History
    Brigham Young University1994
  • PhD, History
    University of Utah2002

FIELDS OF RESEARCH