Sources of Mormon History in Illinois, 1839-48:
An Annotated Catalog of the Microfilm Collection at Southern Illinois University
Compiled by Stanley B. Kimball.
2nd edition, revised and enlarged
Carbondale: Central Publications, Southern Illinois University, 1966.
xii, 104 pages ; 28 cm.
Bibliographical contributions; no. 1.
Stanley Buchholz Kimball was born of prominent Mormon ancestry in Farmington, Utah, on November 25, 1926, and raised in Farmington and in Denver, Colorado. He attended the University of Denver, where he received a B.A. in 1948 and an M.A. in 1952. Between earning his Denver degrees, from late in 1948 through early in 1950, Kimball undertook a Mormon mission in Czechoslovakia, where he became deeply interested in the peoples and cultures of Eastern Europe.
Leaving Denver upon obtaining his second degree, Kimball obtained a position in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he subsequently met Violet Tew, who in 1953 became his wife. The couple moved to New York City in 1955 when Kimball received admittance to doctoral study at Columbia University. Subsequent to finishing his coursework and examinations, Kimball left New York City in 1959 to accept his first continuing professional position. In 1961, Kimball completed a doctoral dissertation entitled "Czech Nationalism: A Study of the National Theater Movement, 1845-1883." The dissertation was later published as a book by the University of Illinois Press in 1964.
Nauvook, Ill.: Robinson and Smith, 1840.
Effective September 23, 1959, Stanley Kimball received appointment as an assistant professor of history at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, in the St. Louis region, where he remained on the teaching faculty until his retirement in 2001. At SIUE, Kimball consciously adopted the persona of a curmudgeon opposed to student activism and social change, styling himself as the "campus puritan" and writing numerous confrontational letters to the student newspaper. His extensive scholarly activities over four decades at SIUE focused primarily upon the history of the Mormon community. Kimball passed away at his retirement home in St. George, Utah, on May 15, 2003.
Early in his career at SIUE, Kimball began to undertake the extensive research necessary to build a comprehensive microfilm collection of documents relating to the history of the Mormon people in the state of Illinois prior to the destruction of the temple at Nauvoo. With the support of the Graduate School and of Lovejoy Library, and with the cooperation of numerous historical repositories, Kimball accomplished this task. The first edition of the guide to this microfilm collection appeared in 1964. The second, revised edition of the guide is reproduced here in digital format with the intention of making another generation of scholars aware of the existence of these materials. While the microfilm collection does not circulate, potential researchers are urged to visit Lovejoy Library in person in order to make use of these valuable primary sources or to contact the appropriate host repository in order to obtain a copy of a specific original document. A select bibiography of Stanley Buchholz Kimball's scholarship is also provided for context.
At the request of Provost David Werner, Kimball conducted a series of oral history interviews during the years 1990-1992 with veteran SIUE faculty and staff members. The transcripts of these historical interviews which document the history of the institution are accessible online.
Philadelphia: J.P. Lippincott & Co., 1852.