Former LDS general Relief Society leader Aileen H. Clyde and author D. Michael Quinn have won the highest awards presented this year by the Mormon History Association.

The honors were given Friday at the awards banquet of the association’s 51st annual conference being held this weekend at Snowbird’s Cliff Lodge.

Awards committee chairman J.B. Haws presented Clyde with a special citation “for Distinguished Service to Mormon History through the creation of the Aileen H. Clyde 20th Century Women’s Legacy Archive at the University of Utah Library.”

“In doing so,” he added, “we acknowledge a fundamental principle of historic practice: that without sources, there is no history.”

He said the archive is laying the foundation for future work in Mormon history through its focus on the contributions of women of all religious, ethnic and racial groups, through its inclusion of oral history and digital records as well as written documents and through its support for scholarly grants and special events.

Haws said that through Clyde's 90 years, she has been a teacher, parent and board member for major nonprofit organizations. “Through her marriage to Hal M. Clyde, she even worked for a time as a flag woman in the construction industry.”

She served as a counselor in the general presidency of the LDS Relief Society under Elaine L. Jack from 1990 to 1997.

Quinn received the Leonard J. Arrington Award, bestowed annually on a scholar for distinguished and outstanding service to Mormon history.

Selection committee chairman Thomas G. Alexander said Quinn’s 1987 book “Early Mormonism and the Magic World View” was “a prize-winning, imaginative and path-breaking study of the relationship between traditional folk magic and early Mormonism.”

“Quinn’s book laid out … the arguments tying Mormonism to the hermetic tradition.

“Two biographies of President J. Reuben Clark … offer well-considered insights into the life of an extraordinary leader of the LDS. Church.”

Alexander said three of Quinn’s books on the Mormon hierarchy “are meticulous studies of the business, cultural and familial relationships of church leadership.”

“Although a controversy surrounded ‘Same Sex Dynamics among 19th Century Americans: A Mormon Example,’ the book broke new ground in Mormon studies,” Alexander said.

Here is a list of other awards given at the association banquet:

Best Book — W. Paul Reeve, “Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness." Honorable mention to Thomas Carter for “Building Zion: The Material World of Mormon Settlement.”

Best First Book — Dave Hall, “A Faded Legacy: Amy Brown Lyman and Mormon Women Activism, 1872-1959.”

Best Documentary Editing/Bibliography — Royal Skousen and Robin Scott Jensen, “Revelations and Translations, Volume 3: Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith Papers.”

Best Biography — Ronald Romig, “Eighth Witness: The Biography of John Whitmer.” Honorable mention to Michael Hicks for “The Mormon Tabernacle Choir: A Biography.”

Best Article — Matthew Bowman, “Toward a Catholic History of Mormonism,” Journal of Mormon History.

Article Award of Excellence — Gerrit Dirkmaat and LaJean Purcell Carruth, “The Prophets Have Spoken, But What Did They Say? Examining the Differences between George D. Watt’s Original Shorthand Notes and the Sermons Published in the Journal of Discourses,” BYU Studies.

Best International Article — Barbara Jones Brown, “Manifestos, Mixed Messages and Mexico: The Demise of Mainstream Mormon Polygamy” in “The Persistence of Polygamy, Vol. 3: Fundamentalist Mormon Polygamy from 1890 to the Present.”

Best Article on Mormon Women’s History — Brent Rogers, “The Fascinating Life of Vienna Jaques,” Mormon Historical Studies.

Best Dissertation Award — Nathaniel Hamilton Wiewora, University of Delaware, “‘Punishment for the Sins of Christendom’: The Antebellum Evangelical Reaction to Mormonism."

Best Thesis Award — Scott Marianno, Utah State University, “‘They Belong as Citizens’: Race and Marriage in Utah, 1880-1920.”

Best Graduate Paper — Joseph Stuart, University of Utah, “‘Our Religion Is Not Hostile to Real Science’: Evolution, Eugenics and Race/Religion Making in Mormonism’s First Century.”

rscott@deseretnews.com