The 2024 Floyd O’Neil Marriott Library Research Fellowship, a $3,500 donor-supported award that facilitates scholarly exploration with the library’s Special Collections, was awarded to Val Holley. Holley is an author composing a group biography, titled Slouching Towards Gotham, of mid-twentieth-century gay members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who migrated from rural areas to Manhattan. This project explores the early lives and motivations for leaving the West, career developments in Manhattan, and the experiences of three individuals who left the faith. The focus of this book is to advance the study of gay members of this church into the twentieth century, illustrating their dignified and impactful lives in Manhattan.

Holley visited the Marriott Library at the start of the summer to research correspondences, photographs, oral histories, interviews and other manuscripts to broaden his knowledge of the years his subjects lived in Salt Lake City. Keep an eye out for the release of his new book featuring his research which was funded in part through this fellowship.

Val Holley has previously published two award-winning books with the University of Utah Press, Frank J. Cannon and 25th Street Confidential.