Founded in 1972, the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies promotes the study of the Intermountain American West by funding scholarship, public programming, and teaching, and supporting work in any discipline that explores the region in all its facets. New areas of study included Mormon, women’s, African American, Chicano, and Native American studies. Scholars interested in those fields created
new professional organizations, journals and conferences. To support these new areas of study, universities established research centers. In this climate, several history professors approached the administration at Brigham Young University and proposed a research center that would promote and enhance western studies on the campus.
