Researcher on labor in Yellowstone receives Montana State’s Distinctive Collections Travel and Access Award

BOZEMAN - A scholar from Utah has received the Montana State University Library's Distinctive Collections Travel and Access Award to help support her research on the history of labor in Yellowstone National Park.

Victoria Grieve is a history professor at Utah State University. The $3,000 award, which is being given for the fifth time, will help fund Grieve's travel to Bozeman this summer. Grieve will use the MSU Archives and Special Collections' considerable materials documenting Yellowstone's labor history in her research.

Grieve's published work focuses on labor, culture and childhood. Her fourth book, "Women of the Federated Press: American Labor Feminism and Radical Journalism at Mid-Century," will be published in 2026. She has been at Utah State since 2004.

"Dr. Grieve's application stood out for its distinctive focus in a very competitive group of applications - more than we've ever received before," said Jodi Allison-Bunnell, head of Archives and Special Collections at the MSU Library.

"Dr. Grieve's focus on the labor needed to manage and protect Yellowstone National Park is an especially important contribution to public lands historiography, as scholars have written little on the people who actually do the work in our recreational wonderlands," said Janet Ore, director of the MSU Ivan Doig Center for the Study of the Lands and Peoples of the North American West.

The award is a collaborative effort between the Doig Center, the Merrill G. Burlingame Archives and Special Collections at MSU, and the Friends of MSU Library fundraising group. It is jointly funded by the Friends of MSU Library and Doig Center.

The MSU Library offers research and information resources to students and employees as well as Montana citizens, along with interested scholars such as Grieve. Its Archives and Special Collections contain manuscripts on the West and the Greater Yellowstone region, including collections focused on agricultural history; trout and salmonids; select records of MSU; angling; and more.

Named for writer Ivan Doig, MSU's Doig Center fosters the study of the West, emphasizing connections across the humanities, arts, social sciences and natural sciences. For more information, see http://www.montana.edu/doig/.

Friends of Montana State University Library was founded in 1994 and helps develop the library's collections, spaces, programs and community presence. For more information, see https://www.lib.montana.edu/about/friends/index.html.