An evening with Vernon Law and James 'Mudcat' Grant

On Wednesday April 15th LCHS partnered with the University of Idaho for an evening listening to how race and religion collided with baseball in the middle of the 20th century.  A panel of presenters was brought to the 1912 Center for an evening of reflection by two all star major league pitchers.

Vernon Law and James 'Mudcat' Grant both played professional baseball around the middle of the 20th Century.  These two gentlemen stayed and spoke for about 90 minutes recalling some of the most interesting stories from their playing time.  The panel was moderated by Dan Durbin of the University of Southern California’s Institute of Sports, Media and Society who is creating an oral history database of African-American baseball players who played in the 25 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947.

James 'Mudcat' Grant is on the right with a baseball cap on while Vernon Law is on the left.

The focus of the event was to hear about how race and religion affected the players.  Vernon Law discussed how his religion (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) played a role with both the fans and fellow players as many fellow players tried to tempt him to test his religious beliefs.  James 'Mudcat' Grant talked about the role of racism in baseball.  Mudcat spoke about how other players and fans reacted to African-American baseball players in Major League Baseball.   Many of Mudcat's stories can be found in his book: The Black Aces: Baseball's only African-American Twenty game Winners.

A great turnout for this panel at the 1912 Center.

The two pitchers spoke for about an hour until they opened up the floor for questions.  The pitchers answered all questions asked and were available after the event closed for further questions, signing autographs and taking pictures with the captive audience. 

Latah County Historical Society would like to thank James 'Mudcat' Grant, Vernon Law and Dan Durbin for sharing their experiences with us.  LCHS would also like to thank the University of Idaho for hosting this event and partnering with us.


Zachary Wnek
Museum Curator
Latah county Historical Society

Oral History Collection

Oral history transcripts at LCHS.

In the 1970s, thanks in large part to the bicentennial of the United States, many oral histories were recorded.  At the Latah County Historical Society (LCHS) 480 oral histories were recorded, transcribed and are available for research.  When preforming historical research oral histories are unique.  Many historical resources are written down.  The act of writing something down usually implies that the author paused and spent time crafting a well articulated response to a letter or perhaps a carefully thought out diary entry or even an edited book.

Oral histories can also be described as historical interviews.  These interviews are conducted by oral historians to learn about the interviewee’s life through their words.  Oral histories can add a bit of candor to the historical record that might not have been present in the written record.  Interviews conducted in the 1970s were recorded onto cassette tapes and later transcribed.  The LCHS oral history collection has been carefully cataloged and stored since the interviews were recorded and the transcripts were created.

A box of oral history interviews at LCHS.

In the 1980s a part of the LCHS oral history collection was shared with our colleagues at the University of Idaho.  This was done in order to duplicate the holdings so that if there was a disaster at one location there would still be a backup of these important historic records.  Earlier this year the University of Idaho Special Collections Digital Resources department digitized the LCHS oral history collection.  This collection can now be accessed via the web at their website here:  http://digital.lib.uidaho.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/latah

Storage for 480 oral history transcripts at LCHS.

The University of Idaho did a remarkable job of making this collection more accessible for researchers as the transcripts are now searchable and the audio is also available.  This is a fantastic resource for researchers, who can now search through transcripts and hear historic figures.

While not all of the LCHS oral histories are digitized on the UI website, many of them are.  I encourage everyone interested in local history to take a moment and search for your favorite Latah County historical figure, event or place in the search function to find out more about the history of Latah County.


 - Zachary Wnek
Museum Curator
Latah County Historical Society