Come explore resources to help connect Crossroads: Change in Rural America to stories of perseverance and adaptation in Utah and beyond.
Join Us
- Dig into Rural Utah at a Crossroads, a fascinating essay written especially for the Crossroads exhibition tour of Utah!
- Find rural Utah stories on our Utah Stories from the Beehive Archive website, or listen where you find podcasts
- Listen to the voices of your neighbors talk about rural Utah at Rural Utah at a Crossroads, now airing on Utah Public Radio.
- Join the conversation using #UtahRuralCrossroads and #RuralCrossroads
Books, Films, and Resources for Educators
- Rural Utah at a Crossroads | Utah Museum of Fine Arts Exhibition Activity Guide
- Rural Utah at a Crossroads | Utah Museum of Fine Arts Exhibition Teacher Guide
- Rural Utah at a Crossroads | Reading List for Scholarly, Memoir, Poetry, Fiction, and Youth
- Smithsonian Crossroads Reading Lists for Adults, and Young Adults & Children
- Smithsonian Crossroads Film & TV List
- Smithsonian Crossroads Docent Handbook
- Smithsonian Crossroads Education Partners & Lesson Plans
- Smithsonian Crossroads Exhibition Script & Spanish Translation
Explore Rural Utah
- The 2020 U.S. Census report on urban versus rural population shifts.
- Utah 2020 Census: University of Utah's Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute provides demographic expertise on the latest census as data pertains to Utah.
- "Utah Takes Another Evolutionary Leap,"Natalie Gochnour, Deseret News, April 24, 2023
- “Rural grocery stores are dying. Here's how some small towns are trying to save them,”a compelling NPR feature, April 19, 2023
- Utah State University's county-level agriculture profile factsheets(2005).
- The Utah Department of Health & Human Services’ annual rural Utah photo contest.
- The “American West” digital exhibition by the Salt Lake County Archives documents the county’s recent agricultural past using archival material and photographs compared to the same urban locations today
- Follow the Money: A Spatial History of In-Lieu Programs for Western Federal Lands
- Fruits of their Labors: Oral history and photographic material about individuals who owned or worked in orchards in Utah Valley.
- Mapping Literary Utah is a database of authors and writers from across Utah, easily searchable by specific rural Utah regions or even genres.
- Mining the West: digital exhibit from U of U Marriott Library and Utah Museum of Fine Arts.
- Native Places: An Indigenous Atlas of Utah and the Intermountain West is a digital humanities project that records Indigenous names for Utah’s major waterways and landforms.
- “Population 800” is a photography series by Christine Armbruster documenting rural communities across Utah.
- Utah State University’s Rural Rangeland Archive documents changes in Utah’s rangeland over time using historic materials.
- The Utah Historical Society's Rural Utah Curated Collection of photos and manuscripts.
- Check out Visit Utah’s video series “The Voices of Bears Ears”
- Utah poet laureate Paisley Rekdal’s digital poetry collection, “West: A Translation,” inspired by the history of Chinese labor on the transcontinental railroad.
- The Western Music & Cowboy Poetry gathering, usually held annually in Heber Valley.
Crossroads: Change in Rural America is part of Museum on Main Street, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and Utah Humanities, and community partners statewide.