Lemuel Hardison Redd Jr.
Professor in Western American History Endowed Chair
Prominent Utah ranchers and philanthropists Charles and Annaley Redd established the Lemuel Hardison Redd Jr. Professor in Western American History Endowed Chair in 1972 to promote and honor research, publication, and teaching in western American history. They named the chair in honor of Charlie Redd’s father, who settled and developed Latter-day Saint communities in southeastern Utah’s red rock desert, forests, and mountains and established a successful livestock empire. Charlie described his father as “a man who lived a big life,” a somewhat lonely and enigmatic character with “many admirers, who regarded him as a giant.”
Current Redd Chair: Brian Q. Cannon
2025–present
Brian Q. Cannon graduated from BYU with a BA in American Studies in 1984. He completed an MA in History at Utah State University in 1986 and a PhD in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1992. Since that time, he has been teaching at BYU. He teaches upper division courses in the American West in the Twentieth Century, Utah History, and US History from 1890 to 1945. Much of his research focuses upon agricultural settlement, rural community development and federal rural policy in the twentieth century. Cannon has received fellowships or other awards from the Western History Association, the Agricultural History Society, the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, the Ford Foundation and the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. He has previously served as chair for the BYU Department of History and director of the Charles Redd Center. Cannon and his wife, Anna Lea, are the parents of one daughter and three sons.