Vast stores of correspondence indicate his willingness to help another writer or scholar, to provide information on sources and materials, or offer advice on projects.
As a result, Morgan stood in the center of a scholarly group of literary figures of the 1930s through 1960s involved in history and biography of the American West.
These individuals included Juanita Brooks, Fawn Brodie, Bernard DeVoto, Charles Kelly, J. Roderic Korns, A. Russell Mortensen, William Mulder, and Harold Schindler.
"[1]: 116 At this time, he began a lifelong pattern of writing, producing thousands of careful transcriptions, personal letters, and books in his field.
"[1]:118 As an adult his publication manuscripts exhibit heavy revisions and editing, while his letters flow through his manual typewriters and onto paper as seemingly seamless compositions, almost without typographic error.
From 1933 to 1937, Morgan studied commercial art at the University of Utah, taking advantage of known talents and a personal interest in drawing and graphic layout.
These included future historian Helen Zeese (later Papanikolas), and Ray Benedict West Jr. Two important relationships were formed with Daily Chronicle editor Richard Scowcroft and faculty advisor Wallace Stegner.
In 1937, with the country still in the Depression, Morgan was unable to find a position in commercial art and occupied spare time as an occasional book reviewer for a city newspaper, the Salt Lake Tribune.
In August 1938, again helped by a tip and recommendation from a friend, Morgan capitalized on his career as a reviewer to join the Utah Historical Records Survey as a part-time editor and publicist.
He acquired a deep understanding of primary source material and information retrieval from his work in the library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
By 1940 he was overseeing both programs, and by 1942 had supervised the production of histories of Ogden and Provo as well as acting as a primary writer of The WPA Guide To Utah.
He also was involved in other writing projects, including the state contribution to a history of grazing in the western U.S. During this time he began exchanging correspondence with two women who would become well-respected writers, Juanita Brooks and Fawn M. Brodie.
While there, his free time was spent using the relatively new National Archives and the Library of Congress, combing through federal records, reading methodically through hundreds of American newspapers and printed materials.
This work netted him large files of typed transcriptions on Mormons, trans-Mississippi Native Americans, the activities of fur traders of the 1820s through 1840s, and exploration.
During these years, he narrowed his focus to an intended three-volume history of Mormonism, but maintained his interest in the American fur trade and exploration.
Morgan was retained by the University of California's Bancroft Library director George P. Hammond as a researcher for the Hopi-Navajo land claim lawsuit in 1953.
In 1954 an appointment as an editor and research assistant at the Bancroft ended Morgan's precarious but productive years as an independent writer and pulled him to the West Coast.
In August 1985, Sunstone offered a segment on Dale Morgan and Mormon History as part of their annual symposium in Salt Lake City, Utah.