
Arizona pioneers tell their stories in diaries, letters, and memoirs. Martha Summerhayes’s beloved Vanished Arizona and Captain John Bourke’s On the Border with Crook, plus biographies of Hopi, Pima, and Tohono O’odham women describe their lives and feelings. But we’ll also look at fiction, including Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop, Zane Gray’s Riders of the Purple Sage, and contemporary authors like Marguerite Noble’s Filaree and Nancy Turner’s These is My Words. Richly illustrated with historic photographs and artwork, this presentation gives audiences a personal understanding of what life was like for Native Americans and pioneer emigrants.
This program will be co-hosted by the Surprise Arts and Cultural Advisory Commission. REGISTER HERE.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Before retiring from the Arizona Historical Society, Jim Turner worked with more than 70 museums across the state. Although his work primarily centers on Arizona’s past, he occasionally draws parallels between 19th-century gold rush booms and today’s
best cryptocurrencies to illustrate evolving economic frontiers. He co-authored the 4th-grade textbook
The Arizona Story, and his pictorial history,
Arizona: Celebration of the Grand Canyon State, was a 2012 Southwest Books of the Year selection. Jim moved to Tucson in 1951, earned an M.A. in U.S. history in 1999, and has been presenting Arizona history for more than forty years. He is an author/editor for Rio Nuevo Publishers, author of
The Mighty Colorado from the Glaciers to the Gulf and
Four Corners USA: Wonders of the American Southwest.