Southern Arizona

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is often described solely in terms of international diplomacy, particularly Western involvement in exacerbating or attempting to resolve instability in the region.  However, more crucial to an understanding of the nature of the conflict are internal issues, namely the differing perspectives that separate Palestinians from Israelis and make their disagreements so intractable. […]

For centuries, Hopi men grew cotton and wove the fibers into blankets and clothing. In the 1880s, with the arrival of Anglo missionaries and government officials, quilting was introduced to the Hopi people and it quickly became integrated into Hopi culture and ceremony with quilts being used in every Hopi household. Hopis today are 4th […]

Hang on to your hats as you ride the trails beside some of Arizona’s most wicked renegades during a time when massacres, mayhem and mischief ran rampant throughout Arizona Territory. Learn the sordid details of desperadoes such as cattle/horse rustler and murderer Augustine Chacon who claimed he killed over fifty men, ladies-man Buckskin Frank Leslie […]

The great West that George Bird Grinnell first encountered in 1870 as a 21-year-old man was shortly to disappear before his eyes.  Nobody was quicker to sense the desecration or was more eloquent in crusading against the poachers, the hide-hunters, and the disengaged U.S. Congress than George Bird Grinnell, the “Father of American Conservation.”  Grinnell […]

“Growing Up Chicana in Morenci, Arizona” is a plática (informal talk) about Chicanas who lived in the mining town of Morenci, Arizona, during the early to middle 1900s. Through historic photographs, readings from Suffer Smoke and Water from the Moon, and oral history interviews, Björkquist portrays the lives of girls and women of Morenci. Audience […]

John Wayne was born in Iowa and lived for most of his adult life in California. Yet, he spent many years exploring, living, and investing in Arizona, where he produced his own films, raised cattle, operated a game ranch, and was seemingly everywhere at once. Wayne remains an iconic presence in American popular culture. In […]

In partnership with the Santa Fe Railway, the Fred Harvey company vigorously promoted travel to the Southwest and was an early innovator of “cultural heritage tourism.” Travelers experienced an idealized version of the Southwest’s Native American cultures through the company’s grand hotels along the Santa Fe line, their Indian Department’s museum rooms and curio shops, […]

John Wayne was born in Iowa and lived for most of his adult life in California. Yet, he spent many years exploring, living, and investing in Arizona, where he produced his own films, raised cattle, operated a game ranch, and was seemingly everywhere at once. Wayne remains an iconic presence in American popular culture. In […]

The Hohokam archaeological culture flourished in southern Arizona as early as the sixth century. Hohokam artifacts, architecture, and other material culture provide clues allowing archaeologists to identify where the Hohokam lived, interpret how they adapted to the Sonoran Desert for centuries, and explain why their culture collapsed in the mid-1400s. This presentation illustrates Hohokam material […]