Before WWII, the resident art community of Arizona was comprised mostly of women, and this talk explores these independent spirits. Kate Cory, one of the first to arrive in 1905, chronicled the Hopi mesas. Marjorie Thomas was Scottsdale’s the first resident artist. Lillian Wilhelm Smith came to the state to illustrate the works of Zane […]

Written in Thread: Arizona Women’s History preserved in their Quilts traces the history of Arizona through women who recorded pieces of their lives in their needlework.  The colorful patterns of women’s quilts added a spot of brightness to their homes and their lives. They also celebrated and recorded special events with their quilts. Beginning with […]

Pilot Charles Lindbergh (the “Lone Eagle”) is best known for his famous 1927 flight across the Atlantic Ocean.  But Lindbergh, and his wife Anne, also played an important role in southwestern archaeology.  During the summer of 1929, they worked with noted archaeologist Alfred Kidder to conduct the first extensive aerial photographic survey of southwestern prehistoric […]

Chiricahua National Monument in SE Arizona has never been known as a “Crown Jewel” in the Park System. Yet it is rich in natural and historical resources — an onion deep with cultural layers intimately connected to and dependent upon phantasmagorical rock formations and a small, well-watered valley. This cultural landscape contains stories of pre-contact […]

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1942 WWII Executive Order 9066 forced the removal of nearly 125,000 Japanese-American citizens from the west coast, incarcerating them in ten remote internment camps in seven states: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. Government photographers Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, and Ansel Adams documented the internment, and artists Toyo Miyatake, […]

From the story of humanity’s first home in the Garden of Eden, gardens have been a favorite setting for stories, paintings, poetry, and works of music.  This talk examines the ways that painters, poets, and musicians use gardens as settings.  What do those gardens tell us?  Using wide-ranging examples from such writers as William Shakespeare, […]

Winnie Ruth Judd, Eva Dugan, Dr. Rose Boido, and Eva Wilbur Cruz all shared one thing in common. They were all incarcerated at the Arizona State Prison in Florence.  These women were players in both the sensational stories that made national headlines and local stories that made Arizona history. Who were these women and how […]

In 1924-1925, a collection of unusual lead artifacts which contained mysterious inscriptions were discovered deeply buried near Silverbell Road in Tucson. These artifacts --  crosses, crescents, batons, swords, and spears -- generated considerable interest  around the world when it was learned that the inscriptions contained Christian, Muslim, Hebraic, and Freemasonry symbols.  The artifacts were initially […]

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 hidehunters, and the disengaged U.S. Congress than George Bird Grinnell, the “Father of American Conservation.” Grinnell […]