When America entered the Second World War, Arizona's sparse population and mild weather made it an ideal location for training facilities and prisoner of war camps.  By war's end, Arizona had trained more pilots than any other state, hosted the country's largest POW camp, and was part of the largest military training grounds in history.  […]

Consider the taco, that favorite treat, a staple of Mexican and Mexican American cooking and an old standby on an Arizonan’s plate. The corn in the tortilla comes from Mexico, the cheese from the Sahara, the lettuce from Egypt, the onion from Syria, the tomatoes from South America, the chicken from Indochina, the beef from […]

Where lies the cure to diabetes? “Ask the prickly pear, or the mesquite bean pod...maybe they will tell you.” This is the answer you may hear from elder instructors of the Hualapai Ethnobotany Youth Project. The ethnobotanical story of the Hualapai Tribe  begins with the plant knowledge the people have inherited from their great grandparents […]

Father Kino is one of two Arizonans recognized in the U. S. Capitol Hall of Heroes.  The Padre was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, map maker, explorer, rancher, and friend to the Indians of the Pimería Alta.  Journeying on horseback or foot, multiple explorations of the Pimería Alta were made by the padre, resulting in the […]

Violet M. Irving, Liz Warren’s grandmother, spent most of her life in Skull Valley, Arizona, as the postmaster and owner of the general store. Born in 1900 in Walker, Vi was the daughter and granddaughter of miners. Her life spanned the century, and she witnessed statehood, two great wars, the Depression, and Rural Electrification first […]

Native Americans in the Southwest developed sophisticated skills in astronomy and predicting the seasons, centuries before Old World peoples first entered the region. In this presentation Dart discusses the petroglyphs at Picture Rocks, the architecture of the "Great House" at Arizona's Casa Grande Ruins, and other archaeological evidence of ancient southwestern astronomy and calendrical reckoning; […]

Featuring compelling documentaries based on interviews, this presentation shares stories about prominent African Americans who contributed to the life and culture of Arizona.  Such luminaries include the late Dr. Eugene Grigsby, Betty Fairfax, Judge Jean Williams, Rev. Warren Stewart, Councilman Calvin Goode, and Carol Coles Henry.  Each individual’s life is contextualized using prominent events that […]

Ghost towns dot Arizona's landscape and provide unique insights into a diverse history. Some ghost towns tell a boom-to-bust story with few remaining traces of the people who once lived there, while others, like Jerome, have become thriving tourist destinations. Many are old mining locations that once bustled with life, while others tell more modern […]

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 […]

Many neuroscientists study music to elucidate mysteries of the brain. Why is music such a rich resource?  Not only can scientists physically track the process of learning music as different areas of the brain light up, they can trace music’s powerful effect on our emotions, muscles and memory.  The benefits of music span well beyond […]

The Hohokam Native American culture flourished in southern Arizona from the sixth through fifteenth centuries. Hohokam artifacts, architecture, and other material culture provide archaeologists with clues for identifying where the Hohokam lived, interpreting how they adapted to the Sonoran Desert for centuries, and explaining why their culture mysteriously disappeared. In this presentation Dart illustrates the […]

From the Federal Writers' Project, interviews with pioneer men who first rode into the Arizona Territory when the law of the land was a gun. A saga of incredible action of gun battles, deadly weather, Indian attacks, outlaws, and evasive fortunes. Some found success, some found poverty, and some found an early grave. These are […]

Featuring compelling documentaries based on interviews, this presentation shares stories about prominent African Americans who contributed to the life and culture of Arizona.  Such luminaries include the late Dr. Eugene Grigsby, Betty Fairfax, Judge Jean Williams, Rev. Warren Stewart, Councilman Calvin Goode, and Carol Coles Henry.  Each individual’s life is contextualized using prominent events that […]

With the exception of the most ardent collectors and older generation, the influence and legacy of the big bands is largely forgotten despite their overwhelming popularity and significant role in early radio. Join Larson as he revisits the sounds America listened and danced to for more than three decades. Learn how iconic artists like Glenn […]

The Harlem Renaissance was not only a movement but an enriching and defining period in history that celebrated African Americans.  The Harlem Renaissance was the name given to the cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem, and was considered to be a rebirth of African American arts. The Harlem Renaissance was a […]

In world religious and spiritual traditions as distant as Central America, the Andes, and the Middle East, the concept of the soul and the axis of its universe, the Tree of Life, provide a unifying thread of thought. This lecture compares and contrasts images of the soul from the great mystical texts of Mayans, pre-Incan […]

With the exception of the most ardent collectors and older generation, the influence and legacy of the big bands is largely forgotten despite their overwhelming popularity and significant role in early radio. Join Larson as he revisits the sounds America listened and danced to for more than three decades. Learn how iconic artists like Glenn […]

In pioneer Arizona, among the best places to experience the performing arts were in the mining towns. Striking it rich meant having disposable income and miners, like the well-heeled of the Gilded Age, wanted to demonstrate their sophistication with culture. From the early popular music of ragtime and minstrelsy during the forming of these communities […]

Early traders traveled through Arizona Territory, selling goods from their wagons, but they soon built stores that evolved into trading and social centers where wool, sheep, and Native Arts were exchanged for food and necessities. Navajo trading posts are best known, but trading posts existed on every reservation in Arizona. Traders became the intermediaries between […]

Arizona’s New Deal built sidewalks, post offices, provided school lunches and outhouses. It produced roadside shrines and monuments to encourage tourism, check dams and mud stock tanks to support Arizona ranchers as well as golf courses and pools for recreation. The federal investment in the built and cultural landscape of 1930s Arizona and the nation […]

Throughout history, the ability of a people to survive and thrive has been tied to environmental conditions.  The skill to predict the climatic change of the seasons was an essential element in the ability to “control” those conditions.  Seasonal calendars thus became the foundation of early cultures: hunting and gathering, planting and harvesting, worshiping and […]

Many neuroscientists study music to elucidate mysteries of the brain. Why is music such a rich resource?  Not only can scientists physically track the process of learning music as different areas of the brain light up, they can trace music’s powerful effect on our emotions, muscles and memory.  The benefits of music span well beyond […]

Every day we use words and phrases whose roots lie in the American West. Words like “brand,” “maverick,” and “railroaded,” along with phrases like “climb down of your high horse” and “passing the buck” all grew out of the culture and experiences of those who resided west of the Mississippi. Thse creative words and phrases are poetic, descriptive and […]

Throughout history, the ability of a people to survive has been tied to environmental conditions.  The skill to predict the seasons was an essential element in the ability to “control” those conditions. Seasonal calendars became the foundation of early cultures for hunting and gathering, planting and harvesting, worshiping and celebrating. The goal of cultural astronomy […]

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 […]

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this program could fill a seven-volume history of Arizona. From the geological wonders of the Grand Canyon and the Petrified Forest to cutting-edge biotech industries and Native American art galleries, this whirlwind pictorial history tour of Arizona from prehistory to the present shows it all. In addition […]

Cowboy movie star Tom Mix was internationally famous, and many legends and tall tales have been told about his life. This presentation highlights some of the true stories about Mix and his connection to Arizona, debunking some of the Hollywood hype. What brought Mix travel that lonesome highway where he met his death south of […]

Here we explore the growth of black federal employment in contrast to a more openly hostile and discriminatory private sector after WWII. Many urban blacks escaped both social and economic oppression in the South and found more security in federal employment, allowing for the personal stability necessary to risk participating in the growing Civil Rights […]

This is an interactive workshop that explores influential and little known African American contributions and the road they paved to make it possible for African American leaders we have today such as Oprah Winfry, Michael Jordan, and Maya Angelou. Dr. Tamika Sanders is an entrepreneur who decided to become an educator to help address the […]

In 1933, at the nadir of the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was born. This New Deal program was designed to help unemployed young men learn new skills and earn a dollar a day to support both themselves and their families. CCCers fervently claim that this opportunity gave them the confidence and skills […]

This session features the principle that Hip Hop performs an important social function, and consequently the messaging within it. We will examine why and how something so controversial and marginal could become so mainstream and central, becoming a billion-dollar business today! Using history as a backdrop, we explore particular genres, artists, styles, sounds, images, and […]

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 […]

During WWII a select group of young Navajo men enlisted in the Marines with a unique weapon. Using the Navajo language, they devised a secret code that the enemy never deciphered.  For over 40 years a cloak of secrecy hung over the Code Talker’s service until the code was declassified and they were finally honored […]

Ghost towns dot Arizona's landscape and provide unique insights into a diverse history. Some ghost towns tell a boom-to-bust story with few remaining traces of the people who once lived there, while others, like Jerome, have become thriving tourist destinations. Many are old mining locations that once bustled with life, while others tell more modern […]

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 […]

The Hohokam Native American culture flourished in southern Arizona from the sixth through fifteenth centuries. Hohokam artifacts, architecture, and other material culture provide archaeologists with clues for identifying where the Hohokam lived, interpreting how they adapted to the Sonoran Desert for centuries, and explaining why their culture mysteriously disappeared. In this presentation Dart illustrates the […]

The American Southwest is world-renown for its colorful and spectacular landscapes like Grand Canyon, Sedona, Monument Valley, the Superstition Mountains, and the Sonoran Desert. But how did these wonders come to exist and what can ordinary rocks tell us about their ancient origins? You’ll be amazed to learn that the Southwest was once the site […]

Tombstone, which had a reputation, as one of the West's wildest mining towns, owes its beginning to Ed Schieffelin, who prospected the nearby hills. From nearby Fort Huachuca, Schieffelin told a soldier that the mountains’ rich colors looked very promising for mineral wealth. The soldier said "All you'll find in those hills is your tombstone". […]

U.S. Route 66, known as the “Mother Road,” was built in 1926. It ran from Chicago to L. A. During the depression of the 1930s, it became the major path by which people migrated west, seeking work, warm weather and new opportunities. Shore shares the history of Route 66 in Arizona, including the impact it […]

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, […]