Arizona has become a focus for the location of private, for-profit prisons.  The state also has one of the highest expenditure rates for corrections.  Are we getting what we paid for?  Post will address the history of for-profit prisons, the inter-connections with issues of immigration and racial disparities, and the track record of for-profit prisons in terms of costs and services.  She will also address the policy, legal, and political issues surrounding the controversy. Dianne Post received her J.D. from…

The deep time perspective that archaeology and related disciplines provide about natural hazards, environmental change, and human adaptation is a valuable supplement to historical records and can help modern societies make decisions affecting social sustainability and human safety. Examples include scientific evidence that virtually all prehistoric farming cultures in Arizona and the Southwest eventually surpassed their thresholds of sustainability, leading to collapse or reorganization of their societies; and archaeological and geological evidence of ancient earthquakes and tsunamis that should have…

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 stories, showing the impact of highways rerouted and roads not taken. This program will feature stories of ghost towns such as Crown King, Jerome, and…

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, Chiura Obata, Isamu Noguchi, Henry Sugimoto, and Miné Okubo made powerful records of camp life. Arizona’s two camps (Gila River, Poston) were among the largest,…

Race has been much contested in U.S. history. Yet it has never been a single thing. Nor has it always been the same thing. Race has been part of a changing national identity. More personally, race has been part of variable individual identity. Who was white, who was Indian, who was black, for example, has not always had the same answer in U.S. history. Yet race has been a persistent element of identity. Every generation of Americans has wrestled with…

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 this talk, Gregory McNamee, who often writes about film and western history alike for such publications as the Encyclopaedia Britannica and The Hollywood Reporter, looks…

Skirting Traditions: Arizona Women Journalists: 100 Years of Change tells the story of the dramatic revolution of the news media in the last century. Many young people today cannot imagine a time when women were not allowed to do any job they chose. Stories of women writers who broke barriers tells the history of change in women’s roles in society, as well as in journalism and communication. This program includes stories of 28 women including Sharlot Hall, Olgivanna Lloyd Wright,…

Anyone who has ever stared down an angry bull coming full throttle across an arena will understand why rodeo photographer Louise Serpa often uttered the adage, “Never Don’t Pay Attention.” Born into New York society, Louise ended up out west with her nose buried in the dirt & her eye glued to a camera, becoming the first woman to venture inside the arena & shoot some of the most amazing photographs of rodeo action. The dust & dirt of the…