Western Edition

Western Edition

William Deverell

Western Edition -- a podcast from Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West and hosted by its director William Deverell, historian of the American West -- seeks to engage Angelenos, Californians, and Westerners as critical thinkers, conscious consumers, and informed community members. The podcast tells the fascinating stories of the people and communities of our region, connecting the past to the present, and demonstrating the tightly woven fabric of history. The forth season, Hidden Pasadena, digs deep into the “Crown City” of the San Gabriel Valley.The third season, Memorializing the West, explored historical memory, commemoration, and memorialization across the Ameri...

Hidden Pasadena: The Children of the Liberator

Hidden Pasadena: The Children of the Liberator

After the Civil War, many of the children of the anti-slavery crusader who attempted to raid Harper’s Ferry, John Brown, sought new lives and peace in the far West, including Pasadena. This episode shares the story of the Brown brothers and their sister, the recent activism surrounding preserving local post-Civil War era sites, and why this history is critically important to local teachers and students.To see images related to this episode, please visit dornsife.usc.edu/icw.Western Edition is ho

Oct 8, 2024 • 26:08

Hidden Pasadena: Shōya House

Hidden Pasadena: Shōya House

What is the oldest structure in the San Gabriel Valley? This episode shares the story of The Shoya House, a 3,000 square-foot home that made a 6,000 mile journey from Japan to Pasadena’s Huntington Library. Now a part of the library’s collection, it fits not only onto the landscape at The Huntington, but serves as a tangible architectural expression at an institution with a renowned architecture archive.To see images related to this episode, please visit dornsife.usc.edu/icw.Western Edition is h

Oct 1, 2024 • 40:54

Hidden Pasadena: Vroman’s Bookstore

Hidden Pasadena: Vroman’s Bookstore

What can we learn from a bookstore? Adam Clark Vroman opened the AC Vroman Bookstore in 1894 and it has symbolized an important piece of Pasadena’s intellectual community ever since. Though the location has changed, this episode takes a deeper look at the man who created this legacy and considers how Vroman’s serves as a community resource at a time when building ties and finding trusted sources of information is a challenge.To see images related to this episode, please visit dornsife.usc.edu/ic

Sep 24, 2024 • 25:24

Hidden Pasadena: John Birch Society

Hidden Pasadena: John Birch Society

Thriving in Pasadena in the 1960s and 1970s, members of the John Birch Society identified as anti-communists, opposed the civil rights movement and racial desegregation, deeply disagreed with the feminist movement, and disseminated lies and conspiracy theories. This episode explores how they profoundly impacted the modern conservative movement from their perch in Southern California.To see images related to this episode, please visit dornsife.usc.edu/icw.Western Edition is hosted by William Deve

Sep 17, 2024 • 27:55

Hidden Pasadena: St. Barnabas and All Saints

Hidden Pasadena: St. Barnabas and All Saints

This is the story of two churches: St. Barnabas, the historically all-black Episcopal Church still standing on Fair Oaks Drive in Northwest Pasadena, and the mainly-white All Saints Church, located less than two miles south of St. Barnabas, South of the 210 freeway and within easy walking distance to some of Pasadena’s most affluent neighborhoods.  How has St. Barnabas grown out of the racial and economic complexities of Pasadena’s past to forge a sense of community and belonging within its glob

Sep 10, 2024 • 18:04

Hidden Pasadena: Simons Brickyard

Hidden Pasadena: Simons Brickyard

Now an upscale, residential neighborhood in the heart of Pasadena, Madison Heights used to be home to Simons Brickyard, once the largest brickyard in the world. The Simons Brick Company imprint can still be found on bricks throughout Southern California. This episode looks at the stories hidden within them: about the laborers who made the bricks, the neighborhood then and now, and legal battles that involved allegations of animal cruelty and more.To see images related to this episode, please vis

Sep 3, 2024 • 32:34

Hidden Pasadena: Prologue

Hidden Pasadena: Prologue

More than 50 million viewers begin each new year looking to Pasadena, tuning into the Rose Parade to see flower and seed-coated floats cruise slowly down Colorado Boulevard.  But to nearly 140,000 of those viewers, the “City of Roses” is home, a complex suburb of downtown Los Angeles with a deep history. Internationally known for the Rose Bowl, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena Playhouse, the Arts and Crafts Movement, Jackie Robinson, Julia Child, Octavia Bu

Aug 27, 2024 • 4:38

[BONUS EPISODE] Memorializing the West: 1871 Memorial

[BONUS EPISODE] Memorializing the West: 1871 Memorial

A year ago, the second season of Western Edition focused on the past, present, and future of Los Angeles Chinatown. As part of that fascinating exploration, we investigated the horrific 1871 massacre of Chinese and Chinese Americans in downtown Los Angeles. In October of that year, a mixed-race mob of approximately ten percent of the resident population of Los Angeles killed 18 Chinese men and boys, or about ten percent of that ethnic and national group’s population at the time.Though the event

Jun 13, 2023 • 18:45

Memorializing the West: Digital Rediscoveries in San Antonio

Memorializing the West: Digital Rediscoveries in San Antonio

Moving from removal to renewal, many communities are not just calling for dismantling problematic monuments but also creating new layers of historical memory. This episode explores grassroots and public-driven projects in San Antonio, where students use digital technologies to reshape understandings of the city’s communities of color and ongoing struggles for civil rights and recognition.To see images related to this episode, please visit dornsife.usc.edu/icw.Western Edition is hosted by William

Jun 6, 2023 • 39:48

Memorializing the West: Reckoning with Denver’s Memorials

Memorializing the West: Reckoning with Denver’s Memorials

Denver, Colorado has seen highly public reckonings with historical markers referencing moments or people from the frontier past. Some actions seemed spontaneous and episodic: a statue of a Union soldier came down for its ties to a notorious massacre of Native peoples. Following the removal of another monument, the city's mayor publicly acknowledged and apologized for Denver's history of anti-Chinese violence.To see images related to this episode, please visit dornsife.usc.edu/icw.Weste

May 30, 2023 • 40:50

Memorializing the West: ONE Archives as Memorial

Memorializing the West: ONE Archives as Memorial

Not far from the USC campus sits the home of the ONE Archives, one of the world's greatest repositories of historical material pertaining to LGBTQ people and institutions. The mid-century building once housed a USC fraternity and is now part of the USC Libraries. Today, the ONE Archives stand as an evolving memorial itself, with a mission to promote public conversation and scholarship about queer histories and cultures.To see images related to this episode, please visit dornsife.usc.edu/icw

May 23, 2023 • 41:33

Memorializing the West: Settling Jackson Hole

Memorializing the West: Settling Jackson Hole

Additional histories are hidden behind the laconic language etched into markers across the West. The Daughters of Utah Pioneers Marker 123 in the center of Jackson, Wyoming celebrates the arrival of Mormon families in 1889 while eliding important context, including deeper histories of settler colonialism and violence against Native peoples. Why did Anglo Americans in the mid-20th century produce particular narratives about pioneers and settlement in the West?To see images related to this episode

May 16, 2023 • 38:55

Memorializing the West: Remembering a Northern California Duel

Memorializing the West: Remembering a Northern California Duel

There are many places and sites in California that, if we listen closely, still echo with the angst of the Civil War past. Or if they don't, they should. Take, for example, the Broderick-Terry monument in Daly City. This plaque and two obelisks mark the end of dueling in the state but omit the critical context of the battle over slavery in California.To see images related to this episode, please visit dornsife.usc.edu/icw.Western Edition is hosted by William Deverell and produced by Avishay

May 9, 2023 • 37:54

Memorializing the West: Catalina Barracks

Memorializing the West: Catalina Barracks

Starting on Catalina Island, just off the coast of Southern California, this episode of Western Edition zeroes in on a Civil War barracks that is now a private yacht club. The site played a curious role during the war and in the violent campaigns against Native peoples. Who is invested in the memories and histories of this site?To see images related to this episode, please visit dornsife.usc.edu/icw.Western Edition is hosted by William Deverell and produced by Avishay Artsy, Katie Dunham, Jessic

May 2, 2023 • 32:56

Memorializing the West: Prologue

Memorializing the West: Prologue

Given the nation’s widespread and often heated reckoning with sites of memorialization and commemoration in recent years, the new season of Western Edition – the podcast from the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West (ICW) – questions six such sites across the American West. Who put that plaque there? Who decided that a statue needed to be fixed on a plinth in that space or on that street corner? And when? Why was it worth marking or remembering? Is it still important or significan

Apr 25, 2023 • 4:44

L.A. Chinatown: Today and Tomorrow

L.A. Chinatown: Today and Tomorrow

What’s next for Chinatown? What challenges does the community face in the era of Covid, of the Stop Asian Hate movement, of gentrification, and the ever-rising cost of living in Los Angeles?Western Edition is hosted by William Deverell and produced by Avishay Artsy, Katie Dunham, Greg Hise, Jessica Kim, Elizabeth Logan, Olivia Ramirez, Li Wei Yang, and Stephanie Yi. Western Edition is a production of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West.

Jun 28, 2022 • 28:36

L.A. Chinatown: The Long L.A. History of the See Family

L.A. Chinatown: The Long L.A. History of the See Family

Spanning multiple generations across Los Angeles history, the See family takes focus in episode five. Novelist and historian Lisa See narrates her family’s rich history, as does Leslee See Leong, whose antique and furniture store has long been a fixture of the See family’s life and work.Western Edition is hosted by William Deverell and produced by Avishay Artsy, Katie Dunham, Greg Hise, Jessica Kim, Elizabeth Logan, Olivia Ramirez, Li Wei Yang, and Stephanie Yi. Western Edition is a production o

Jun 21, 2022 • 28:25

L.A. Chinatown: From Old Chinatown to New Chinatown

L.A. Chinatown: From Old Chinatown to New Chinatown

In the early 1930s, the old Chinatown of Los Angeles disappeared to make way for the new Union Station Passenger Terminal. This episode examines the history of that eradication and displacement alongside the rise of “New Chinatown,” the adjacent community that arose through the vision of Chinese American entrepreneurs and community leaders.Western Edition is hosted by William Deverell and produced by Avishay Artsy, Katie Dunham, Greg Hise, Jessica Kim, Elizabeth Logan, Olivia Ramirez, Li Wei Yan

Jun 14, 2022 • 35:46

L.A. Chinatown: Exclusion and the Struggles for Inclusion

L.A. Chinatown: Exclusion and the Struggles for Inclusion

California played a fundamental role in legislating Chinese exclusion in the last decades of the 19th century. This episode explores the history of such exclusionary racism, as well as the ways in which Chinese attorney Y.C. Hong worked on behalf of his thousands of clients trying to return to, or stay in, the United States.Western Edition is hosted by William Deverell and produced by Avishay Artsy, Katie Dunham, Greg Hise, Jessica Kim, Elizabeth Logan, Olivia Ramirez, Li Wei Yang, and Stephanie

Jun 7, 2022 • 35:13

L.A. Chinatown: The Memory of a Massacre

L.A. Chinatown: The Memory of a Massacre

A dark stain on Los Angeles, the horrific massacre of Chinese men and boys in Chinatown still reverberates across community and memory. A movement to memorialize the victims has taken root through civic activism, community organizing, and partnerships with the City of Los Angeles.Western Edition is hosted by William Deverell and produced by Avishay Artsy, Katie Dunham, Greg Hise, Jessica Kim, Elizabeth Logan, Olivia Ramirez, Li Wei Yang, and Stephanie Yi. Western Edition is a production of the H

May 31, 2022 • 38:13

L.A. Chinatown: What is Chinatown?

L.A. Chinatown: What is Chinatown?

As an idea, as a place, even as a single structure, Chinatown has meant and means different things to different people at different times. The first episode of L.A. Chinatown explores these multiple meanings across time and space.Western Edition is hosted by William Deverell and produced by Avishay Artsy, Katie Dunham, Greg Hise, Jessica Kim, Elizabeth Logan, Olivia Ramirez, Li Wei Yang, and Stephanie Yi. Western Edition is a production of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West.

May 24, 2022 • 26:19

L.A. Chinatown: Prologue

L.A. Chinatown: Prologue

L.A.’s Chinatown is a bustling cultural and business hub, legendary in cinematic history and popular with tourists and locals alike. Yet below its surface lies a challenging history – of racial discrimination as well as community resilience – going back more than a century and a half. And it’s a history still being uncovered, as explored in the second season of Western Edition: L.A. Chinatown. This season explores the past, present, and future of one of L.A.’s oldest neighborhoods and one of the

May 10, 2022 • 3:55

The West on Fire: Climbing the Tower

The West on Fire: Climbing the Tower

For over a century, the U.S. Forest Service has posted fire lookouts at the tops of mountains and trees: men and women who gaze out at the horizon, watching and waiting for signs of smoke, and serving as the eyes for the fire crews who go out to battle the blazes. In this episode, we talk to Philip Connors, who keeps watch over one of the most fire-prone forests in the country: the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. Every summer, for nearly two decades, he sits in a tiny cabin at the top of a f

Oct 19, 2021 • 24:26

The West On Fire: Incarceration and Firefighting

The West On Fire: Incarceration and Firefighting

There’s a good chance that the firefighter saving you from a wildfire is actually an incarcerated person. As of summer 2021, about 1,600 work at conservation camps, also called fire camps, in California. These are minimum-security facilities staffed by incarcerated people who both volunteer and then qualify for the program based on their conviction offenses and behavior in prison. Other incarcerated persons serve at institutional firehouses. Once they finish serving their sentences, some might c

Oct 12, 2021 • 37:23

The West On Fire: Smoke and Farmworkers

The West On Fire: Smoke and Farmworkers

Wildfire smoke can spread far beyond the fire itself, and the toxic pollutants carried in the smoke can be deadly. In this episode, we investigate the harm posed by wildfire smoke and exactly what happens to our bodies when we’re inhaling wildfire smoke, including triggering or worsening other health problems. We’ll also learn about how migrant farmworkers are especially at risk -- due to the nature of their outdoor work, pesticide exposure, and lack of Indigenous language translation -- and the

Oct 5, 2021 • 32:11

The West On Fire: Good Fire

The West On Fire: Good Fire

The gospel of fire safety in the Western U.S. has long been one of suppression: fires are bad and they should be avoided at all costs. But Indigenous communities in the West see things differently. In this episode, we talk to Indigenous tribal leaders who engage in controlled burns: carefully controlled fires intentionally set as a way of managing ecosystems, by burning the undergrowth and dead trees that would otherwise fuel wildfires. It’s become a sensitive debate, in which fire management of

Sep 28, 2021 • 28:59

The West On Fire: Debris Flow

The West On Fire: Debris Flow

Fires can be terribly destructive forces of nature, wiping out entire communities, as we’ve seen so often these past few years. But the destruction doesn’t stop when the fires go out. Fires can leave hillsides denuded. Foothill communities no longer have the trees and roots to protect them from the rocks and mud that flow down from the mountains after it rains. That’s what happened in Montecito, a community on the eastern edge of Santa Barbara, in early January 2018. In this episode, we learn ab

Sep 21, 2021 • 32:01

The West On Fire: Smokey Bear

The West On Fire: Smokey Bear

“Remember, only you can prevent forest fires.” Generations of Americans have this fire safety adage emblazoned on their collective memory thanks to Smokey Bear (often mistakenly called Smokey the Bear).  Smokey Bear is the longest-running public service announcement in U.S. history. A large, friendly, bare-chested bear in denim jeans and a campaign hat, asking you to prevent forest fires, he is universally beloved… almost. In this episode, we get to know the bear himself. Where did he come from?

Sep 14, 2021 • 28:16

The West On Fire: Black Firefighters in L.A.

The West On Fire: Black Firefighters in L.A.

Firefighters have a hard job. Whether they’re putting out housefires or battling large-scale wildfires, the work can be grueling, dangerous, and thankless. Imagine having to deal with racism and bigotry on top of all that. Los Angeles firehouses were segregated until the 1950s, and the work to overcome racism on the force continues to this day. In this episode, we meet members of the Stentorians, a fraternal organization that focuses on recruiting, training, and connecting Black firefighters, in

Sep 7, 2021 • 32:33

The West on Fire: Prologue

The West on Fire: Prologue

Amidst the most catastrophic fires the North American West has ever experienced comes a new podcast from the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West (ICW), and hosted by its director William Deverell, exploring the legacy and calamity of wildfire in the Western U.S. Launching on Sept. 7, 2021, Western Edition is the first podcast from ICW, a center for scholarly investigation of the history and culture of California and the American West based jointly out of the University of Souther

Aug 31, 2021 • 6:00

Coming Soon - Western Edition: The West on Fire

Coming Soon - Western Edition: The West on Fire

Western Edition -- a new podcast from the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West and hosted by its director William Deverell, historian of the American West -- seeks to engage Angelenos, Californians, and Westerners as critical thinkers, conscious consumers, and informed community members. The podcast seeks to tell the fascinating stories of the people and communities of our region, connecting the past to the present, and demonstrating the tightly woven fabric of history. The first

Aug 17, 2021 • 1:45

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