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American History

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The Huntington’s early American historical collections are important resources for the study of the Colonial and Revolutionary periods, the drafting of the Constitution, and the Civil War. Among the holdings are hundreds of autograph letters written by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, as well as the manuscript of Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography. The Huntington can also claim the largest collection of autograph manuscripts of Abraham Lincoln west of Illinois. In conferences, seminars, and lectures, curators and visiting scholars discuss their subjects in depth.

#62

An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846–1873

Benjamin Madley, associate professor of history at UCLA, discusses the near-annihilation and survival of California's indigenous population under United States rule in this Billington Lecture ... Read more

17 Jan 2019

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17 Jan 2019

#61

Golden: How California Made America

Acclaimed historian Louis Warren, professor of U.S. Western History at the University of California, Davis, explores how Californians remade American ideas of property and power between 1848 and the present in this Avery Lecture. ... Read more

14 Mar 2019

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14 Mar 2019

#60

The Lady and George Washington

Mary Sarah Bilder, Founders Professor at Boston College Law School, discusses the responses of George Washington and Benjamin Rush to Eliza Harriot O'Connor's remarkable university lectures in 1787 and their implications for female political status under the Constitution. O'Connor was the first American female lecturer and principal of a female academy. This program is a Nevins Lecture. ... Read more

12 Dec 2018

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12 Dec 2018

#59

A Mormon Diarist in California, 1850–1858

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, the 300th Anniversary University Professor of History at Harvard University, shares stories from the remarkable diary of Caroline Crosby. The wife of a Mormon missionary, Crosby reached California with her husband in 1850 en route to a posting in the South Pacific, and later lived among “saints and strangers” in San Jose, San Francisco, and San Bernardino. ... Read more

11 Jan 2018

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11 Jan 2018

#58

Anton Roman: San Francisco’s Pioneering Bookseller & Publisher

John Crichton, proprietor of the Brick Row Book Shop in San Francisco, shares the story of pioneering entrepreneur Anton Roman (1828–1903), who came to California from Bavaria in 1849 to make his fortune in the gold fields, then converted his gold into books and became one of the most important booksellers in the West. ... Read more

18 Jan 2018

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18 Jan 2018

#57

“The Theater of Many Deeds of Blood”: The Geography of Violence in Frontier Los Angeles

John Mack Faragher, the Howard R. Lamar Professor Emeritus of History and American Studies at Yale University, discusses the spatial pattern of homicide in Southern California in the 19th century. This talk is part of the Billington Lecture series at The Huntington. Recorded Feb. 8, 2017. ... Read more

08 Feb 2017

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08 Feb 2017

#56

PBS’s “Mercy Street” and Medical Histories of the Civil War

The Huntington presents a fascinating conversation about the practice of medicine during the U.S. Civil War and its dramatization in the popular PBS series “Mercy Street.” The panel discussion is moderated by Melissa Lo, Dibner Assistant Curator or Science and Technology at The Huntington, and includes curator Olga Tsapina, who oversees The Huntington’s Civil War collections; series executive producers Lisa Wolfinger and David Zabel; and series medical history advisor Shauna Devine. Recorded Jan. 17, 2017. ... Read more

23 Jan 2017

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23 Jan 2017

#55

The Atlantic Slave Trade and the American Revolution

Christopher Brown, professor of history at Columbia University, explores the relationship between two themes in American history that are usually treated separately. Brown discusses the impact the war for American independence had on the economics and politics of the slave trade, and vice versa. This talk is part of the Nevins Lecture series at The Huntington. Recorded Jan. 11, 2017. ... Read more

11 Jan 2017

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11 Jan 2017

#54

The New Battlefield History of the American Revolution

Woody Holton, professor of American history at the University of South Carolina and the Los Angeles Times Distinguished Fellow at The Huntington, offers a preview of research from his forthcoming book. During the last half-century, as social historians revolutionized the study of nearly every facet of America’s founding era, they left one topic—the battlefield—to traditional historians. Until now. This talk is part of the Distinguished Fellow Lecture Series at The Huntington. Recorded Oct. 24, 2016. ... Read more

13 Jan 2017

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13 Jan 2017

#53

The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire

Karl Jacoby, professor of history at Columbia University, uses the story of the remarkable Gilded Age border crosser William Ellis to discuss the shifting relationship between the United States and Mexico in the late 19th century. This talk is part of the Billington Lecture series at The Huntington. Recorded Sept. 14, 2016. ... Read more

15 Sep 2016

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15 Sep 2016

#52

Let the People Rule

Geoffrey Cowan, president of the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, discusses his book "Let the People Rule: Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of the Presidential Primary". Using a trove of newly discovered documents, Cowan offers a glimpse at the raucous and often mean-spirited political machinations of the 1912 campaign, which changed American politics forever by creating the system of primaries by which presidential nominees are selected today. ... Read more

25 May 2016

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25 May 2016

#51

The St. Francis Dam Collapse of 1928

Considered the worst civil engineering failure in the history of California and the state’s second-worst disaster in terms of lives lost, the collapse of the St. Francis Dam ended the storied career of William Mulholland, the man who earlier had masterminded construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. To contextualize Mulholland’s responsibility for the dam’s failure, historians Norris Hundley, Jr. and Donald C. Jackson relied extensively on items in The Huntington’s collections for their book titled "Heavy Ground: William Mulholland and the St. Francis Dam Disaster." In addition, roughly a third of the book’s illustrations are drawn from The Huntington’s collection. ... Read more

20 May 2016

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20 May 2016

#50

The Creative Life in 19th-Century America

Alice Fahs, professor of history at UC Irvine, discusses what we can learn from the attempts by prominent 19th-century American writers such as Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau to form communities that would nurture and sustain their art. This is part of the Distinguished Fellow Lecture Series at The Huntington. ... Read more

02 Jun 2016

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02 Jun 2016

#49

What Good Is History?

Pulitzer Prize-winning historians Elizabeth Fenn and Alan Taylor engage in a scholarly conversation on the contemporary relevance of historical writings on the American past. Why do we need historical perspective on our times? What do history, and the humanities more generally, have to teach us about point of view, context, and the rights and wrongs of our past and our present? These scholars and the audience will explore the answers to these questions. This program, which helps mark the centennial of the Pulitzer Prize, is co-sponsored by The Huntington, the Huntington–USC Institute on California and the West, and California Humanities. ... Read more

29 Mar 2016

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29 Mar 2016

#48

Saul Bellow and American Prose

Saul Bellow has been called the greatest writer of American prose of the 20th century. Zachary Leader, professor of English literature at the University of Roehampton, explores this claim and tests it. This talk was part of the Ridge Lecture series at the Huntington. ... Read more

18 Feb 2016

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18 Feb 2016

#47

The Men Who Lost America

Andrew O’Shaughnessy, vice president of Monticello and professor of history at the University of Virginia, dispels the incompetence myth surrounding the loss of the American colonies and uncovers the real reasons that rebellious colonials were able to achieve their surprising victory. This talk was part of the Nevins Lecture series at The Huntington. ... Read more

12 Feb 2016

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12 Feb 2016

#46

How Business Became Standardized in 19th- and 20th-Century America

Stephen Mihm, associate professor of history at the University of Georgia, chronicles the unlikely coalition of often eccentric entrepreneurs who brought standard sizes, products, and procedures to American business. This talk was part of the Haaga Lecture Series. ... Read more

28 Jan 2016

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28 Jan 2016

#45

Mormon History Lecture - Fatal Convergence: The Mountain Meadows Massacre in American History

Religion and violence converged in southern Utah in 1857 when a Mormon militia attacked a wagon train bound for California. Sarah Barringer Gordon, professor of law and history at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses how recognition of the importance of religion to the Mountain Meadows Massacre yields vitally connected histories. ... Read more

21 Jan 2016

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21 Jan 2016

#44

Looking at Lincoln

Shirley Samuels, professor of English and American studies at Cornell University and the Los Angeles Times Distinguished Fellow, examines the relationship between pictures of Abraham Lincoln and the language that he used in famous speeches. ... Read more

08 Dec 2015

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08 Dec 2015

#43

The Dock Society Presents: An Evening at “The Knick”

Jack Amiel and Michael Begler, co-creators of “The Knick,” have a discussion and Q&A about their Cinemax series. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, the show follows Dr. John Thackery (played by Clive Owen) at The Knickerbocker Hospital – aka The Knick – a microcosm of medical progress, racial tension, sexism, addiction, and class conflict in 1900s New York City. The panel focuses on what it takes to bring medical history to life, and the resonance of the past for a 21st-century present. Dock Society members Dr. Richard Ellis and Dr. Claire Panosian Dunavan moderate. ... Read more

04 Dec 2015

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04 Dec 2015

#42

A Neglected Document (Really!) of the Salem Witch Trials

Clive Holmes, emeritus fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, will provide a context for the 1692 determination by the Puritan clergymen of the Cambridge Association concerning spectral evidence in witchcraft trials. This talk is part of the Crotty Lecture series at The Huntington. ... Read more

20 Nov 2015

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20 Nov 2015

#41

Mark Twain Imagined the Raft and Henry Huntington Built It

Laura Skandera Trombley became the eighth president of The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in July 2015. However, her history with the institution began much earlier. A specialist on Mark Twain, Trombley began conducting research at The Huntington as a young scholar, using rare materials in the Library to help shape her doctoral thesis. She is the author of five books. Her most recent, “Mark Twain’s Other Woman: The Hidden Story of His Final Years,” was published in 2010. As a graduate student, she discovered the largest known cache of Mark Twain’s letters, which ultimately became the primary source material for her dissertation and her 1994 book, “Mark Twain in the Company of Women.” Her other books include “Constructing Mark Twain: New Directions in Scholarship (2002)”, “Critical Essays on Maxine Hong Kingston (1998)”, and “Epistemology: Turning Points in the History of Poetic Knowledge (1986)." ... Read more

04 Nov 2015

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04 Nov 2015

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#62

An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846–1873

#61

Golden: How California Made America

#60

The Lady and George Washington

#59

A Mormon Diarist in California, 1850–1858

#58

Anton Roman: San Francisco’s Pioneering Bookseller & Publisher

#57

“The Theater of Many Deeds of Blood”: The Geography of Violence in Frontier Los Angeles

#56

PBS’s “Mercy Street” and Medical Histories of the Civil War

#55

The Atlantic Slave Trade and the American Revolution

#54

The New Battlefield History of the American Revolution

#53

The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire

#52

Let the People Rule

#51

The St. Francis Dam Collapse of 1928

#50

The Creative Life in 19th-Century America

#49

What Good Is History?

#48

Saul Bellow and American Prose

#47

The Men Who Lost America

#46

How Business Became Standardized in 19th- and 20th-Century America

#45

Mormon History Lecture - Fatal Convergence: The Mountain Meadows Massacre in American History

#44

Looking at Lincoln

#43

The Dock Society Presents: An Evening at “The Knick”

#42

A Neglected Document (Really!) of the Salem Witch Trials

#41

Mark Twain Imagined the Raft and Henry Huntington Built It