The infrastructure of water control looms large across the history of the American West. Western rivers and watersheds have long been and remain fundamental sites of contest and power, hope and disappointment. Launching in January 2026, the fifth season of Western Edition — the podcast from the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West (ICW) — digs into the complex history of how humans dammed, diverted, and exploited water resources in the region across several hundred years. ...
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 Edit...
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 Edi...
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....
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 Wil...
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 ...
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, plea...
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 Chi...
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 W...
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 ...
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. ...
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...
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 ...
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. Western ...
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...
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 ep...
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 Avish...
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,...
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 signi...
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.