"Walden. Yesterday I came here to live." That entry from the journal of Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), and the intellectual journey it began, would by themselves be enough to place him in the American pantheon of writers and thinkers.

In 2016, The Huntington launched /five, a five-year contemporary arts initiative focused on creative collaboration. The plan? Each year, a different arts or cultural organization is selected to bring in artists to create works in response to The Huntington's library, art, and botanical collections in new and unforeseen ways.

Children with autism react to sensory stimuli in very different ways. Some children on the autism spectrum are overly sensitive, while others are just the opposite. The Huntington offers a range of environments to suit any child's needs.

In 19th-century Britain, the mere fact of being poor could land you in prison—debtors' prison, that is. The history of British prisons and how artists and architects documented the social, political, and legal tensions surrounding prison reform are the main themes of a focused exhibition in the Huntington Art Gallery's Works on Paper room, on view until June 26.

Examining a real book up close can tell us things that a microfilmed or black-and-white online image of the object doesn't show. Scholars often discover interesting information by inspecting a book's watermarks, paper stocks, or bindings.

I've been tracking two people in the archives of the Huntington Library whose careers reveal surprising parallels. One is William Wordsworth, the Romantic-era Lake District poet who made a career of dancing among daffodils and touring the rural reaches of late 18th-century England.

The history of art is peppered with tales of women artists who struggled to gain the same recognition as men. To shine a light on women’s artistic bounty, the National Museum of Women in the Arts kicked off a social media campaign last March to honor Women’s History Month.

At the dedication of The Huntington's Munger Research Center in 2004, California historian Kevin Starr (1940–2017), who died in January, said, "Southern California contemplates itself, defines itself, brings itself to further identity through a variety of agencies and instruments

Last Thursday, we let art historian James Fishburne—guest curator of "A History of Whiskers: Facial Hair and Identity in European and American Art, 1750–1920"—run The Huntington's Instagram account for the day. In a nod to the exhibition, which is on view for just one more week, James spent the day looking at facial hair in our art galleries, touring us through "Shenandoahs," "chin curtains," and mustachioed teapots.

One of the most iconic images of California is the coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia). With its rugged trunk, twisting branches, and broad canopy, it adds both power and grace to our native landscape. We're fortunate to have more than 200 coast live oaks on The Huntington property. We also have a very small and special one that expresses the iconographic qualities we associate with our native oaks.