Huntington Verso

An array of winter-blooming plants from around the world are taking the stage at The Huntington, putting on floral performances that add vibrancy to the gardens at a time of the year that some might think is surprising.

As 2022 draws to a close, we invite you to look back at some of our favorite Verso stories from the past year. Below is a selection of posts, one from each of the past 12 months, highlighting what makes The Huntington such a remarkable place.

What can architecture aspire to be? Award-winning architect and educator Billie Tsien has some ideas and shared them in conversation with Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence last month as part of The Huntington’s “Why It Matters” series.

The monumental Portage Falls on the Genesee (ca. 1839) by the 19th-century English American landscape painter Thomas Cole (1801–1848) is at once beautiful and sublime, depicting the overwhelming scale and power of nature in a spectacular region of upstate New York.

In September 1758, the 62-year-old Lt. Col. Conrad Weiser (1696–1760), a veteran Indian interpreter, recorded a speech delivered by a man whose name he rendered as Ackowano Thio, or Ackowanothio.

William Shakespeare remained the most produced playwright in the world in 2022, but will he maintain that status by 2050? While major research libraries continue to build their collections around their Shakespearean holdings, the purpose of the research library is in flux.

Most guests who visit the botanical gardens at The Huntington appreciate their beauty, but there is much more to them than meets the eye. Our living plant collection is both regionally and globally diverse. Thousands of the species in our care are not found in any other botanical garden.

On Sept. 2, 1859, Lucy E. Nuttall died in Nevada County, California, of complications following an abortion. Her untimely death provides a window through which we can view a place and time when abortion access was highly limited.

One indicator of a healthy garden is a diversity of invertebrate life, from soil microbes to insects. With its botanical bounty and limited use of chemical controls in landscape maintenance, The Huntington’s grounds are an urban oasis for wildlife, including an incredible array of spineless wonders.

The Huntington is an apt place for a conference on race, disability, and eugenics in the United States.

In 1865, the El Nuevo Mundo newspaper of San Francisco invited its readers to join in toasting Mexico’s heroes and roasting its imperialist enemies by printing “brindis,” or toasts, performed by women of the Zaragoza Club of Los Angeles and the Patriotic Club of Mexico of Virginia City, Nevada.

Famed British novelist Hilary Mantel died on Sept. 22. Mary Robertson, The Huntington’s former William A. Moffett Curator of British Historical Manuscripts, remembers Mantel’s extraordinary talent and their special friendship.