Library
LOOK>> A Historiscope
Fri., Oct. 2, 2015 | Olivia Hummer and Kate Lain
With LOOK>>, we venture into our wide-ranging collections and bring out a single object to explore in a short video. This time around, we look at Milton Bradley & Company's Historiscope, ca. 1870.
Library
Stone Carver’s Diary from the Spa City of Bath
Tue., Sept. 29, 2015 | Amanda Herbert
We asked Amanda Herbert—the inaugural Molina Fellow in the History of Medicine and the Allied Sciences at The Huntington and assistant professor of history at Christopher Newport University—to share with us some of her current research in the Library's collection.
Library
Coliseum Politics
Fri., Sept. 25, 2015 | Frank Guridy
In recent months, the National Football League's seemingly imminent return to Los Angeles has been big news. This year, the press has widely reported that three NFL franchises—the Chargers, Raiders, and Rams—want to move their teams to the city.
Library
Jack London, Public Intellectual
Tue., Sept. 22, 2015 | Matt Stevens
Author Jack London found a kindred spirit in famed magician Harry Houdini, whose escape artistry London and his wife, Charmian, witnessed firsthand at the Oakland Orpheum on a November afternoon in 1915.
Conferences
Turbulent End to Civil War
Tue., Sept. 15, 2015 | Diana W. Thompson
By the spring of 1865, when surrenders at Appomattox, Durham Station, and elsewhere had finally delivered an end to four years of bloody battle, the American Civil War had killed a staggering 750,000 soldiers and 50,000 civilians—about two and a half percent of the U.S. population—and wounded hundreds of thousands...
Botanical
A Prairie Boy’s Passion for Bonsai
Fri., Sept. 11, 2015 | Lisa Blackburn
The irony doesn't escape Ted Matson. Raised on the prairie of North Dakota, without a tree in sight, the one-time farm boy followed a path in life that led to a full-time career in bonsai. That path also led him to The Huntington, where Matson joined the staff in February...
History of Science
Women Computing the Stars
Tue., Sept. 8, 2015 | Catherine Wehrey
A piece of women's history lies deep in the underground stacks of the Huntington Library, among the papers of American astronomer Frederick Hanley Seares (1873–1964). Seares was the head of the computing division at the Pasadena office of the Mount Wilson Observatory
History of The Huntington
Stories Aboard the Aquitania
Fri., Sept. 4, 2015 | Mario Einaudi and Diana W. Thompson
After they married in 1913, Henry and Arabella Huntington would spend several months each year in Europe, staying at the Château de Beauregard, a lavish castle located north of Paris, near Versailles. Reaching the Continent in those days meant traveling by ocean liner
Library
LOOK>> A Myriorama
Tue., Sept. 1, 2015 | Olivia Hummer and Kate Lain
With LOOK>>, we venture into our wide-ranging collections and bring out a single object to explore in a short video. Up first is Samuel Leigh and John Heaviside Clark's Myriorama from 1824.
Exhibitions
Bad King John
Fri., Aug. 28, 2015 | Vanessa Wilkie, Ph.D.
We love to hate villains. Harry Potter's Lord Voldemort horrifies us with his flagrant use of the Unforgivable Curses. Before him, Darth Vader of Star Wars fame was the true embodiment of evil as he built the Death Star and battled his children.
Library
Pioneers at the Wheel
Tue., Aug. 25, 2015 | Linda Chiavaroli
Heroic tales of 19th-century frontiersmen pushing westward across the American continent have a tenacious hold on the popular imagination. Think, for instance, of Lewis and Clark exploring the waterways of the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase
Art
A Decidedly British Approach to Humor
Fri., Aug. 21, 2015 | Thea Page
The painter, social critic, and editorial cartoonist William Hogarth (1697–1764) set the standard for modern English satire. He saw caricatures imported from the Continent and argued for the creation of a distinctly British approach