American History

Latest Episodes:

Golden: How California Made America Mar 14, 2019

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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.

An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846–1873 Jan 17, 2019

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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

The Lady and George Washington Dec 12, 2018

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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.

Anton Roman: San Francisco’s Pioneering Bookseller & Publisher Jan 17, 2018

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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.

A Mormon Diarist in California, 1850–1858 Jan 10, 2018

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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.

“The Theater of Many Deeds of Blood”: The Geography of Violence in Frontier Los Angeles Feb 08, 2017

Show notes

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.

PBS’s “Mercy Street” and Medical Histories of the Civil War Jan 23, 2017

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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.

The New Battlefield History of the American Revolution Jan 13, 2017

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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.

The Atlantic Slave Trade and the American Revolution Jan 11, 2017

Show notes

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.

The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire Sep 15, 2016

Show notes

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.

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