Verso

This year’s Founders’ Day event was a lively departure from previous programs. Rather than spotlighting a single narrative to celebrate, it featured a suite of stories from across The Huntington’s collections.

In the twilight of President Jimmy Carter’s life, longtime Huntington volunteer Dennis Harbach recently shared a Los Angeles Times article on Carter’s 1991 visit. It was July 15, and Carter was here for the opening of “The Sacred Fire of Liberty: The Creation of the American Bill of Rights” exhibition.

Through an ongoing partnership with Ghetto Film School, young filmmakers are introduced to The Huntington’s three collections—art, library materials, and the botanical gardens—as a source of ideas and inspiration for their work.

As the 2020–21 Caltech-Huntington Art + Research Fellow, Los Angeles–based artist Sandy Rodriguez created new artworks that appear in “Borderlands,” including a map and a series of works on paper.

Valentine’s Day is a florist’s busiest time of the year and among the most popular at The Huntington. While visitors explore the splendor of the gardens, tucked among the rare books collection in the Library are the works of botanists in love—enamored of the plants themselves.

Currently on fellowship at The Huntington, I have been using my time to conduct research for my second book about how enslaved Africans in the Americas re-created and re-imagined African maritime traditions, including swimming, diving, surfing, boat-making, canoeing, and fishing.

A collection of medical remedies doesn’t seem like the obvious place for contentious or problematic texts. Yet in England during the medieval period, certain methods of healing could be controversial.

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.