Videos and Recorded Programs

Sachiko Kusukawa, professor of the history of science at the University of Cambridge, explores the many ways images served early modern science, from anatomical atlases and botanical illustrations to telescopic and microscopic observations.

Edmund Russell, professor of history at Carnegie Mellon University and the Dibner Distinguished Fellow at The Huntington, discusses the motives, construction, and consequences of the completion of transcontinental telegraph in 1861.

Eugene Wang, professor of art history at Harvard University, discusses the Qianlong Garden in the northeast corner of the Forbidden City. Built in the 1770s, the whole garden space can be seen as a five-act play.

James Walvin, professor emeritus at the University of York and the Los Angeles Times Distinguished Fellow at The Huntington, discusses the widespread global ramifications of African slavery that transformed the cultural habits of millions of people.

Wallace Stevens is regarded as one of the great American poets, yet he was also an inimitable letter writer. Leading international experts make the first concerted effort to study Stevens' letters as a major part of the poet's literary heritage.

Organized around themes defined by the verbs "Fight," "Return," "Map," "Move," and "Build," the exhibition "Nineteen Nineteen" showcases items that embody an era in flux. Rare books, posters, letters, photographs, diaries, paintings, sculpture, and ephemera will be on view. Highlights include representative items from 1919, such as a 37-foot map of a Pacific Electric (Red Car) route in Los Angeles, astronomical photographs of the moon and constellations, German Revolution posters, and suffragist pamphlets, alongside important works acquired by Henry E. Huntington in the lead-up to that year, including the original manuscript of Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, the journal of Aaron Burr, and the memoirs of Gen. William T. Sherman.

Award-winning author Susan Straight is joined by novelist Lisa See for a conversation about Straight's powerful new memoir, In the Country of Women, which traces the lives of six generations of immigrant and multiracial women in her extended family. The program is presented by the Huntington–USC Institute on California and the West. Book signing follows the program.

In 1919, Henry and Arabella Huntington signed the trust indenture that formed The Huntington. But in 1919 this was still a working ranch; the library was still under construction; and Henry was still gung-ho for a citrus operation that he hoped would subsidize his plans for a public institution.

Architect Marc Appleton, author of "Ranches: Home on the Range in California", discusses the history of cattle ranching in California. Once a robust industry in the state, ranching is now a much diminished and challenged enterprise, says Appleton, and many ranchers are witnessing the passing of a way of life.  Listen

Historian Steven Usselman traces how one breakthrough technology—the deep well centrifugal pump—triggered an unfolding cascade of change that reshaped the Golden State, both literally and figuratively. Conceived for use on citrus ranches such as those owned by Henry Huntington, these intricate mechanical marvels spilled over into many domains, including water management, food processing, oil drilling, and aviation.

Architectural historian Barbara Lamprecht explores a little known but key aspect of Richard Neutra's unique contribution to architecture: designing environments that fused constructions and site to create "soul anchorages" or "habitats." Renowned for his sleek interpretations of Modernism, Neutra's first job after World War I was as a gardening assistant to one of Switzerland's most famous early purveyors of Modern landscape design. Neutra later integrated his knowledge of plants with ideas about evolutionary biology's role in human well-being. The program is presented as part of the California Garden & Landscape History Society Lecture Series.

Li Wei Yang, curator of the Pacific Rim Collection at The Huntington, retraces the history of Chinatown in Los Angeles using old Chinese Restaurant menus from the You Chung Hong Family Collection.