Watch, Read, Listen

For this presentation, James Folsom, the Marge and Sherm Telleen/Marion and Earle Jorgensen Director of the Botanical Gardens, recounts the physical and intellectual origins of Liu Fang Yuan, reminding us of the many people, ideas, and activities that brought this garden and endeavor to its current state. To establish a broader context, he discusses how The Huntington’s Asian Gardens strengthen the concerted impact and significance of the institution, and how that role might gain further traction in years to come.

In this webinar, Huntington Curator of Rare Books Stephen Tabor explains how printing technology developed from the hand-press period to the early 20th century, shows how to spot different typesettings and impressions, and explores how basic bibliographical terms have been used variously by book historians, publishers, and booksellers. Illustrations include examples of varying quality to show how photographic reproductions can produce false clues and digital red herrings. The webinar is useful for collectors (or people thinking of becoming collectors!), dealers, and anybody who works with printed texts or digital copies of originals. This event is part of an ongoing webinar series presented by the Library’s Reader Services Department.

Professor Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and one of the nation’s premier authorities on the Founding era, discusses how Americans today deal with problematic historical figures such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, in the inaugural lecture for the Shapiro Center for American History and Culture at The Huntington.

Huntington curators share stories about some of the Library’s most remarkable and surprising acquisitions. This program is presented by Rare Books LA.

Dr. Sowande’ Mustakeem, Associate Professor of History and of African and African-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, reconstructs the significance of water and power in how slavery is remembered, exploring the roles of bondpeople, sailors, and slave ship surgeons during the centuries of racial calamity at sea. By centering maritime history and culture in the realities of transoceanic slaving, we gain greater insight into the entangled nature of the human manufacturing system and make greater meaning of the lives of the dead, thereby ensuring the future of collective historical remembrance. This program is the 2020 Kemble Lecture in Maritime History.