UCR Public History

06/08/2024

The Inland Empire People’s History conference at Cal State San Bernardino over the weekend shed light on histories of underserved communities of color.

08/29/2023

If anyone will be in the Los Angeles area on October 28th, check out the 18th annual Archives Bazaar at the Doheny Memorial Library on the USC campus!

10/05/2022

Closed since September 2017, the downtown facility will get a two-story addition, more galleries, a larger nature lab and classroom space.

09/05/2022

This Labor Day weekend, we're thinking about the work enslaved laborers performed for the Royall family.

First was sugar cane planting and production on the West Indies island of Antigua, which was the primary source of the family's wealth.

Throughout the eighteenth century, sugar from the colonies was England’s most important import. It was the driving force in a network of trade that spanned the Atlantic, touching three continents.

The work was brutal, hot, and dangerous. We don't know how many people Isaac Royall Sr. enslaved during his 30 years in Antigua, but from his account books we know that between 1729 and 1737, perhaps in preparation for his move north, he sold 214 enslaved individuals.

This illustration is from William Clark's "Ten Views In the Island of Antigua, in Which are Represented the Process of Sugar Making.... From Drawings Made by William Clark, During a Residence of Three Years in the West Indies" (London,1823). This depiction of a mill yard in Antigua "shows a windmill with its sails into the wind, canes being brought in ox carts, slaves 'heading' cane loads into the mill rollers and stacking cane stalks. A black driver is shown at the base of the windmill, and the white owner/manager is overseeing the scene." See more images at the remarkable website of "The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record" at www.slaveryimages.org

08/28/2022

Businesswoman Madam C.J. Walker is the latest to join Barbie's line of Inspiring Women dolls. Walker's great-great-granddaughter said she hopes the doll will show kids they too can be entrepreneurs.

05/12/2022

05/05/2022

DID YOU KNOW: The Harada House (3356 Lemon Street), which has been a National Historic Landmark since 1990, now also holds state landmark status as California Historical Landmark #1060?

During Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, we encourage you to learn more about the site of one of the earliest battles in the fight for Asian American civil rights - Harada House: https://www.riversideca.gov/museum/haradahouse/