Howard R. Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borders

12/01/2019

"When the Charlottesville City Council voted this month to remove a prominent statue depicting Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and Sacagawea from the city’s downtown core, it marked the third time in three years the city acted to banish a long-standing statue it determined to be divisive, a vestige of racism or culturally insensitive. The council’s decision was cheered by the local Native American tribe, the Monacan Indian Nation, and descendants of Sacagawea’s family in Idaho. They say the statue presents a weak and servile image of Sacagawea, who actually was an essential guide and interpreter for Lewis and Clark on their expedition of the American West..."

The city plans to move a prominent memorial bearing a cowering depiction of Sacagawea.

09/17/2019

"The Chinese Historical Society of America Museum (CHSA) is currently displaying an exhibit, Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion, which vividly documents the changing views of Americans towards Chinese immigrants in 19th and 20th century America.... Tamiko Wong, the executive director of the CHSA, spoke with the History News Network about the exhibit...."

James Thornton Harris is an independent historian and a regular contributor to the History News Network. For more information see www.JamesThorntonHarris.com. 

09/14/2019

At the Black Cowboy Museum in a storefront near Houston, one man celebrates the lives of African-Americans in the West’s most iconic role.

09/01/2019

A new exhibit detailing the life of John Etchart, one of Montana’s most prominent sheep ranchers, is now on display on the Walking Mall in downtown Helena.

09/01/2019

The "Sauvage" perfume ad campaign references Native American imagery and history

08/10/2019

Shing Yink Khor's new graphic memoir: "I always had this fascination with western stories. Specifically, 19th-century American stories, which objectively thinking about it now doesn't make that much sense. The life of a Malaysian teenager living in the Philippines is so different from a bunch of cannery workers, or a family forging a new life in the West. But to me, it all felt like fantasy stories."

Shing Yin Khor (also known as Sawdust Bear) is not a comic book creator. Sure, they did win an Ignatz Award for their comic strip Say it With Noodles: On Learning to Speak the Language of Food in 2018, Khor identifies more as a writer and artist who express themselves through various mediums — inc...

08/07/2019

Sabrina & Corina" is a collection of short stories about strong female Latinx and their indigenous Chicana roots.

08/07/2019

From the moment Cartersville’s Booth Western Art Museum first opened its doors in 2003, an unu...

08/06/2019

"...in some cases, even being a U.S. citizen has not proved to be a reason to feel safe.>

California officially apologized for the Depression-era program in 2005

08/05/2019

Congratulations to Yale faculty member & Lamar Center board member Laura Barraclough, author of a terrific new book that examines "How Mexican Cowboys Are Remapping Race and American Identity" in the American West!

In the American imagination, no figure is more central to national identity and the nation’s origin story than the cowboy. Yet the Americans and Europeans who settled the U.S. West learned virtually everything they knew about ranching from the indigenous and Mexican horsemen who already inhabited ...

08/04/2019

"... L.A.’s Eastside/Westside demarcations date back to the 1700s. In 1781, 44 individuals set up a settlement called El Pueblo de La Reina de Los Angeles at the base of the Elysian Park hills, straddling the banks of the L.A. River. The waterway’s east and west sides were promptly designated for two different purposes, according to a map drawn up by a Spanish soldier in 1786. The west bank was for the settlers. The east bank was “lands belonging to the crown.”"

To understand the Eastside, you first have to understand the Eastside.

08/04/2019

"Since 1924, History Colorado has in most years appointed a single state historian, who originally was an employee of the museum. But in 2018 it sought ways to expand its reach and deepen scholarship. A representative group seemed the obvious way to go....

So the inaugural five-member State Historian’s Council was formed, drawn from different institutions around the state. Aside from Wei, the group includes Noel, the prolific author and University of Colorado Denver professor dubbed “Dr. Colorado”; Nicki Gonzales, an associate history professor at Regis University who has researched the state’s Chicano movement; Jared Orsi, a Colorado State University history professor specializing in environmental and borderlands history; and Duane Vandenbusche, history professor at Western Colorado University with expertise in water, public lands, and the environment, with particular emphasis on the Western Slope."

Though he specializes in Chinese and Asian American history, a background in immigration finds him taking an outspoken turn in the History Colorado position