UCR Public History

Conference unites historians, storytellers to showcase overlooked Inland Empire history The Inland Empire People’s History conference at Cal State San Bernardino over the weekend shed light on histories of underserved communities of color.

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!

$35 million Museum of Riverside renovation OK’d Closed since September 2017, the downtown facility will get a two-story addition, more galleries, a larger nature lab and classroom space.

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

Madam C.J. Walker, the first U.S. self-made female millionaire, gets her own Barbie 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.

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/

Rosalind is an incredible local preservation advocate and a great friend of the program! Hats off to her!

Women in Preservation: M. Rosalind Sagara and the California Riverside Chinatown Community | National Trust for Historic Preservation Read how M. Rosalind Sagara’s helped preserve the local heritage of Riverside, California's Chinatown, and an update on her work in 2021.

NTHP spotlights Riverside's Trujillo Adobe as one of its 11 Most Endangered Historic Places 2021:

11 Days of 11 Most: Trujillo Adobe, Riverside CA

Constructed in 1862 by the Trujillo family, and today the oldest known building in Riverside, the Trujillo Adobe tells the nuanced story of migration and settlement in inland southern California.

Lorenzo Trujillo, who built the Adobe in what was then a part of Mexico, was a Genízaro—one of many Native Americans who were captured, sometimes held in slavery, sometimes baptized and raised by Spanish colonists. Trujillo's home became the beating heart of a community known as La Placita de los Trujillos, Spanish Town, and Agua Mansa.

The Adobe is now deteriorated and fragile, protected only by a wooden structure (also in need of repair) that hides the Adobe from view. Local advocates hope to transform the Adobe into a cultural and educational site to recognize the multiple cultures that shaped and continue to define the region.

TAKE ACTION: Urge Congress to Increase Funding for the Historic Preservation Fund: http://ow.ly/8m6K50F1nEd

Spanish Town Heritage Foundation
Riverside Tamale Festival
City of Riverside - Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson

Photo by Nancy Melendez

Riverside’s 1862 Trujillo Adobe makes ‘Most Endangered Places’ list National Trust for Historic Preservation puts a Riverside site on its list for the second straight year. The county-owned adobe, the oldest structure in city limits, is crumbling.