Welcome
The Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West (ICW) is a center for scholarly investigation of the history and culture of California and the American West. Through sponsorship of innovative scholarship, research and programming, ICW draws on the resources of the University of Southern California and The Huntington Library to build a unique collaboration amongst a research university, a research library, and the public.
News
Welcome to ICW’s new website. Some of our menus above have changed and we appreciate your patience as we continue to add features.
ICW is delighted to announce the promotion of Associate Director Elizabeth Logan to ICW Co-Director, effective July 1!
“Elizabeth is critical to everything ICW is and does,” says Co-Director William Deverell. “Alongside her scholarly chops, Elizabeth is remarkably organized and strategically acute. Those are rare qualities to find in a single person.”
Launching on May 2, 2023, Western Edition: Memorializing the West explores historical memory, commemoration, and memorialization from Catalina Island to Daly City, California; Jackson, Wyoming to Los Angeles; Denver to San Antonio.
Listen to the trailer of Western Edition: Memorializing the West here.
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About Us
Founded in 2004, the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West (ICW) is a collaborative teaching, research, and outreach initiative focused on the history and culture of the modern American West.
We are committed to utilizing history to provide critical perspective on contemporary issues. We see history as a problem-solving tool on its own and a mechanism by which to provide context, background, and additional insight. ICW engages a wide range of scholars, teachers, and students, as well as members of broadly conceived public audiences. We welcome those who are personally invested in this history, and we have a special interest in reaching and collaborating with members of traditionally underrepresented groups when it comes to scholarly interface and interaction with the public.
We work on the history of the American West. What we know must be informed by the questions we ask, every bit as much as the answers we offer. What is the American West? Where is it? When is it? We have some answers, but we do not have all of them. The dialogues we build with others – with you – will help us ask our questions and, in turn and in collaboration, answer them and raise new ones.
From the Director
On behalf of the Institute on California and the West, welcome to our new website. We are grateful to our friends in USC Dornsife who have helped us with the transition to this new digital space; I am especially grateful to Elizabeth Logan, Stephanie Yi, and Jessica Kim, my ICW colleagues, for all that they have done to make this happen.
I invite you to scroll through these pages to see the range of ICW projects over the last two decades. Our work investigating the history and culture of the modern American West is characterized by a set of activities that seek to bridge scholarly and public audiences, dialogues, and contributions to knowledge. We are committed to our work and our many collaborations, and we urge you to reach out to us with questions, comments, and suggestions about other directions we might explore. We take every suggestion seriously, and our dialogues with you strength our work and outreach.
“A Cruel Jest”: Black Towns, Public Land, and Homesteading in the Nineteenth-Century West
Gary Stein
“It’s a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself up by his own bootstraps.” –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., May 1967
Dr. King was exhausted. It had been four years since he famously had a dream, and more than a decade since he led the Montgomery Bus Boycott that accelerated the civil rights movement.
Publications
Published in partnership with the University of California Press, ICW’s scholarly series Western Histories questions and deepens collective understanding of the history of California and the American West. In addition to the partnership with UC Press, ICW has published stand-alone texts including, Form and Landscape and Past Due.
USC Courses
Through ICW, USC faculty teach undergraduate courses at USC and graduate courses at The Huntington, directly weaving the library’s scholarly materials into the professional training of students. Doctoral and postdoctoral students in USC Dornsife College utilize the breadth of The Huntington collections in their path-breaking research on the history of the American West. At the graduate level, ICW is at the nexus of inter-university collaboration with students and scholars from UCLA, University of California, Riverside, University of California, Irvine, and others.
Los Angeles History Syllabi
Drawing on academic partners throughout the region, syllabi from courses focused on Los Angeles history reflect the range of approaches to better understanding this space.
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Contact Us
Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West
University of Southern California
Van Hunnick Department of History
Los Angeles, CA 90089
Los Angeles Service Academy (LASA)
University of Southern California
Van Hunnick Department of History
Los Angeles, CA 90089