Shaping Arizona is our new exhibit coming to the Arizona History Museum on Tuesday, May 28, 2024. Learn about this unique exhibit directly from AHS Exhibits Supervisor/Curator, Vanessa Fajardo: What is this exhibit about? “This exhibit highlights how the state of Arizona gained its current shape and how that influences us today. The land and […]

The 2023 Arizona Historical Society Wrapped is out now!🎉 Take a look at some AHS highlights throughout this year. Thank YOU for all of your support through the years. We can’t wait to see what 2024 holds for us. 

Drinking locally has been a tradition in this part of the world for millennia, starting with the early indigenous cultures of this region. As you walk through this exhibit, you will learn the history of locally made alcohol in Arizona, including how plants with over 10,000 years of history are still in use today, that […]

As early as 1905, Japanese immigrants moved to Arizona with the intent to farm the land. They first planned to establish a sugar beet farm; but this crop would fail to thrive in the heat, and many Japanese farmers left the state by 1915. Despite the difficulty, new farmers continued to arrive, including Kajuro Kishiyama […]

As more and more people receive the COVID-19 vaccine, we can’t help but think of a particularly important artifact housed at the Pioneer Museum in Flagstaff, the iron lung. This early ventilator saved many lives when a previous epidemic spread across America. Polio left many children and adults paralyzed, some temporarily and some permanently. In […]

The Arizona Historical Society holds thousands of precious objects in the collections. We protect and preserve these artifacts that share stories from Arizona history to show how people lived and worked in their everyday lives. Some of these objects are large and some are very small. How did women create their signature beauty looks in […]

The Arizona Historical Society is honored to announce the receipt of the Migrant Quilt Project into its collections. Founded in Tucson in the mid-2000s, The Migrant Quilt Project memorializes the stories of migrants who have died seeking refuge in the United States. It is a collaborative effort between artists, quiltmakers, and activists to document the […]

It was an exciting evening at the Pioneer Hotel on December 20, 1970. Hughes Aircraft, now Raytheon, held their annual Holiday Party in what was one of Arizona’s premier hotels–hundreds of people were in attendance. Winter visitors from all over the US and Sonora were either snuggled up in bed or enjoying the holiday festivities. […]

Starting A ConversationSometime between closing on November 4th and opening on November 5th, the two statues―honoring John Greenway and Padre Eusebio Kino―in front of the Arizona History Museum in Tucson were painted with red spray paint. As a history institution, we paused to reflect on what this means.  First, we have to ask questions about […]

People often think of archives and museums as places where you go to learn about important historical figures. But who decides what makes a person “important” enough to belong in a museum? Throughout much of modern history, decisions about what museums collect have been made exclusively by archivists and curators.  Yet over the past few […]