This year, the National Competition for National History Day (NHD) was held in Washington D.C. for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Over 40 of our Arizona students qualified to attend the exciting event. Arizona students were able to meet other students from all 50 states, U.S. territories, and international schools across the […]

Highlights from the 2023 Mining History Association Conference By David Turpie I recently had the pleasure of attending the annual Mining History Association (MHA) conference. I am not a mining historian myself, but I attended as a representative of the Journal of Arizona History (JAH). We are planning to publish a special issue of the […]

  To help celebrate Arizona’s 111st birthday a  postcard making contest was created for 3rd graders.  Lessons and activities were developed to support teachers’ needs to meet 3rd grade state standards on Arizona history. Over 2,000 students participated, 700 postcard art pieces were scored for creativity, accuracy in art and social studies, and 6 postcards […]

Established in 1973, MetroCenter, a regional shopping district located in northwest Phoenix, was designed by the architectural firm Flatow, Moore, Bryan and Fairburn. Its impressive two-story, enclosed shopping mall was accessible through a massive 7,000-space parking lot and by prominent tenant signage. Boasting its status as one of the largest shopping malls in the United […]

From where we stand today, it’s hard to understand how prominent railroads used to be in the public imagination. But starting in the 1820s and for at least a century thereafter, railroads both enabled and symbolized a multitude of transformations in American society. Those changes were wrought in politics, business, labor, and leisure, and they […]

Juneteenth Celebration at the Arizona Heritage Center on June 18, 2023 Brings Community Members and Local Organizations Together The 2023 Annual Juneteenth Celebration will be held at the Arizona Heritage Center in Tempe from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, June 18, 2023 The Arizona Historical Society (AHS) will host their Annual Juneteenth Celebration […]

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 […]

“This exhibit of humanity is hauntingly beautiful,” Kyle Morey, AHS Development Director said while speaking to the consulate of Mexico, Rafael Barceló Durazo, during Arizona Historical Society’s closing ceremony for Los Desconocidos: The Migrant Quilt Project. “The artifact that wrings my heart is a little girl’s blue-jean skirt with the label: ‘suenos de caramelos’ which means ‘candy dreams’ […]

February 19, 2023 On this day in 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, commanding the military “to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent… from which any or all persons may be excluded.” The term “persons” was never defined as a specific group, but Executive Order 9066 was only […]

February 2, 2023 Borderlands Theater and Los Descendientes de Tucson receive new landlords in Rio Nuevo at historic adobe Tucson, AZ On January 27, 2023, the Arizona Historical Society Board of Directors  unanimously approved the sale of the Sosa-Carrillo House to Rio Nuevo. The historic, 1880s  home on the Tucson Convention Center Campus is one […]