Pima Community College has just announced its Community Education Lecture Series. The first lecture is "The Legacy of Gold Mountain: Chinese Immigrant Families in Southern Arizona" and will be held on Friday, January 25, 2008, 6:00 p.m. at the Tucson Chinese Cultural Center is a beautiful new facilityTucson Chinese Cultural Center, 1288 West River Road. map.
For more information contact Community Education at 206-6579. [download the announcement PDF]
Last week a student in a journalism class came by to ask me some questions about Through Our Parents' Eyes. I thought it was for a paper he was writing strictly for his class/prof. He told me that it was for the website Border Beat: U.S. Border News, Insight & Resources. Here are two sentences from the About page.
The University of Arizona's student-run online magazine, Border Beat, was established to explore and provide fresh perspectives on the people, places and issues of the U.S.–Mexico Border. This semester, with Professor Jay Rochlin, a team of journalism seniors will bring you up to speed on all things border related, brought to life through creative stories, captivating photos, multimedia, and relevant blogs.What a great student project. I'm adding it to the Other Websites page in Through Our Parents' Eyes. Check it out - set a bookmark.
And speaking of border issues, I'll take this moment to re-iterate my recommendation for Luis Alberto Urrea's outstanding book, The Devil's Highway: A True Story. Read a blurb on Google Books.
Over the Thanksgiving break I finished up the pages for this new collection of nose art images from WW II. As Corporal Crump (Australian Air Force) finds time, he will scan the photos at a high resolution and I will link retrievable copies to the embedded images. View the images:
Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) New Guinea, 1942-1946
On October 12, 2007, (appropriately enough over the weekend observing Veteran's Day in the U.S.) Bryon Crump a Corporal in the Australian Air Force, sent nearly 40 nose art images from WW II. Wrote Corporal Crump:
"I recently was given my late fathers WW2 photo album. He was an airframe fitter based in New Guinea from 1942-46. His album contained a few pages of nose art, so I'll forward them on to you as most are of US Aircraft. Nose art wise the Aussies weren't as prolific as your boys, and they obviously impressed him. I don't have details of which airfields he was based at but I'll investigate."The site is not released to the public yet you can take a look at the five pages featuring WWII nose art. By the way, WW II nose art was distinguished for themes of pin-ups and cartoon characters. The troops on New Guinea apparently favored the former.
Last week's featured site(s) drew attention to Día de los Muertos, The Day of the Dead, which occurred on November 1 (All Saints' Day) and November 2nd's All Souls' Day. I highlighted a Jim Griffith video about observing Día de los Muertos in Oquitoa, Mexico. Real | MP4 There was also linke to "Learn about Día de los Muertos" by reading its Wikipedia article.
One of my LTC colleagues posted a message to our webboard (a web-based bulletin board where we post announcements) with a link to a YouTube video: "Tucson Day of the Dead 2007," submitted by David Gilmore and showing a couple minutes clip of the All Souls Procession in downtown Tucson.
Finally finding time to get back to working with the images from Louise Foucar's (Marshall) 1899 Histology. I wrote this on the in-development page to give visitors a context of why her Histology is so interesting.
Louise Foucar registered at the UA but the only course that she was eligible to take at the time was a botany course taught Professor James W. Toumey. In A Photographic History of the University of Arizona 1885 - 1985 (p. 28), Phyllis Ball wrote that Toumey was one of the UA's six original faculty members and held the title of Botanist for the Agricultural Experiment Station. Alumni will be interested in knowing that it was James Toumey who began the University's original cactus garden in 1896. He left the UA two months after Louise began her studies for Yale University where he helped found the Yale School of Forestry.There are ten pages developed so far containing images and short descriptions of her sketches. The first page includes an image of the Histology's cover and her hand written name. The following page being a look what see researched in her "lab."In the letter to a friend quoted on the University Neighborhood website, Louise wrote that Toumey "showed me how to use the microscope and to make slides; then he pointed out to the desert and said 'There is your work.'" She later recalled that in a trip of an hour over the campus she found twenty-three blooming desert plants. Examining the detail Louise included in her Histology sheds light on why two months after meeting her, Professor Toumey recommended her as his successor.
We have scans of all the sketches and text she wrote by hand in her Histology. However, for the work to have value to students and researchers, we need to create an HTML version that is easy to read and search. This will likely take months to complete.
