Background
The History Alive! Chautauqua programs are part of the California Council for the Humanities' "Rediscovering California at 150" initiative. Through this program, Californians - from Eureka to San Diego - can see actor / historians portray leaders who made an impact on California's early days. Pacific Bell Education First is making six of the presentations available to a wider audience through a series of interactive videoconferences.
Yee Fung Cheung presented by Charlie Chin
Yee Fung Cheung
A famous herb doctor who came from China in 1850 to care for Chinese miners and others. Yee Fung probably prospected for gold before giving ft up to practice what he knew best - herbal medicine. He set up his first herb shop in Chinese Camp in Fiddletown. Later he also set up offices in Virginia City, Nevada (during the silver strike) and in Sacramento. Dr. Yee was joined in his practice by his second son, I Wah Hing. Both effected many famous cures and took care of the sick of all races and nationalities.
Charlie Chin
Charlie Chin has been performing, composing, writing and teaching for over 30 years. An accomplished musician on several instruments, he performed classical, folk and rock music during the late 1960s. Since 1970, he has been in the forefront of Asian American artistic expression. In 1989, Chin was named a Community Folklore Scholar by the Smithsonian Institution. He was education director of the New York Chinatown History Musuem from 1988 to 1991, founded the Jataka Puppet Theatre, directs the Peninsula Center of the National Asian American Writer's Workshop, and is artistic director for the City of San Mateo Asian Pacific Heritage celebration.
Go to Online Activities related to Dr. Yee
Biddy Mason presented by Sandra Kamusikiri
Biddy Mason
An African American woman prominent in the early urban history of Los Angeles, her story exemplifies how Californians struggled with issues of slavery in the 1850's. Arriving in southern California as a slave in 1851, she later won her freedom and became a midwife and nurse, a philanthropist, and an organizer of the First African American Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles.
Sandra Kamusikiri
Sandra Kamusikiri is a professor of English at California State University, San Bernardino, where, for the past fifteen years, she has taught courses in African American literature and language, British Literature and Romantic Prose and Poetry. She earned her M.A. at the University of Iowa and both her B.A. and Ph.D. at the University of California, Riverside. She is the author of numerous articles and reviews, and is co-editor of the Modern Language Association's Writing Assessment: Politics, Policies, and Practice. She is currently working on a book on the African heritage of the slave narratives. As part of a traveling Chautauqua funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Dr. Kamusikiri has appeared throughout the United States as Maria W. Stewart, a free black woman who lived in Boston in the 1820s and 1830s, was the first American-born woman to lecture in public on political themes, and was probably the first African American to lecture in defense of women's rights.
Go to Online Activities related to Biddy Mason
Dame Shirley presented by Kate Magruder
Dame Shirley
Using the pen name Dame Shirley, Louise Amelia Smith Clappe was the first acclaimed literary figure in the state's history, earning that status as the chronicler of life in the mining camps at the height of the Gold Rush. Coming to California from New England with her husband, who practiced medicine in the Sierra gold mining camps, she described the rugged life and the conflict among the diverse cultural groups with clarity and insight in a series of 23 letters written to her sister between 1851-52 and later published in the Pioneer, San Francisco's leading literary magazine of the time. She greatly influenced writers Bret Harte and Mark Twain.
Kate Magruder
Kate Magruder grew up in Illinois and migrated to Northern California in the early 1970s. She was co-founder of Ukiah Players Theatre (UPT), a rural arts organization with a commitment to community-based programs. While artistic director at UPT, Magruder wrote and performed in "A More Perfect Union," a history play about the shaping of the U.S. Constitution. The production toured community colleges throughout the state, with funding from the California Council for the Humanities (CCH) and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Magruder served as a CCH board member from 1988 to 1992. She holds a B.A. in humanities from New College of California and is currently pursuing a master's degree in humanities from California State University, Dominguez Hills. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Potter Valley and teaches humanities and theatre arts at Mendocino College.
Go to Online Activities related to Dame Shirley
John Sutter presented by David Fenimore
John Sutter
An emigré from Switzerland who came to California to establish his "New Helvetia" in the land of opportunity. A man with vision and organization, Sutter built an economically thriving outpost of Anglo-American settlement in Mexican California based on livestock and lumber using Native American labor. The discovery of gold at a mill owned by Sutter launched the "rush" for gold that ultimately led to his undoing, ruining him financially as the mass of humanity tramped through his lands on their rush to the gold fields.
David Fenimore
|
David Fenimore is a noted Chautauqua performer whose previous portrayals include Zane Grey, Horace Greeley, and Donner Party survivor Lewis Keseberg. Fenimore earned his M.A. in English at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he has taught English and Western Traditions since 1989. He has written articles on western writers Zane Grey, Edward Abbey, and Gary Snyder, among others, and has published a book, Bicycling Across America (Pinedrop Press, 1989). In 1993, his two-act play on the life of Zane Grey, "A Bad Boy Grown Up," ran for six sold-out performances in his home town of Truckee, California. |
Go to Online Activities related to John Sutter
Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo presented by Daniel Lewis
Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo
Vallejo held both military and civil authority over a vast area of Northern California during the Mexican period. He maintained a local military force, and was acknowledged as the local representative of the Mexican government. His land grants at one time included most of what are now Marin, Sonoma, Napa and Solano counties. Although imprisoned by Americans during the Bear Flag Rebellion, he later participated in drafting the new state constitution, acting as a negotiator and translator, and served as a State Senator.
Daniel Lewis
|
Daniel Lewis is a native Californian, born and raised in San Bernardino. He has performed widely as a chautauquan, including a national tour with the "Democracy in America" Chautauqua, which was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. He studied history at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and he received his doctorate in Latin American history in 1990. His research focuses on economic and political issues in Argentina, and on liberal ideologies and their impact on Latin American societies during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is currently an assistant professor in the history department at the California Polytechnic State University in Pomona. |
Go to Online Activities related to Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo
Camillo Ynitia
The last chief of the Coastal Miwok village of Olompali, he was one of the handful of Native Californians who successfully traversed three diverse cultures. Born into the traditional Miwok world, he adapted to the Spanish world, experienced the Californio/ Mexican world, and witnessed the entrance of the American world into California. Considered a gente de razon (person of reason) during the Mexican period, he was a compadre of Vallejo, who helped him acquire Rancho Olompali. He outwitted Captain John C. Frémont and survived the Bear Flag Revolt.
Go to Online Activities related to Camillo Ynitia
Return to The Otherness of the Past homepage?
Created May 1, 1999 - Last revised: February, 2005
http://www.kn.att.com/wired/ca_150/
Copyright © 1999 - 2006 AT&T Knowledge Ventures -- All Rights
Reserved
