The infrastructure of water control looms large across the history of the American West. Western rivers and watersheds have long been and remain fundamental sites of contest and power, hope and disappointment.

Launching in January 2026, the fifth season of Western Edition — the podcast from the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West (ICW) — digs into the complex history of how humans dammed, diverted, and exploited water resources in the region across several hundred years. 

While control over water has gone hand in hand with European and American colonization, Western Edition: Watersheds West takes care to engage with Indigenous scholars about Native views of and relationships to western water. The series returns to the critical question: What does the future look like in an era of climate catastrophe? Across its six episodes, the new season invites us all to consider if we are due for a paradigm shift in how we think about our most precious resource.

After the Civil War, many of the children of the anti-slavery crusader who attempted to raid Harper’s Ferry, John Brown, sought new lives and peace in the far West, including Pasadena. This episode shares the story of the Brown brothers and their sister, the recent activism surrounding preserving local post-Civil War era sites, and why this history is critically important to local teachers and students.

To see images related to this episode, please visit dornsife.usc.edu/icw.

Western Edition is hosted by William Deverell and produced by Avishay Artsy, Katie Dunham, Eryn Hoffman, Jessica Kim, and Elizabeth Logan. Western Edition is a production of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West.

What is the oldest structure in the San Gabriel Valley? This episode shares the story of The Shoya House, a 3,000 square-foot home that made a 6,000 mile journey from Japan to Pasadena’s Huntington Library. Now a part of the library’s collection, it fits not only onto the landscape at The Huntington, but serves as a tangible architectural expression at an institution with a renowned architecture archive.

To see images related to this episode, please visit dornsife.usc.edu/icw.

Western Edition is hosted by William Deverell and produced by Avishay Artsy, Katie Dunham, Eryn Hoffman, Jessica Kim, and Elizabeth Logan. Western Edition is a production of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West.

What can we learn from a bookstore? Adam Clark Vroman opened the AC Vroman Bookstore in 1894 and it has symbolized an important piece of Pasadena’s intellectual community ever since. Though the location has changed, this episode takes a deeper look at the man who created this legacy and considers how Vroman’s serves as a community resource at a time when building ties and finding trusted sources of information is a challenge.

To see images related to this episode, please visit dornsife.usc.edu/icw.

Western Edition is hosted by William Deverell and produced by Avishay Artsy, Katie Dunham, Eryn Hoffman, Jessica Kim, and Elizabeth Logan. Western Edition is a production of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West.

Thriving in Pasadena in the 1960s and 1970s, members of the John Birch Society identified as anti-communists, opposed the civil rights movement and racial desegregation, deeply disagreed with the feminist movement, and disseminated lies and conspiracy theories. This episode explores how they profoundly impacted the modern conservative movement from their perch in Southern California.

To see images related to this episode, please visit dornsife.usc.edu/icw.

Western Edition is hosted by William Deverell and produced by Avishay Artsy, Katie Dunham, Eryn Hoffman, Jessica Kim, and Elizabeth Logan. Western Edition is a production of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West.

This is the story of two churches: St. Barnabas, the historically all-black Episcopal Church still standing on Fair Oaks Drive in Northwest Pasadena, and the mainly-white All Saints Church, located less than two miles south of St. Barnabas, South of the 210 freeway and within easy walking distance to some of Pasadena’s most affluent neighborhoods.  How has St. Barnabas grown out of the racial and economic complexities of Pasadena’s past to forge a sense of community and belonging within its global congregation?

To see images related to this episode, please visit dornsife.usc.edu/icw.

Western Edition is hosted by William Deverell and produced by Avishay Artsy, Katie Dunham, Eryn Hoffman, Jessica Kim, and Elizabeth Logan. Western Edition is a production of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West.

Now an upscale, residential neighborhood in the heart of Pasadena, Madison Heights used to be home to Simons Brickyard, once the largest brickyard in the world. The Simons Brick Company imprint can still be found on bricks throughout Southern California. This episode looks at the stories hidden within them: about the laborers who made the bricks, the neighborhood then and now, and legal battles that involved allegations of animal cruelty and more.

To see images related to this episode, please visit dornsife.usc.edu/icw.

Western Edition is hosted by William Deverell and produced by Avishay Artsy, Katie Dunham, Eryn Hoffman, Jessica Kim, and Elizabeth Logan. Western Edition is a production of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West.

More than 50 million viewers begin each new year looking to Pasadena, tuning into the Rose Parade to see flower and seed-coated floats cruise slowly down Colorado Boulevard.  But to nearly 140,000 of those viewers, the “City of Roses” is home, a complex suburb of downtown Los Angeles with a deep history. 

Internationally known for the Rose Bowl, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena Playhouse, the Arts and Crafts Movement, Jackie Robinson, Julia Child, Octavia Butler, Mildred Pierce, its little old ladies, the Arroyo Seco, and so much more, Pasadena has played a greater role in American and Pacific histories than most of its residents even know.

The fourth season of Western Edition — the podcast from the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West (ICW) — digs deep into the “Crown City” of the San Gabriel Valley. Western Edition: Hidden Pasadena shares six little-known Pasadena stories, from Simons brickyard to Vroman’s bookstore, St. Barnabas church to the Shoya House at The Huntington. It also considers Pasadenans from the past, from John Brown’s children to John Birch’s followers.

A year ago, the second season of Western Edition focused on the past, present, and future of Los Angeles Chinatown. As part of that fascinating exploration, we investigated the horrific 1871 massacre of Chinese and Chinese Americans in downtown Los Angeles.

In October of that year, a mixed-race mob of approximately ten percent of the resident population of Los Angeles killed 18 Chinese men and boys, or about ten percent of that ethnic and national group’s population at the time.

Though the event has burned in the memory of the Chinese and Chinese American community for 150 years, the rest of Los Angeles, people who live or who visit here, generally know nothing about it. But thanks to the collaborative efforts of grassroots organizations and institutions, working in concert with the city of Los Angeles, a fitting and powerful memorial to the victims of the massacre is now well underway.

It made sense to us at Western Edition to add this final episode to our “Memorializing the West” season, as it offers a coda to what we’ve done and where we’ve gone this season and, we think, a bridge to last season’s Chinatown investigation.

Following a summer 2022 public call for ideas and a competition, artist and photographer Nicolás Leong and writer Judy Chung were selected from nearly 200 submissions and, eventually, five other finalists, all of whose thoughtful work sought to redress our city’s amnesia about this event.

Western Edition  host William Deverell spoke with Nicolás and Judy about their design and their process.

To see images related to this episode, please visit dornsife.usc.edu/icw.

Western Edition is hosted by William Deverell and produced by Avishay Artsy, Katie Dunham, Jessica Kim, Elizabeth Logan, and Stephanie Yi. Western Edition is a production of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West.

Moving from removal to renewal, many communities are not just calling for dismantling problematic monuments but also creating new layers of historical memory. This episode explores grassroots and public-driven projects in San Antonio, where students use digital technologies to reshape understandings of the city’s communities of color and ongoing struggles for civil rights and recognition.

To see images related to this episode, please visit dornsife.usc.edu/icw.

Western Edition is hosted by William Deverell and produced by Avishay Artsy, Katie Dunham, Jessica Kim, Elizabeth Logan, and Stephanie Yi. Western Edition is a production of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West.