Speakers Bureau Chautauquans
Also known as living history presenters, these Chautauqua scholars assume the roles of significant figures from the past, including wearing period clothing. They present as their historical characters, then field questions from the character’s perspective. They end by "stepping out" of character and taking questions as themselves, providing scholarly context and insight. Chautauqua presentations have long been considered an intriguing and dynamic way of engaging audiences of all ages and backgrounds in the stories of our past.
Teresa Urrea (1873-1906)
Teresa Urrea, a spiritual healer and reluctant political figure, was born in Sinaloa, Mexico, in 1873. Her father was the wealthy owner of a hacienda. Cayetana Chavez, her mother, was a fourteen-year-old Tehueco Indian in the employ of Don Tomás. Although illegitimate, Teresa was accepted by her father and taken to live at the hacienda. At the age of sixteen, Teresa lapsed into a cataleptic state that lasted over three months. When she awoke, she reported that the Virgin had visited her and told her that she must use her special powers to heal by laying her hands on the sick and crippled. Several guerrilla armies claimed Urrea as a living saint and used her as an inspiration for revolting against the government. Mexico’s President Diaz exiled her for instigating rebellion. The U.S. granted Urrea and her father asylum, and they lived briefly in Nogales, in Solomonville, and finally settled in Clifton, Arizona. Anglos discovered her after a miraculous healing of the son of one of Clifton’s wealthy citizens, and she became the darling of some of the most prominent Anglo women. In the early 1900s, Urrea toured the United States as a faith healer with a medical company.
Elena Díaz Björkquist
Elena Díaz Björkquist is the author of a collection of short stories about Morenci, Arizona, entitled Suffer Smoke, and a collection of young adult stories, Water from the Moon. She is co-editor of an anthology, Sowing the Seeds, una cosecha de recuerdos. Elena is also a Chautauqua performer, an artist, and a historian. She is a scholar and research affiliate with SIROW at the University of Arizona. Her personal website is: www.elenadiazbjorkquist.net/.
Presentations may be made in Spanish, and are suitable for high school as well as adult audiences.
John Clum: A New York Yankee in Territorial Arizona (1852-1931)
The San Carlos Apache Reservation of the 1870s and Tombstone of the 1880s stand out as two of the most turbulent places in Territorial Arizona. More than just an eyewitness, John Clum played a central role at both. In 1874, the 22-year-old farm boy from New York started his new job as the San Carlos Apache Reservation Indian Agent. He went on to become one of the most successful Indian Agents in the Indian Bureau's history. Among his accomplishments was the only true "capture" of Geronimo. From there, after a short sojourn in Florence and Tucson, he moved on to the silver boomtown of Tombstone and founded the Tombstone Epitaph. He became the city's mayor and had more than a passing interest in the Earp-versus-Clanton feud. Get a first hand account of life in frontier Arizona from this former Indian agent, mayor, newspaper editor, politician, lawyer, speculator, postmaster, city auditor, and vigilante.
Peter MacMillan Booth, Tucson
A product of a fifth-generation Western family, Peter MacMillan Booth earned his Ph.D. in American West and Native American History. He has taught history on the college level and worked as a museum professional with the Arizona Historical Society-Tucson and the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Wickenburg. He currently works with school districts across the country and serves as a member of the Tucson-Pima County Historical Commission.
Presentations are suitable for high school as well as adult audiences.
Sharlot Hall (1870-1943)
For much of the first half of the 20th century, Sharlot Hall was an indomitable presence in Arizona life and letters. As territorial historian, she was the first woman appointed to public office; her published prose and poetry celebrated the beauty of the Southwest; and her dedicated efforts restored and preserved the governor’s mansion in Prescott. This presentation walks in the footsteps of one of the most remarkable women the West has seen. Her interests were myriad, her talents abundant, and her energies enormous. Her literary career was launched by Charles F. Lummis, who complimented her writing as "always vital, lucid" and imbued with an "unmistakable thrill of humanity." This presentation is rich with her poetry and gives a well-rounded sense of the woman.
Jody Drake, Prescott
Jody Drake was born and raised in Prescott, Arizona. As a child of the West, history has always been a special interest. Jody formed the Blue Rose Theater Company, and in 1994 began a partnership with the Sharlot Hall Museum. In the thirteen-year life of this partnership, sixty-two original scripts have been developed and produced. Drake has researched, written, and seen to the production of eighteen plays. The Theater has hosted history performers from throughout the state as well as performed throughout Arizona. Drake has now been presenting Sharlot Hall for ten years; her personal honors include performing for Governors Hull and Napolitano, Polly Rosenbaum and retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Jody has been nominated for the Governor’s Award six times. She is one of the ten 2007 Arizona Culture Keeper award winners, and feels that the best work is yet to come.
Juan Bautista de Anza (1736-1788)
Juan Bautista de Anza was a Basque born in Cuquiárachi, Sonora, Mexico in 1736. His father, who had the same name, was born in Hernani, Gipuzkua, Euskadi, in 1693 and came to New Spain in 1712. He eventually became the Captain of the Presidio of Fronteras, twenty miles south of Douglas, Arizona, in Sonora, Mexico. Apaches killed him when Juan Bautista, Jr. was only three years old. Growing up in Sonora (and what is today Arizona), young Juan was involved early in Apache attacks and uprisings by other Indian groups. He joined the frontier military at age fifteen and eventually became the captain of Tubac Presidio, which is today in southern Arizona. Serving there for seventeen years, he was wounded twice by Apaches and twice by Seri Indians. In 1774, with the backing of the powerful Basque financiers and politicians in Mexico City, he led a group of soldiers in an exploratory expedition to find a route from Sonora to California. He then led some three hundred settlers, soldiers, and workers to California the following year to establish a colony on the San Francisco Bay.
Manuel José de Sosa (1695-1748)
An extraordinary frontiersman of the early Spanish colonial period in what is today southern Arizona and Northern Sonora, Manuel José de Sosa was born sometime in the late 17th century. He was well educated for the time and was not only a certified government scribe, but also an escribano eclesiastico who could, and did, keep records for the northern missions. He operated the two earliest ranches in what is today Arizona – the Guevavi and San Mateo Ranches, for Juan Bautista de Anza, senior, and is likely the person who taught the more famous Juan Bautista de Anza, the second, to read and write. In fact, because of his position with the Anza family and his ability to write, it was he who wrote the vast majority of all the documents that were generated during the controversy over the famous "Arizona" silver discovery of 1736. Since many of the documents that were compiled in that incident were written at Bernardo de Urrea’s "Arizona Ranch," it was ultimately Sosa’s writings that became responsible for that name being applied to our state. In the end, it was Sosa who carried those documents and some samples of the silver to Mexico City to obtain a decision from the viceroy as to how the phenomenal discovery should be handled. Averaging over fifty miles per day by "corriendo la posta," or running the post horses, Sosa covered the distance of over 1300 miles in twenty-six days – 123 years before the establishment of the Pony Express! This Chautauqua performance will bring this remarkable individual and his times to life.
Don Garate, Rio Rico
Historian, Tumacácori National Historic Park
Don Garate is Chief of Interpretation/Historian at Tumacácori National Historical Park. He has nearly twenty years of experience in presenting "first person" living history, or Chautauqua, to vastly diverse audiences. Other Spanish Colonial characters that he has portrayed include Franciscan missionaries Silvestre Velez de Escalante and Pedro Antonio de Arriquibar. He has portrayed the famous Spanish soldier, explorer, and colonizer Juan Bautista de Anza, the second, for over fourteen years to audiences in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Sonora.
Presentations may be made in Spanish, and are suitable for high school as well as adult audiences.
Meet Eulalia "Sister" Bourne (1892-1984)
Meet the colorful Eulalia "Sister" Bourne, legendary southern Arizona schoolteacher and the force behind the Little Cowpuncher rural school newspaper of the 1930s and early 1940s. This energetic western woman was also a homesteader, cattle rancher, and published author (UA Press.) Many consider her views on education, bilingualism, and animal cruelty to have been often radical and ahead of her time. Although she lost her first teaching job for dancing the "vulgar" One Step, and confessed to a weakness for handsome cowboys, she was generally respected, appreciated, and remembered fondly in the isolated communities where she lived and taught.
To a great extent using Sister’s own words, this presentation will let the audience experience the life and times of a remarkable Southern Arizona one-room schoolteacher and woman rancher. They will hear, among other things, why Sister Bourne thought children should be paid for going to school, listen to her thoughts on the value of bilingualism, and find out why she was opposed to rodeos.
Joan Sandin, Tucson
Joan Sandin has been writing and illustrating children’s books for almost forty years. While researching Coyote School News (Henry Holt, July 2003), she came across Little Cowpuncher, the rural school newspaper created by K-8 students of Eulalia "Sister" Bourne. This unique collection changed the direction of Joan’s book, led to an online exhibit (http://digital.library.arizona.edu/cowpuncher), and inspired the creation of Sister Bourne as a Chautauqua character. Joan is the recipient of the 2004 Judy Goddard/Libraries Limited Arizona Author/Illustrator Award. Curiously enough, the first person to receive the award in 1983 was Eulalia "Sister" Bourne.
• Host organization provides cordless microphone for large audiences.
William Mulholland (1855-1935)
William Mulholland brought water from the Owens River to his coastal city through a 233-mile aqueduct as Los Angeles water superintendent (see the Austin entry for a possible combined presentation). Although he ensured L.A.’s growth, his search for water caused numerous water wars with other communities, some resulting in deadly violence. The collapse of Mulholland’s St. Francis Dam in 1928 resulted in 600 deaths and 15,000 homeless, for which he took full responsibility. In this presentation, meet the man who was responsible for southern California’s rapid growth, the man who is still remembered today in movies (Chinatown) and streets (Mulholland Drive).
Chris Smith, Tempe
Chris Smith lectures about, writes about, and immerses himself in contemporary American culture. An associate professor of history at Arizona State University, Dr. Smith has also worked as a moving man, landscape gardener, bookseller, Santa Claus, factory worker, painter, bus driver, and waiter. He received the 1998 AHC’s Dan Shilling Public Scholar Award.
Also available upon request:
Benjamin Franklin: Man and Legend – A Look at the 18th Century
President Lyndon Johnson and the 1960s
Edward Abbey: Desert Anarchist?
Mary Hunter Austin (1868-1934)
Meet and question Mary Austin, a prominent literary figure in the early 20th century. Her 1903 book, Land of the Little Rain, is a meditation on the harsh Mohave desert. Austin also wrote novels, poetry, and essays, many of which are still in print and still controversial.
July Nolte Temple, Tucson
Professor Judy Nolte Temple teaches in the Women’s Studies and English Departments at the University of Arizona. She is a past-president of the Western Literature Association and was a Fulbright Senior Scholar to New Zealand in 2003, where she studied the journals of English missionary women. She has edited two books of essays on literature of the Southwest and written two books on women diarists. The first book is A Secret to be Burried, about an Iowa pioneer, and the second is Baby Doe Tabor: The Madwoman in the Cabin.
