The Snake, a one-thousand mile long river and watershed of great beauty, captured the heart of host William Deverell decades ago. The complexity of this watershed is at once historical and contemporary, and the Snake flows into an uncertain future at every point along its long journey. 

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.

The history of Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River is one of Navajo connections to the river and canyon, colonial aspirations of a Civil War veteran and a Latter-Day Saints community, as well as the concerns of radical environmentalists in the 20th century. This episode explores how this watershed is tied to layers of history and stories about the role of water in western settlement. It also offers dire warning about the future of water across the American Southwest.

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.

The history of a dammed Klamath River is part of the broader history of settler colonialism, resource extraction, and the control of water in the American West. This episode shares histories of Native resistance and refusal as well as the history of the movement, both Native and non-native, to bring a century-old system of four hydroelectric dams down, free the Klamath, and feed its systems of lakes and wetlands.

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.

The relationship between watersheds in the American West and the people who live alongside them is complex. When the stories turn to Indigenous westerners, too often the focus is on pre-colonial times or a rushed fast-forward to present day activism. This episode centers around a conversation with Dr. Karletta Chief, a professor in Environmental Science at the University of Arizona. Known for her work addressing environmental pollution on the Navajo Nation, she shares what it means to engage with Indigenous communities when addressing man-made environmental disasters and why this work is critically important in a future shaped by climate change.

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.

In this episode we take a long view of water in the West, a region defined by its aridity, and consider how humans have interacted with water over the past two centuries, from Indigenous cosmologies to American conquest and the aggressive commodification of water.

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.

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.