PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

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Dear Members, Supporters and Friends,

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I would like to take a moment to thank you all for your many years of support of the Fresno County Historical Society. Not many non-profit organizations can claim ten decades (plus one year) of service to their communities. For those of you that are members, know you have helped not only to provide educational resources to students throughout the Central Valley, but have also provided the Society funds that allow our 101-year-old organization to fulfill our multi-faceted mission to the community. If you haven’t yet become a member, here is the link. During these historic times we are experiencing, there has never been a better opportunity for you to help us preserve what is happening in our world today.

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We also wanted to provide you with an update on our fall event at Kearney Park. You may know, even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we had renamed and expanded the scope of the event, now called Time Travelers: 19th Century America, to showcase more of the rich history of California as well as the settling of Fresno County. In conjunction with our partners and local community organizations, the newly imagined living history experience will include elements that focus on our Native Americans, the “Wild West” and gold mining, life during and after the Civil War in our state and, perhaps most exciting, the arrival to and settlement of Fresno County by the diverse groups that make our region so unique and special. Imagine walking through the streets of old Fresno filled with the sites, sounds and aromas of our Italian, Armenian, Japanese, Chinese, Hispanic, African American and other neighborhoods that all came together to make the county the diverse and variegated tapestry that it is today.

 

We believe this pivot to a focus on local history, still within the context of major national occurrences of the 1800s, will even better meet the current needs of our students and will bring a fresh perspective to the many stories yet to be told right here in the Valley.

Recently, our Board of Trustees, in consultation with Fresno County Health officials, has made the difficult decision to postpone our usual October event in light of continuing concerns about COVID-19. While we are disappointed to have to wait to share all the new elements with you and our students in person, we are crafting a virtual experience for this year that we know will help this important and required curriculum come to life for students and families throughout the County.

 

As our school districts have indicated, field trips for our students will likely prove impossible, but the vital engagement our event provides should not be lost.

 

Our virtual school tour program will bring America’s 19th century history directly to students utilizing 21st century technology. The digital curriculum will provide video recording of historic figures doing demonstrations and sharing their stories. Students will learn about daily life in the 1800s, from food preparation techniques to medical care. They will also have the opportunity to join LIVE video chats with historic figures. Additionally, we will partner with local communities to create lessons related to their cultures that share why they came to Fresno County, what struggles and hurdles they experienced in their new homeland, their traditions, music, food and whatever else might foster better understanding and celebration of our diversity. There will approximately be 10 complete lessons developed, digitized and made available to students to access in a distance learning environment and for teachers to use in the classroom. All of these lessons, along with a printable study guide, will be hosted on the FCHS website and made available free of charge. While the exact formula has not yet been determined, know that FCHS continues to be committed to our mission of preserving and sharing the past and present in a culturally sensitive, yet historically accurate, manner to the best of our ability.

 

History is seen from the eyes of the beholder in the time it occurs and through a differently informed prism as the decades and centuries pass. As we catalog our own collections and read articles, letters and diaries from the past, we often wonder how such content was commonplace in its day. Open any newspaper from 100 years ago and you will be stunned at the number of advertisements that would never see the light of day in 2020. They are, truly, signs of their times. Yet, in reading coverage of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic from the Fresno Morning Republican newspaper, you can literally interchange many of the articles from today; they are so eerily similar. Our job at FCHS is to ensure the past and present are chronicled so everyone can determine their own, informed, opinions. I hope you will agree that never has it been so important to learn from our collective history. Please support FCHS as we are determined to continue and better facilitate the opportunity to do so for all our Valley and beyond.

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Warmest regards,

Elizabeth Laval

President