The Barbara Drake Collection Archives - Page 2 of 2

July 8, 2022July 11, 2022 by ciarah

Arizona Highway

When I was a pre-teen I devoured magazines. I used to shuffle through the mail every day, hoping to find that the month’s issue of Seventeen, Teen Vogue or Allure had arrived. I admired the art of carefully curated images around an up and coming trend, intentionally beguiling and glossy. As I returned to sorting Barbara’s collection, I was pleased to find that she too enjoyed the comfort of a magazine. However, unlike the fashion magazines from my pre-teen years, the magazines Barbara preserved were much more profound. Rather than the pages weighing in on which lip gloss shade was perfect for summer, as mine had, the magazines from the Drake collection covered topics like accessorizing an outfit with Indigenous jewelry.

Specifically, Drake had preserved many issues of Arizona Highway, a magazine that has “captured the beauty and splendor of Arizona since 1925”. As someone who has only been to Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon and Phoenix once, through the publication I was exposed to landscapes of Arizona that I had not yet seen. More importantly, much of the content Drake saved touches on the Indigenous history of the land. Many of the photos capture Indigenous landscapes and visually pay homage to the cultures that founded the areas. Through reading her materials I learned about Arizona’s rich repository of Native basket weaving, whereby the traditions of the Hopi, Apache, and others are displayed through this medium. Consequently, they are more than baskets, they are fixtures of history.

Pages of a 1975 issue of Arizona Highway Magazine

June 29, 2022June 29, 2022 by ciarah

From the Earth

As the heat of Summer settled in this last week, I was able to return to the processing of Barbara Drake’s expansive collection. Most of the time I spent reacquainting myself with Barbara’s collection, was spent on a series cataloguing items relating to Native American Culture and Heritage. I spent a considerable amount of time sorting documents for corresponding subseries, including subseries that are grouped by topics such as holistic remedies and plant uses, Native American history and historical events, and traditional recipes or ingredients.

These subseries were particularly impactful for me, and indicate what a diverse educator Barbara was. The continuum of topics garnered from the aforementioned subseries alone included recipes for traditional acorn bread to Indigenous ethnohistories that recounted the use of shells in early bartering contexts. I was particularly intrigued by the traditional recipes, and how many of them were plant based. From her materials, one could assume that Barbara had an astute eye for details. Similarly, one could also gather that she was a gifted communicator. A communicator that committed herself to relaying the tenets of Native American culture with whatever tools she had available. From what I have learned about Barbara, food and traditional ingredients were tools she utilized dexterously and with genuine passion. Because of her materials, I know that nettle can make a delicious soup and that Indigenous pudding generally constitutes cornmeal as a central ingredient. However, I know that with this collection specifically, I will have much more to learn.

February 18, 2022June 25, 2022 by ciarah

The Many Landscapes of Barbara Drake’s Collection

This week was a busy week, both with Barbara’s collection and finals at CGU! As we head into the winter break I will be thinking a lot about the things I learned from some of Barbara’s materials this week. This week began the processing phase, where her materials are arranged into formal series and subseries for future research. One of the subseries covers her educational materials on different tribal histories as well as geographical locations related to these tribal histories. In these folders she had a nearly perfectly preserved Alaska: The Magazine of Life on the Last Frontier issue from July of 1978, dedicated to all things Alaska. I was fortunate enough to be able to sift through the pages and get a candid peek into decades before my existence and to a place I had never been. The blue toned images of snow caps stood in juxtaposition to the clippings from Arizona Highway which revealed a rust colored landscape with a brimming blue sky, accented by stone and clay housing. Drake’s attention to detail when curating these images is evident, she reminds anyone who looks at them that Indigenous people and Indigenous spaces are anything but monolithic.

When reading through her educational materials I couldn’t help but notice the gaps in my own public school K-12 education. I had heard names like Sitting Bull, Red Cloud and Crazy Horse but didn’t know the details of their courage and resolve, or extraordinary lives, until reading through Barbara’s materials. I learned from the materials that Chief Sitting Bull refused to surrender, even in his last moments. I learned that it was Chief Sitting Bull who forced General Custer to take his last stand in the battle of Little Big Horn. Needless to say, I am grateful Barbara’s materials fill some of the gaps in my American history education. As I continue to process this collection I have no doubt that I will continue to learn more from Barbara and all the materials she thoughtfully curated.

December 10, 2021August 23, 2022 by ciarah

Barbara Drake: Original Angeleno

This concludes my first week as a CCEPS archival fellow and I couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity to catalogue someone like Barbara Drake’s collection. Through her archival materials it is abundantly clear what a force to be reckoned with she was. As a Gabrieleño/Tongva Elder and a member of the local Tongva community she consistently elevated the voices and perspectives of Indigenous peoples not just in her community, but anywhere she had the chance. Barbara Drake was responsible for countless events that embraced the Indigenous community including workshops, natural foods classes, celebration of life events and traditional ceremonies to name a few. However, she was also instrumental in displaying her culture to educate those that were not Indigenous and she did so all over Los Angeles County, Orange County, the Inland Empire and many other enclaves of California. Later in her career she would go on to be a lecturer at Pitzer College on ethnoecology.

Working on Barbara Drake’s collection will be beneficial in many ways, but one of the most salient benefits is allowing her collection and her work to continue to educate people even after her passing. It is an integral piece of American history to understand what Native American land we currently reside in and what treatment Native Americans have been subjected to since the inception of the United States. Barbara Drake made it her mission to educate people on this front but did not stop at the ethnoecology of the Gabrieleño/Tongva. Through the initial survey of her work, I found research and educational materials that touched on many tribal histories including, but not limited to, the Sioux, Lumbees, Cherokee, Hopi and Navajo. Her research detailed an incredible wealth of knowledge regarding plant species, plant uses, holistic remedies and plant-based recipes. On the other hand, I was totally intrigued by some of her correspondence, relaying what an action-oriented educator she really was. I am grateful for the opportunity to informally learn from Barbara Drake and plan to process her collection with the utmost care and responsibility. This week I fully surveyed Barba Drake’s collection and next week I will move on to the processing phase.

A portion of Barbara Drake's folders, complete with interesting titles and stained with pomegranate juice. — *A portion of Barbara Drake’s folders, complete with interesting titles and stained with pomegranate juice.*