UC Riverside Retirees’ and Emeriti Associations with additional sponsorship by UCR Osher and UCR’s Office of Gift Planning Present
The Edward A. Dickson Emeritus/a Professorship Lecture Series
Conrad Rudolph, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Medieval Art History
SIGNATURE ROCKS: EMIGRATION AND THE SIGNED LANDSCAPE IN INDIAN COUNTRY: 1830-1860
Signature Rocks is the first systematic study of the surviving “signatures” inscribed by the emigrants, as they called themselves, on both the famous and not so famous rock formations that line the overland trails through Indian Country from the Missouri River to the Pacific from the 1830s to 1869. Once numbering in the hundreds of thousands, only several thousand have survived. Following the overland crossing, we read hese inscriptions — an unrecognized and vanishing American archive — in light of a number of motivations to signing culled from the over two thousand emigrant journals and other accounts that have come down to us. The result is a new understanding of this completely overlooked spect of one of the most iconic episodes in the history of the United States.
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
3:00 – 4:30 p.m. with Reception to follow
In-person at University Extension Building 1101 in the University Village
Livestreamed via Zoom