The 2026 Poster Winners: Chelsea Juarez-Rivas and Yuchun Zhang

 "Researching Borderlands Together:  Mexican Expertise and a Binational Method" 

 Using an 1882 shooting in Saltillo, Coahuila, as a case study, this poster explores how borderlands research can be strengthened by combining U.S. and Mexican records with local expertise. It argues that historians, archivists, genealogists, and Indigenous knowledge holders can reveal sources, context, connections, and questions archives may otherwise miss. 

 “Viva La Revolución”: Student Labor Activism at Arizona State University in the Global 1960s 

 This poster examines student-led labor activism at Arizona State University in the late 1960s, highlighting coalitions as well as tensions between student groups. It argues that students connected labor rights to broader struggles, revealing ASU’s role in global protest movements and showing how labor activism persisted despite organized labor’s decline. 

  
"The Retail Wars: The Built Suburban Environment and the Evolution of Community in Maryvale, Arizona, 1970-1980"

Maryvale arose as local residents and commercial investors joined forces to rapidly develop an attractive and affordable suburb. But after annexation into Phoenix, the community-oriented desires of local residents often clashed with the development-oriented perspective of elected officials fomenting conflict on how the democratic development of Maryvale would occur. 

"Foundations of Violence: The Implementation of 

U.S. Total War on the Western Frontier" 

 The tactics of total war that emerged during the Civil War were used to enforce federal policy to legitimize widespread violence against Native populations on the ever-expanding frontier. This shift was built on earlier patterns in U.S. policy and led to lasting changes in both government actions and Indigenous resistance. 

 "'Do You Need New China?': Promotional Ceramic Breakfast Sets at a 1930s Arizona Logging Camp" 

 This poster presents ceramic breakfast sets used as promotional items in Mother’s Oats cereal boxes, and found during archaeological work at the Saginaw and Manistee Lumber Company logging headquarters in Tusayan. These artifacts point to strategies companies used during the economic challenges of the Great Depression to foster customer loyalty. 

"Reconstructing a Fairyland: Evidence, Memory, and Historical Uncertainty at Tucson's Valley of the Moon"

 How do we reconstruct a fairyland when the evidence is incomplete? This poster explores Tucson’s Valley of the Moon through photographs, oral histories, material remains, and inherited stories, showing how different forms of evidence shape what we can know, and how historical uncertainty can become part of public interpretation. 

 
"Recovering Lost History of Rural Arizona"

 The Eastern Arizona Museum (EAM) in Graham County, Arizona, worked with ASU's Public History program to build a digital archive for its collections. Pictures containing unidentified people were found during the digitization process of EAM's collections. EAM and ASU Public History rely on the public to identify these unidentified people.

 "Cemamagĭ Du'ag: Making A Field Guide to Tumamoc Hill"

 This poster previews a "pocket" field guide which explores the history and ecology of Tumamoc Hill through "field notes" which come from researchers, artists, and community-members. The guide was written by Juliet Saxton and illustrated/designed by Aubrey Behrens as a collaboration between the Desert Laboratory and the Department of History. 

"Tombstone: How Media Made the Town too Tough to Die"

This poster examines how Western media transformed Tombstone and Wyatt Earp from historical subjects into commercially successful symbols of the Wild West. By comparing historical records, Earp’s correspondence, and twentieth-century films, this project explores how romanticized narratives shaped public memory, and influenced Tombstone’s modern historical identity and preservation.