Friends of the Yolo County Archives

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Special Presentations

Preserving Perseverance

Japanese American Community of Winters

Learn about the perseverance of the Japanese American community of Winters and how that history is being preserved.

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As part of the 2021 Sacramento Archives Crawl, and in partnership with the Yolo County Archives, Floyd Shimomura presented on his research into the Japanese American community of Winters, California. He was joined by Emily Masuda who discussed her efforts to preserve this history as a teacher and creative writer. Their presentation explored findings from archives, museums, and online databases to reveal information about the Winters Japanese School, genealogy, wonderful treasures from family collections, and the redress movement. The presentation was facilitated and moderated by Yolo County Archives Coordinator Heather Lanctot. It was recorded on Friday, October 8th.

Meet the Archivists

As part of Sacramento Archives Crawl 2021, Sacramento area archivists held a live panel discussion over Zoom where they talked about what they do, and how and why they do it, and took questions from the audience. This is a recording of that discussion.

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The panel was moderated by local legend, filmmaker, and historian Matías Bombal, and archivist participants included:

• Heather Lanctot, Archives & Records Center coordinator, Yolo County Library

• Sue Tyson, head of the California History Section, California State Library

• Sebastian Nelson, archivist, California State Archives

• Julie Thomas, instruction and electronic records archivist, Sacramento State University Library

• William Villano, archivist, Center for Sacramento History

• Kevin Miller, head of special collections and university archivist, UC Davis Shields Library

• James Scott, archivist, Special Collections of the Sacramento Public Library

FYCA Honors Lon Springer

Yolo County Foundation's National Philanthropy Day Celebration - Ryan Baum, Rachel Poutasse, Heather Lanctot, Zack Springer, Lon Springer, Rob Coman

Watch: https://youtu.be/FYe8zfT3QRg

Thank you, Lon Springer!

It is with great pleasure and appreciation that Friends of the Yolo County Archives recognizes Lon Springer as our Outstanding Local Volunteer during this National Philanthropy Day celebration.

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Lon Springer is a Yolo County Native with roots in the Zamora area and more recently in Woodland. His family connections and personal experience have enhanced several research projects as his knowledge has helped form connections across time, space, and families that others could not have found. His deep interest in the local area’s history led him to volunteer with the Friends of Yolo County Archives for nearly two decades.

Over this time, he has served as a board member and then in different officer positions of the organization. Most recently he served as Vice President of the Friends of Yolo County Archives, a position he held for nearly a decade.

Woodland History Program

Creating Neighborhoods in Historic Woodland


A talk by Jim Lapsley, President of the Woodland Stroll Through History, and the Yolo County Archives and Library celebrates the 150th Anniversary of the Incorporation of the City of Woodland.

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Today, 150 years after Woodland became a City, there are few vacant lots and homes are expensive. But the historic city of Woodland covered about 700 acres and had only 2000 people. Most of the land was held in parcels of 5 to 40 acres, with individual wells, large gardens, cows and horses, and barns on each parcel. As population increased, land owners subdivided their parcels into residential lots, which they sold to individuals, and deeded land to the city for streets. In order to do so, they created plat maps of their property and made “additions” to the City of Woodland, which were recorded and became legal documents

In the process, these additions became neighborhoods. The timing of the additions and subsequent building of houses helps to explain why Victorians may be found on one side of a street, and bungalows are found on the other side. This talk reviews the creation of additions to the original City of Woodland, from before Woodland became a self-governing city in 1871 through the 1920s. It does not showcase every addition—there isn’t time for that—but explains how Woodland was divided up and introduces how additions help explain neighborhoods and architecture.


Jim Lapsley's talk is available on the Yolo County Library's YouTube page: https://youtu.be/6nr1aPlVAfE.

Recent Programs

Message from the Yolo County Library and Archives

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our two virtual presentations for Women’s History Month! We appreciate your continued support of Yolo County history. If you missed the presentations, they are now available on the Yolo County Library’s YouTube channel.

Emily Hoppin: A Discussion with Shirley DicKard

Emily Hoppin: A discussion of the life, work, and research from previously unpublished family stories and personal scrapbook of Yolo's pioneer activist, Emily Hoppin. Shared by her great-granddaughter, Shirley Jensen DicKard, author of Heart Wood: Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future – the historical fiction novel inspired by the life of Emily Hoppin.

Warriors: Women of Yolo County and the Struggle for Suffrage--A Talk by Mel Russell


The first decade of the 20th century was a time of great social and cultural upheaval for women in the United States with the pursuit for equality paramount within the agenda. This talk will examine the California Campaign for Women's Suffrage as seen through the experience of the women of Yolo. Using images and newspaper articles from the era we will look at how Yolo women were finally able to mobilize and organize a "full on" campaign against all odds, culminating in the 1911 passage of Senate Constitutional Amendment #8, the “Right to Vote for Women."

A New Digital Presentation!

Unsung Heroines of Yolo County

Thanks to support from the Yolo County Women’s History Month Committee, we can watch this newly digitized talk by Shipley Walters from the Yolo County Archives Collection.

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Thanks to support from the Yolo County Women’s History Month Committee, we can watch this newly digitized talk by Shipley Walters from the Yolo County Archives Collection.

In her talk, titled “Unsung Heroines of Yolo County,” Shipley talks about some of the previously unknown women from Yolo County’s past. “Most of them [these women] do not appear in our local histories; some of them are unknown outside the county.”

As she learned about these Yolo County women she “came to appreciate the truth in what [she once] heard Merline Williams, a lecturer in American Studies at UCD, say one time: ‘Women have shaped history through community building. Women perceive a community need, meet informally, raise funds and build an orphanage or establish a Camp Fire Girl group, and when it's big enough to be institutionalized, men become the board of directors and it enters history. At that point women become volunteers or members of the auxiliary."

The women discussed in this presentation include: Isadora Solano, Margaret McDowell Taylor, Jane Zimmerman Morris, Leila Hecke Hardy, Matilda McCord, Harriett Stoddard Lee, Mary Frances Nicholson Gaither, Kathleen McConnell, Ella Childers Doster, Ruth Charlotte Risdon Storer, Mary Alice Morris, Sally Huston, Emily Hoppin, Lydia Lawhead, Jenny Drummond Lillard Reed, and Evelyn Holland.

Digital Gems

Links to Four Digital Gems


In her "Archives Updates" article, Heather Lanctot, Archives and Record Center Coordinator, shares four wonderful digital gems from the collection, three audio and one video. Give each of these a listen or look.

New Video Tour of the Archives

The hardworking Yolo County Archives staff produced a video tour of the Archives for the 2020 Sacramento Archives Crawl.

New Video from the Archives

The Yolo County Archives staff produced this special "Anniversaries and Celebrations" video for the 2020 Sacramento Archives Crawl.