Dydia Delyser

Background

About Dydia Delyser

I am a geographer doing community-based research about the American landscape and working to preserve it. I write about how ghost towns have shaped American identity, and I volunteer at Bodie State Historic Park and at the Bodie Foundation to help save Bodie. I write about how neon signs have transformed American cities and roadways and how they became community beacons; I volunteer at the Museum of Neon Art and help to preserve neon signs around the country. I write about how the 19th century novel Ramona shaped how people imagined southern California's past and how that still influences our present; I collect historic tourist souvenirs and work with historic sites like the Rancho Camulos Museum to help preserve sites related to Ramona. I write about women pilots in the 1920s and '30s and am myself a pilot; I volunteer with the Heritage Flight Museum to help keep historic aircraft flying.