Summer 2015
Seeing Selma
In March 1965 WSU photographer James H. Barker and others from WSU joined and documented the march to Selma in support of voting rights for African Americans.
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Summer 2015
In the Path of Destruction: Eyewitness Chronicles of Mount St. Helens
Richard Waitt
WSU Press, 2014
Like the eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, the personal stories of campers, loggers, airline pilots, Forest Service workers, and geologists came pouring out before, during, and after the cataclysm. One of those geologists, Richard Waitt, gathered anecdotes and recollections of the volcanic eruption over the course of three decades, now compiled in this tome.
Waitt blends his own scientific expertise as a researcher who had been on the mountain since its early rumblings with hundreds of eyewitness … » More …
Gallery: Self-portraits of Okanogan, Washington photographer Frank Matsura
The works of Frank Matsura, a photographer born in Japan who moved into the Okanogan valley in 1903, chronicle the end of mining in the area and the influx of farmers and families. He also shot a number of self-portraits that capture frontier life.
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Spring 2015
A Nagasaki letter
Minutes before the B-29 bomber Bockscar dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, the crew of the accompanying B-29 released a canister holding testing equipment. A letter was Scotch-taped inside. The canister fell on the outskirts of the city and its contents withstood the second and, to date, last nuclear attack in a war.
The letter, addressed to “R. Sagane, Imperial University, Tokyo,” was an appeal from three Manhattan Project physicists to fellow physicist and former colleague Ryokichi Sagane. They asked Sagane to confirm the power and devastation of the nuclear attack to the Imperial Japanese government, and to urge Japan’s surrender.
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Spring 2015
Voices of the wilderness
I. BREATH
They saw in the water many of the serpent-kind,
wondrous sea-dragons exploring the waters,
such nicors as lie on the headlands,
who, in the mornings, often accomplish
sorrowful deeds on the sail-road,
serpents and wild-beasts.
So concludes the epic poem Beowulf. Speaking Old English, storytellers composed Beowulf extemporaneously and shared passages from person to person for thousands of years until they were written down sometime between the eighth and the eleventh centuries. Beowulf is very much a poem about animals, so it’s appropriate to translate its last word, “wilde-or,” as “wild-beasts,” though the … » More …
Spring 2015
A re-dress of the West
Joe Monahan, from all appearances a typical American frontiersman, arrived in Idaho Territory in the late 1860s. He was lured by the promise of fortune in the hillsides and settled in Owyhee County, which The New York Times had described as “a vast treasury” with “the richest and most valuable silver mines yet known to the world.”
Monahan built a cabin and mined a claim. He also worked as a cowboy with an outfit in Oregon.
When he returned to Idaho, he settled into a dugout near the frontier town of Rockville. An 1898 directory lists him as “Joseph Monahan, cattleman.” And his neighbors described … » More …
Spring 2015
First Words
Last summer on a visit to the Hudson River Valley, I took a morning to explore Washington Irving’s home. Wandering through the property in the sticky humidity so particular to the East Coast I peered into Irving’s vine-covered house, Sunnyside, and pictured the author at his desk honing his iconic New England stories like the “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.” Never did I imagine the prolific writer also sat there crafting one of the first descriptions of the West Coast for a nation of readers.
Astoria, published in 1836, traces the efforts of John Jacob Astor, the nation’s first multi-millionaire, to … » More …
Spring 2015
New and noteworthy
Digitized Lives: Culture, Power, and Social Change in the Internet Era
T.V. Reed
Routledge, 2014
T.V. Reed, a WSU English and American studies professor, examines the impact of digital communication and the Internet on how we live.
Whole in the Clouds
Kristine Kibbee ’00
The Zharmae Publishing Press, 2014
Cora Catlin, the unhappy orphan protagonist in Kibbee’s debut novel, and her dog Motley discover the meaning of friendship and a magical world in the clouds.
Two Bits and Odd Days
Thomas A. Springer ’86
2014
Springer, a Tacoma high school teacher and creative writer, offers a selection of his poems from the … » More …
Spring 2015
Looking Like the Enemy: Japanese Mexicans, the Mexican State, and US Hegemony, 1897-1945
Jerry García ’99 PhD
The University of Arizona Press, 2014
Eizi Matuda and his wife Miduho Kaneko de Matuda were Japanese immigrants who had become Mexican citizens and had lived there for 20 years when agents of the Mexican government came to their home to relocate them. However, unlike thousands of Japanese Americans and some Japanese Mexicans who were relocated during World War II, the Matudas were not forced to move. Instead, local Chiapas leaders vouched for their … » More …
Winter 2014
Excerpt from Geronimo: Leadership Strategies of an American Warrior
An excerpt from Geronimo: Leadership Strategies of an American Warrior
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