History

Fall 2016

Spirit of ’25

When the United States formally became a nation in 1787, everyone involved, from George Washington down, knew there was a piece missing. The nation might be bound together by a Constitution, but it actually remained a conglomeration of states, religions, ethnicities, regions and cultures. The lack of national unity was a serious threat, as the Civil War would demonstrate.

But how do you create national feeling? As twentieth-century philosopher Allen Bloom put it: “How do you get from individuals to a people, that is, from persons who care only for their particular good to a community of citizens who subordinate their good to the common … » More …

Fall 2016

We Gotta Get Out of this Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War

Doug Bradley ’74 and Craig Werner

University of Massachusetts Press: 2015

Music is embodied, a word that means it grabs you by the guts until you do something: dance, weep, make love … something. Music is visceral in another way, too: We connect the dots of our personal histories based on the tunes we were listening to at the time.

For a veteran, that might be more than she … » More …

Summer 2014

Gallery: Gustav Sohon and the Mullan Road

Gustav Sohon (1825–1903) was an artist, interpreter, and topographical assistant. Sohon executed some of the earliest landscape paintings of the Pacific Northwest. One of his first assignments was with Lieutenant John Mullan, who was surveying the country between the Rocky and Bitterroot Mountains for the Pacific Railroad Surveys led by Isaac Stevens.

Read about Mullan in our feature “Lost Highway.”

Summer 2015

Gallery: Seeing Selma

In March 1965 WSU photographer James H. Barker, ASWSU President Dave Warren, and economics instructor Robert Cole joined and documented the march to Selma in support of voting rights for African Americans.Read more in “Seeing Selma.”

Photos by James H. Barker

Summer 2016

More than God Demands

Politics & Influence of Christian Missions in Northwest Alaska 1897–1918

Anthony Urvina ’85 with Sally Urvina

University of Alaska Press: 2016

Tucked away in cabinets and forgotten closets at the Alaska regional offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Juneau was a collection of old documents known simply as the Reindeer Files.

Anthony Urvina ’85, a natural resource manager at the BIA, began digging through them in 2003 while trying to … » More …

Winter 2015

Gallery: Colonial cider mugs

Apple trees were among the first food-bearing plants brought here to help make life more bearable for those who considered themselves English no matter on which side of the Atlantic they chose to live. In an age when water was suspect—as well it should have been for only shallow wells were in use—any sweet juice that could be turned into fermented liquor was considered as necessary as it was popular. And cider—drunk sweet, allowed to harden and often turned into brandy—was the most popular colonial juice of all. Drinking vessels from which to quaff the beverage were as diverse as the homes in which … » More …

Spring 2016

Daughters of Hanford

Sue Olson, 94, came to Richland in 1944 and worked throughout Hanford as an executive secretary. She also worked in the labs at Hanford, calculating the numbers from radioactive samples. Eventually, she landed a job working for the assistant general manager of Hanford, Wilfred “Bill” Johnson. She says back then, “It was all business to win World War II. And afterward, during the Cold War it was that way too.” She had top-secret clearance and locked her filing cabinet each night before going home.

Olson’s story is part of the “Daughters of Hanford” multimedia project, in which radio correspondent Anna King ’00, photographer Kai-Huei … » More …

Spring 2016

Hanford’s past

Floating, glowing letters greet a group of high school seniors as the doors slide open: “Welcome to the Hanford History Museum, Class of 2035!” Inside, some students check out relics from 95 years back, such as a long radiation detector nicknamed “Snoopy,” lead-lined glove boxes for handling radioactive material, a soundproofed phone booth with numbers still scrawled in pencil. Others read posters telling stories of people who worked on the Hanford site in World War II or the Cold War.

The entire back wall flickers to life in a giant video, beginning with a wide view of the building at the entrance to the Manhattan … » More …

Spring 2016

Trout Culture: How Fly Fishing Forever Changed the Rocky Mountain West

Jen Corrinne Brown ’12 PhD

University of Washington Press: 2015

With help from Hollywood and even popular beer labels, the Rocky Mountain region of the American West enjoys an iconic reputation for wild and natural fishing. It’s where rugged individualists reconnect with nature through timeless traditions.

Missing from the customary narrative are the generations of human intervention, environmental manipulation, and social transformation.

Brown, who earned a history doctorate from WSU in 2012, calls … » More …

Winter 2015

Gallery: Old-time Apple Varieties in the Northwest

Trees of the classic apple varieties that were planted in early Pacific Northwest orchards from about 1860 to 1920 can still occasionally be found in overgrown farmyards, pastures, and even in suburban backyards where orchard sites were converted to residential areas and the old trees were left in place. This list of old varieties likely to be found in the Pacific Northwest was compiled by R.A. Norton from nursery lists in the Encyclopedia of Practical Horticulture (1914), edited by Grenville Lowther.

Source: WSU Mount Vernon Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center. Images from the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection