November 2012 Guild Newsletter

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NOVEMBER MONTHLY MEETING: Tuesday, November 13th, 2012

We are pleased to welcome Kurt Stream who is new to the Guild and whose book on the history of brewing was released this week.  The Guild is just a couple days behind KOMO News Radio on getting the story out.  Kurt is our November speaker. Here is a brief description of the book from Arcadia Publishing.

Brewing beer in Seattle can be traced back to 1864, when in the unincorporated (i.e. makes no laws) town of under 1,000 people the first brewery opened and began manufacturing porter and cream ales. Over the next 50 years, innovation and entrepreneurship would take Seattle brewed beer to foamy heights. By the eve of Prohibition, lifted by its popular Rainier Beer, Seattle Brewing and Malting Company became the largest industrial institution in the state of Washington and the sixth-largest brewery in the world.  Who would have guessed.  Prohibition, however, would wipe out the industry in 1916, but with the coming of Repeal in 1933, new faces such as Emil Sick would emerge and bring Seattle back to the forefront.  Images of America: Brewing in Seattle,  is the first book completely dedicated to the rich history of yeast’s contribution to Seattle and showcases just about every single brewery of this great city, from the mid-1800s to the recent craft-brewery boom.  It offers an inside view with 200 photographs, advertisements, and interviews from some of the innovators who helped shape Seattle into the beer lovers paradise it is today.

Our meeting will be at Seattle’s Central Library, 4th Level in Room 1 at 6pm.  There is pay parking within the building off of Spring Street.  For location details go to the Seattle Public Library website.

You will be able to purchase copies at our program.  Secret Garden Books will once again be selling books.  For a small taste beforehand please visit Amazon.com or this story from KOMO News Radio.

Membership Renewal

Every year some lesser gods put together a banquet, a conference with dozens of speakers on a special theme, and monthly programs with selected speakers on what is new, interesting, in-the-works research or special methods of presentation.  These events bridge the divides between academics and amateurs, historians and the historically interested, and between individuals and the public.  But being lesser gods they forgot to provide funding for these activities and consequently every year we ask those who receive the benefits to become members.

Our calendar looking forward includes:

Nov. 13        Speaker’s Pgm.            SPL Central

Jan.  11        Annual Banquent        South Seattle CC

Mar.   2        Conference                    SPL Central

Mar.  28       Speaker’s Pgm.            MOHAI

May   30       Speaker’s Pgm             MOHAI

One further matter, if you receive the Newsletter, it does not indicate you are presently a member, rather that you or a friend has asked that you be put on the mailing list.  Memberships run January to January and are $25 for most or $10 for students.  To really be a “friend of the past” in 2013 please mail a check to the PNW Historians Guild at P.O. Box 85457, Seattle WA 98145-1457.  To see our brochure go to Membership.  It includes a PDF that can be mailed in.

Guild Banquet

The annual Guild banquet is Thursday, January 10, 2013, at the Brockey Center at South Seattle Community College, 6000 16th Ave. S.W. (in West Seattle). Social hour begins at 6 p.m. and dinner at 7 p.m., program at 7:30.

Guest Speaker is Greg Nickels, the 51st mayor of Seattle.  Nickels served two terms as mayor and was elected four times to the King County Council.  He spent eight years as a legislative aide to then City Councilman Norm Rice (later mayor) and became a teacher at Harvard University after his tenure as mayor.  He has spent a life in politics.  Nickels and his wife, Sharon, live in West Seattle.

The Pacific Northwest History Award, which was first presented in 1986, will be awarded in recognition of significant achievement in the service of advancing regional history.  The membership will elect new members to the board.  Last year’s popular raffle of artifacts of Pacific Northwest History will be repeated.

The cost of the salmon/roast beef dinner is $35 for members, $40 for non-members.  Mail a check to PNWHG, P.O. Box 85457, Seattle, WA 98145-1457 or register online at mail@pnwhistorians.org.  Please Note:  Reservations are due by Monday, January 7, 2013.

You will find directions at South Seattle Community College.  Park in the South parking lot near the Brockey Center.

New PNW Historians Website

We have now left the digital frontier behind with our improved website.  It is graphic, interactive and attractive for which we must thank Casey McNerthney, who joined the Guild recently and is presently a Board member.  To visit the reborn site go to pnwhistorians.org.  Almost anything you want to know as a member or prospective member can be found there; upcoming events, who is on the board today and maybe, because you are so forgetful now, what years you were the president. We proudly note that this attractive website is our best and up to date.

Publications

We forget with ease the world of the earliest settlers, the French Canadians, who established families and homes with the Indians of the Northwest only to be overrun by English speaking pioneers who followed them west.  Member Robert Foxcurran has not and in the fall issue of Columbia Magazine has an article on what became of the Metis.