2024

October 24, 2024

Hanna Brooks Olsen gave a lively presentation on her recently published book, Notoriously Bad Character: The True Story of Lou Graham and the Immigrants and Sex Workers Who Built Seattle, regaling our audience with facts and myths about Lou Graham, Seattle’s most famous madam and a dominant figure in the rough and tumble early days of Seattle.

Hanna Brooks Olsen (left) alongside the cover of her recently published book, ‘Notoriously Bad Character’

September 27, 2024

At its monthly meeting on September 27, the Pacific Northwest Historians Guild awarded its 2024 Pacific Northwest History Award to historian and Seattle Pacific University Emeritus Professor, Dr. Richard D. Scheuerman. First presented in 1986 to Murray Morgan, the award recognizes those who have made significant contributions in writing, preserving and promoting Pacific Northwest history.

The award presented to Dr. Scheuerman recognizes “his lifetime efforts chronicling the cultural, agrarian, and economic history of Eastern Washington and the greater Pacific Northwest, including scholarly works on Native American history and culture, notably of the Palouse people and Chief Kamiakin and his people; German pioneers in the region; agrarian themes in art and literature; and heirloom grains.” The award includes a lifetime Guild membership.

Also in attendance at the ceremony were past History Award winners Bill Woodward, Judy Bentley, Junius Rochester and Larry Kreisman.

Richard D. Scheuerman (right) is presented with the Guild’s 2024 Pacific Northwest History Award by Guild president Jim Rupp

August 3, 2024 – West Duwamish Greenbelt Hike with Judy Bentley and Ken Workman

Twenty hiking historians explored the West Duwamish Greenbelt on August 3, 2024, under the leadership of Judy Bentley and Ken Workman, a fifth-generation descendant of Chief Seattle.  The greenbelt has been home to Coast Salish people for thousands of years, with a riverfront village dating from 400 CE.  The woods were home to Ken and his brother, who roamed them growing up on Puget Ridge in the 1950s. 

The hike started at South Seattle College, wove through the Chinese Garden, entered the greenbelt and followed various trails, some official, some home-grown, to the Duwamish Longhouse and Cultural Center where Ken spoke of the cultural and political history of the Duwamish in West Seattle.  The group lunched at həʔapus, the village site across from the Longhouse on the Duwamish Waterway, then returned to the top of Puget Ridge.  Judy spoke of the Ridge to River (R2R) goal of both the Duwamish and local communities of developing a user-friendly trail from the top of the ridge to the Longhouse through the greenbelt. 

For the story of how the West Duwamish Greenbelt grew from a donation of land for Puget Park to 500 acres, the largest contiguous forest in Seattle, visit the Log House Museum in West Seattle and the website of the West Duwamish Greenbelt Trails group. 

February 22, 2024 – The Evolution of the Northwest Passage as a Cartographic Image.

Using historic maps drawn from the collections of the Washington State Historical Society, the Washington State Library, and the Library of Congress, David Nicandri discussed the history of the Northwest Passage with a particular emphasis on how the western portal for same evolved between 1753 and 1853. His presentation drew on mid 18th century speculative depictions of the northwest quadrant of continent, plus charts associated with a variety of explorers including James Cook, George Vancouver, Alexander Mackenzie, Lewis & Clark, and others.

Here’s a link to David Nicandri’s talk.

January 25, 2024 – What’s Up With Research?

Everyone talks about research, but what does that mean, and what’s happening locally? Anne Jenner, Curator of the Pacific Northwest Collection at University of Washington Special Collections, Anna Elam, Library Collections Manager at the Museum of History and Industry, and Ann Ferguson, Curator of the Seattle Collection at the Seattle Public Library shared with us information about what types of research are happening in their collections. It was an evening of inspiration and ideas, and they shared an insight into what’s hot in history.

Here’s a link to the “What’s Up With Research” panel discussion.

2023

2021

December 2 – 7pm – Mike Bergman spoke on the history of Seattle’s streetcars.

Through narrative, maps, and previously unpublished photographs, author Michael Bergman delivered a detailed jaunt through Seattle’s fascinating streetcar era.

October 28 – 7pm – Dale Kutzera and Paul Hayden Kirk

Seattle author Dale Kutzera spoke about his work, Paul Hayden Kirk and the Rise of Northwest Modern, the first comprehensive account of the career of Pacific Northwest architect Paul Hayden Kirk (1914-1995).

September 23 – 7pm – Professor Alexandra Harmon presented her award-winning book, Reclaiming the Reservation.

Professor Alexandra Harmon spoke about her award-winning book, Reclaiming the Reservation: Histories of Indian Sovereignty Suppressed and Renewed, which delves into Quinault, Suquamish, and pan-tribal histories to illuminate the roots of Indians’ claim of regulatory power in their reserved homelands.

May 27 – 7pm – A Tale of Three Cities: Urban History, Settler Colonialism, and Indigenous Survivance

University of British Columbia professor Coll Thrush delivered A Tale of Three Cities: Urban History, Settler Colonialism, and Indigenous Survivance in Seattle, Vancouver, and Victoria. Thrush emphasized that the story of urban development in Cascadia is a story of dispossession, in which the rise of cities depended on the labor of Indigenous peoples, but also on their expulsion from “modern” civic spaces. Today, Indigenous peoples have continued to maintain connections to places within urban landscapes and assert sovereignty in both unceded and treatied spaces.

April 22 – 7pm – Pacific Dreams: Puget Sound, the Northwest Passage, and the Transcontinental Railroads

In his talk, Dr. Sean Fraga uncovered the long history of transpacific trade through Puget Sound and showed how interest in trade with Asia first brought European explorers and American settlers to the Pacific Northwest. Dr. Fraga argued that an enduring American obsession with Asian trade shaped Puget Sound as a commercial center across more than two hundred years.

February 25 – 7pm – David B. Williams presented Puget Sound: A Maritime Highway.

In this talk, which is based on research for his next book, Homewaters: A Human and Natural History of Puget Sound, Williams explored the 13,000-year history transportation in this extraordinary waterway to illustrate how landscape has a central influence on the residents of a place and how they live their lives.

January 28 – 7pm – Megan Churchwell presented A Whirlwind History of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. 

Megan Churchwell, curator of the Puget Sound Naval Museum, explored more than 125 years of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard’s history, from its establishment to its modern role as an aircraft carrier homeport.

2020

December 3 – 7pm – Eric Wagner spoke about his book, After the Blast, The Ecological Recovery of Mount St. Helens. 

Eric Wagner shared a fascinating look at Mount St. Helens through the blast area and beyond and how scientists began to think in new ways about how life responds in the face of seemingly total devastation.

October 21 – 7pm – Clay Eals and Jean Sherrard discussed their Seattle Now & Then column.

Jean Sherrard and Clay Eals shared stories about their long-running Seattle Now & Then column. Created by Paul Dorpat in 1982, the column has been delighting readers of the Seattle Times Sunday magazine with glimpses of history for decades.

September 24 – 7pm – Author BJ Cummings spoke about “The River that Made Seattle.”

The Guild’s first virtual meeting. Great presentation this evening from BJ Cummings about the history of the Duwamish River on whose banks Seattle was founded! For more about the history behind BJ’s book check out her blog at https://duwamishhistory.com/.

To learn more about the river, its history, and its future, check out the following links including an initiative currently underway to rename parks along the river: (https://www.portseattle.org/NameIncredibleParks)

Learn more about the Duwamish tribe the river takes its name from (https://www.duwamishtribe.org/).

2016

December 1, 7:30 p.m.

Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist William Dietrich has updated and added a new introduction to Northwest Passage, The Great Columbia River. He will share with us the status of the mighty Columbia, the health of its salmon runs, the state of its dams, and the river’s growing importance in light of climate change.

October 27, 7:30 p.m.
Fred Brown, author of The City is More than Human, An Animal History of Seattle, will talk about his book published this month by the University of Washington Press. You may remember Fred’s talk about cows in urban spaces at a Pacific Northwest  History conference when his research was in process.

September 22, 7:30 p.m.
A Guild September tradition—report on research. Guild members will gather to share the regional history topics they are researching and share resources. We will be joined by a librarian from the Seattle Room of the Seattle Public Library who will share the topics users of that room are pursuing and the gaps in research she sees.

July 30, 2016 – Annual History Hike: Yakima Pass with Judy Bentley. Join historian and author Judy Bentley for our annual history hike, this year to little-known Yakima Pass at the headwaters of the Cedar River. An ancient Yakama Indian trail goes through this pass which George McClellan surveyed in his 1853 search for a transcontinental railroad route through the Cascade Mountains. The hike is 5.2 miles roundtrip, with some elevation gain, going past Cottonwood Lake and Mirror Lake before joining the Pacific Crest Trail.

May 26, 2016 – Talk: “Those Mysterious Seacoast Forts: Homeland Defense the Old-Fashioned Way”, Dr. William Woodward, Seattle Pacific University, Ames Library Seminar Room (directions/parking below) 7 pm. Long nagged by memories of the only successful attack on our nation’s capital before 9/11/01, the British invasion of 1814, advocates for “homeland security” in the 1860s and 1870s turned to massive coast guns to protect the three American coasts.  One of the first installations came at the mouth of the Columbia River; within a generation, Puget Sound had its own defenses.  Now quaint state parks, these artifacts of a past obsession with “Never again!” raise fascinating questions about threats both imagined and real, and responses both psychological and tangible.  I tell the tale of these silent sentinels as a virtual tour.  What unfolds is the story both of America’s changing engagement with the world and its reliance on new technologies to “guarantee” security.   Who knew that the massive disappearing guns at Fort Worden would lead to the electronic computer, or that inadequate manpower in the active Army would require augmentation by local reserve and National Guard units, leading to today’s “Total Force”?

The Seattle Pacific University Ames Library is located off 6th Avenue West, between W. Bertona and W. Dravus Streets on lower North Queen Anne hill.

April 28, 2016   – Annual Membership Event and Business Meeting.  Keynote Speaker : Lorraine McConaghy
Details can be found here.

March 31, 2016 — Slide Show/Talk: Dan Kerlee “Rare glimpses of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition”. Seattle Pacific University, Ames Library Seminar Room

Was Seattle’s 1909 AYPE just another pretty face in the world of World’s Fairs between 1893 and 1915? Local private researcher Dan Kerlee will display rare and uncommonly seen images of, and relating to, the AYPE, which took place on the University of Washington campus and attracted four million visitors from around the world over a four and one half month span. Topics that have not been widely discussed will be covered, and others may get a fresh look.  Dan has studied the AYPE for over two decades and maintains an in-progress website on the AYPE, aype.com.

 

 

 

 

Wed, April 15, 2015 —Talk: Linda DiBiase “Neither Harmony Nor Eden: Margaret Peppers and the Exile of the Japanese Americans” University of Washington Allen Library Auditorium.

 

Join University of Washington Collections Development Librarian Linda DiBiase for a presentation on her article “Neither Harmony Nor Eden: Margaret Peppers and the Exile of the Japanese Americans” (Anglican and Episcopal History, Vol. 70, No. 1 (March 2001). Linda will highlight her research on Margaret Peppers, an Episcopal lay worker assisting Japanese Americans in Seattle and at Camp Minidoka.

 

Set apart as an Episcopal deaconess in 1918, Margaret Peppers served ten years as a missionary in the Philippines, followed by three decades in western Washington, primarily in parish ministry at St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s, two Seattle area Japanese American congregations. When the people of St. Peter’s were sent to the Idaho desert during World War II, she made the unprecedented choice of accompanying them to the internment camp. Come learn about this remarkable and complex woman, who both accepted and resisted the norms of her church and society.Linda Teresa Di Biase’s research interest in overlooked women of the 19th and early 20th century American West has led to publications in the Southern California Quarterly, Alberta History, Anglican and Episcopal History, and most recently, the Spring 2015 issue of Columbia (“Zoe Kincaid: A Western Journalist Discovers Japan”). In 2012 she received the Frank Sugeno Award from the Episcopal Women’s History Project in support of her research on Margaret Peppers, an Episcopal lay worker assisting Japanese Americans in Seattle and at Camp Minidoka. She hopes to write a book based on Peppers’ unusual life. Linda has been with the University of Washington Libraries for more than 25 years as Collection Development Librarian, her work ranging from coordinating e-book acquisitions to serving on the Special Collections reference desk.