The Story of Ms. Lillian Walker, a civil rights pioneer.
John Hughes’ eminently readable biography of Ms. Walker, alongside her oral history chronicles race relations and civil rights history in Bremerton, Washington
New digital collection: Skamania County Heritage
From the desk of Evan Robb A new digital collection from the Washington Rural Heritage initiative highlights the history of Skamania County, located in the heart of Washington’s rugged Columbia River Gorge. For their 2009-2010 grant project, the Stevenson and North Bonneville Community Libraries (Fort Vancouver Regional Library District) worked with local residents and partners to digitize unique material telling the story of life in these communities. The result is a digital collection consisting of two sub-collections and over 250…
Washington Adds 50,000 Newspaper Pages to Chronicling America
The Washington State Library recently contributed another 50,000 historic newspaper pages from nine newspapers to Chronicling America, making Washington State’s contribution to the program a total of 16 titles and 92,000 pages. People can read and research issues from these and other newspapers around the U.S. for free at chroniclingamerica.loc.gov. There are now 16 newspapers from Washington State currently included in Chronicling America: Cayton’s Weekly, 1917-1921 Colfax Gazette, 1900-1912 Colville Examiner, 1907-1922 Commonwealth (Everett), 1911-1914 Daily Republican (Seattle), 1896 Leavenworth…
Rural heritage, Vashon style
Whether you’re a Vashon Island resident, from that island or just like to study heritage stuff, you’ll be interested to know that the staff with Washington Rural Heritage recently published a new collection. Vashon Island Heritage is a collection of historic materials documenting the early culture, industry and community life of this island southwest of Seattle. The Vashon Library (which is part of King County Library System) and the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Association teamed up to work on the project. More info…
New digital collection: Vashon Island Heritage
From the desk of Evan Robb The Washington Rural Heritage initiative is pleased to announce our newest digital collection: Vashon Island Heritage. A project of the Vashon Library (King County Library System) and the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Association, the collection documents life on the island from the late 1800s through the 1960s. Four sub-collections make up the collection: Journals & Memoirs features local histories such as Marjorie Rose Stanley’s Search for Laughter and Bill Rendall’s Memoirs of Maury Island. Our…
Oregonians also planning suffrage centennial
Word filters north of the Oregon-Washington border that Oregonians, too, are busy organizing a big celebration for their state’s centennial of women gaining the right to vote. (Hey, no smarty-mouth comments from chauvinists out there!). As faithful readers of From Our Corner know, Washington already is into the centennial, since our Legislature approved suffrage in 19-aught-nine and the male voters approved it in November of 1910. Washington’s celebration is led by the Women’s History Consortium, the Washington State Historical Society…
Hat’s off to State Archivist
Washington State Archivist Jerry Handfield is a nationally renowned expert in his field, with more than 20 years of experience in archives, history and records management, including service as State Coordinator for the National Historic Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). So it was great news – though not surprising – that Handfield recently was appointed to the NHPRC. He will represent the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators on the commission, which meets next on November 20 in…
New Material for Ellensburg Heritage
Washington Rural Heritage introduced Ellensburg Heritage last year with the stunning Rodeo Collection, documenting 40 years of one of the top 25 rodeos in the country. Their sophomore effort brings us three new collections (and a few more rodeo photographs, too!). The Kittitas Valley Crossroads Collection contains nearly 200 historic images depicting Indian life in Ellensburg and the surrounding area. It features the work of local photographers as well as a sampling from Eli Emor James, Lee Moorhouse, Vibert Jeffers,…
Updates from the Road
The Washington Rural Heritage team has been criss-crossing the state consulting with project participants, meeting with potential contributors and scanning, scanning, and scanning some more. In the last month, we’ve seen three out of four corners of this state — and a few spots in between — and though we’re a little road-weary, we can’t wait to feature these incredible historic finds on our site. We started the month of July on Lummi Island, capturing some large reef-netting maps and…
Mining the Past with Roslyn Heritage
Every day, thousands of motorists make their way along Interstate-90 as it winds through Snoqualmie Pass before sloping gracefully to the Columbia Plateau. This often-traveled highway affords beautiful views of central Washington: from rugged, snow-capped mountain peaks to rolling, golden fields. Most cars fly past Roslyn, a tiny mountain town a few miles north of Cle Elum, without realizing that it is home to a fascinating, one-of-a-kind cemetery; the state’s oldest continually operated bar; and was the setting of a…