Joshua Elmer and son, circa 1903

From the desk of Evan Robb

The Washington Rural Heritage initiative is pleased to announce a new digital collection: Odessa Heritage. A project of the Odessa Public Library in partnership with the Odessa Historisches Museum, the collection tells the story of the pioneering families in southwest Lincoln County whose efforts transformed a rugged  section of Washington into the second most productive wheat-growing county in the U.S.

The project began earlier this year when State Library staff performed on-location digitization of items at the Odessa Historisches Museum. Highlights from the digital collection include:

• A stunning collection of century-old photographs by Joshua Elmer, a local professional photographer who documented many of Southwest Lincoln County’s working farms and farmers. The collection includes Elmer’s linen-mounted panoramic photos and also depicts aspects of his family and home life (Elmer’s entire family was involved with the photography business).
• Historisches Museum barn collection: Photos of one-of-a-kind vehicles, agricultural implements, objects, and artifacts unique to the Odessa area.
• Material cataloged by Odessa High School students. An exciting aspect of this project has been involvement from local students who visited the Odessa Historisches Museum, researched specific materials, interacted with Museum staff and local researchers, and drafted item descriptions for the digital collection. See their “bylines” in the Notes field of these records.

Shepherd’s lunch box

Following this initial project, the Odessa Public Library landed a grant from the Washington State Library to continue building the Odessa Heritage Collection. Throughout 2011-2012, the Library will be digitizing additional material in collaboration with the Odessa Historisches Museum; Odessa High School; local independent researchers; and members of the Big Bend chapter of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (AHSGR).

Congratulations and a big thank you to: Julie Jantz of the Odessa Public Library, for managing the project; Dr. and Mrs. John Gahringer of the Odessa Historisches Museum, for their fantastic interpretation of Museum materials during our visit; Museum board member Paul Scheller for his photography assistance; and local historian Marge Womach for her many hours of research consultation.

Finally, if this online collection has whet your appetite for local history, go learn more in person.  Odessa’s well known (and 41st annual) Deutschesfest is right around the corner!

From the desk of Evan Robb

Congratulations to the latest group of Washington libraries who will be awarded LSTA grants through the Washington Rural Heritage initiative:

• Asotin County Library.
• Connell Branch, Mid-Columbia Libraries.
• Ellensburg Public Library.
• Everson Public Library, Whatcom County Library System.
• Odessa Public Library.
• Omak Library, North Central Regional Library.
• Roslyn Public Library.

These organizations will be spending the next year digitizing historically significant materials from their own holdings, the holdings of partnering heritage institutions, and in some cases, privately held collections. For more details on each project, click here.

As of this writing, our 2010 group of WRH awardees are putting the finishing touches on their grant projects. Newly digitized items are steadily being added to the Washington Rural Heritage digital repository; more information will be available as these new collections go live.

Funds for Washington Rural Heritage were made available by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. For more information, contact Evan Robb, Project Manager, (360) 704-5228.

Mr. and Mrs. Judson on their 50th Anniversary, June 20, 1899.

In 1853, the enterprising Judson family set out from Ohio to start a new life in the Washington Territory. They first settled in Grand Mound, followed by a stint in Olympia, where Holden Judson served in the Territorial Legislature. Eventually, they made their way north to the Nooksack River and founded the town of Lynden, Washington, described by Phoebe Judson (aka the “Mother of Lynden”) as a “goodly land” near “Mount Baker’s frosted dome,” in her account of their journey through the Territory, A Pioneer’s Search for an Ideal Home : A Personal Memoir, part of the library’s digital collections.

On the cusp of the 4th of July, it seems appropriate to highlight a passage describing one of the first Independence Day celebrations in the Territory:

Here all the settlers within a radius of ten to twenty miles had gathered. The company was not so large but I could count them all, for I have not forgotten their names or faces, but we found a good time did not depend upon numbers; for never was festal day spent more joyously than this, our first Fourth of July celebration in the territory–showing our patriotism by unfurling the Stars and Stripes to the breeze and saluting it by hearty cheers that made the sunlit air ring with the music of peace and joy–a more fitting tribute than the deafening roar of the cannon, which speaks of carnage, and the awful desolation and woe that follow in the train of war.

Sadly, this peaceful celebration was soon followed by an outbreak of war, as conflicts heightened between the Territorial Government and local Indian tribes. Read more about the day, and sample many more slices of Territorial life lovingly chronicled in Phoebe Goodell Judson’s memoir.

On June 15, 1859, Lyman Cutlar, an American settler on San Juan Island, shot a pig he found rummaging through his vegetable garden.  That pig happened to belong to the British settlers of Hudson’s Bay Company, and they were none too pleased to hear the news. Tensions were already riding high, and this squabble ignited a 10-year dispute aptly named the Pig War. Washington State Library’s historic newspapers collection has some excellent firsthand accounts of the shooting and events surrounding the dispute, including this one from Olympia’s Pioneer and Democrat of August 5, 1859. If you enjoy this, you can find more on our Moments in History page.

Pioneer and Democrat, 8/5/1859

Volume 7, May 26, 2011 for the WSL Updates mailing list

Topics include:

1) RECORDED BOOKS ISSUES NETLIBRARY INVOICES

2) FREE WORKSHOP – PROTECTING CULTURAL COLLECTIONS

3) STARTING STRONG INSTITUTE

4) SIGN UP NOW FOR ONLINE LEARNING FROM ALSC

5) SHARPEN YOUR WEBSITE – CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

6) FREE CE OPPORTUNITIES NEXT WEEK

Read the rest of this entry »

As National Poetry Month draws to a close, we stumbled upon a quaint obituary poem in our Digital Collections. Annals of old Angeline : “Mika Yahoos delate klosch!,” was written by Bertha Piper Venen in 1903 to honor a beloved icon of early Seattle.

Princess Angeline, originally named Kikisoblu, was the eldest daughter of Chief Seattle.  She was also one of the few natives who stayed in Seattle after most relocated to the Port Madison Reservation in the mid-1800s.  Angeline worked as a laundress and basket weaver, and she was a dear friend to many early pioneers, including Henry Yesler and Doc and Catherine Maynard.

Venen’s poem recounts Angeline’s days living on the Seattle waterfront, peddling her wares to passers-by. The rambling narrative contains anecdotes about several of her prominent friends, and describes her grand, well-attended funeral. The poem itself might be a bit sentimental and simplistic for modern sensibilities, but be sure to flip through the pages to view some stellar photographs of  Seattle and its mid-19th century inhabitants.

If you’d like to see more evidence of Angeline’s celebrity (she was photographed by many of the city’s prominent photographers), take a look at the University of Washington’s Princess Angeline Photograph and Postcard Collection.

A brief, factual biography of Angeline and Chief Seattle can also be found here in our Digital Collections.

REMINDER―2011 GRANT APPLICATIONS DUE NEXT FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

The application deadline for three current WSL LSTA grant cycles is Friday, April 29, 2011. The grant cycles are as follows:

• 2011 Connecting Libraries through Resource Sharing (CLRS);
• Supporting Student Success (SSS);
• Washington Rural Heritage (WRH).

 The CLRS and WRH grants are competitive grant opportunities; however, the SSS grant is criteria-based, to be awarded on a first come, first served basis until all funds are exhausted. As of April 20, funds are still available. More detail on all three grant cycles may be found at www.sos.wa.gov/quicklinks/grants.

For additional information or questions, contact:

• Carolyn Petersen, CLRS Project Manager, 360.570.5560, [email protected];
• Martha Shinners, SSS Project Manager, 360.570.5567, [email protected];
• Evan Robb, WRH Project Manager, 360.704.5228, [email protected];
• Anne Yarbrough, LSTA Grants Manager, 360.704.5246, [email protected].

Nice job on the part of Beth Kauer from the Benton City Library promoting their new digital collection at the recent Washington Library Association Conference in Yakima, April 6-8, 2011. Beth designed and staffed a “Spotlight on Success!” table at the conference featuring images and information from the Kiona-Benton City Heritage Collection, a project of the State Library’s Washington Rural Heritage Initiative.

To learn more about how your rural public or tribal library can get involved with the digitization of the local history resources, contact Evan Robb, Project Manager, Washington Rural Heritage: [email protected], (360) 704-5228.

The (4/29/2011) deadline is fast-approaching for this year’s Washington Rural Heritage grant applications; more information on the grant cycle is available here.

From the desk of Evan Robb

A new grant cycle is open for Washington Rural Heritage, a statewide digitization initiative for small rural libraries and partnering organizations. To date, more than 60 cultural institutions throughout Washington have contributed to this growing digital collection of historically significant materials. Learn more about the project and see the full list of contributors here.

Both public and tribal libraries are eligible to apply for this grant; priority consideration will be given to libraries that have not previously received awards associated with Washington Rural Heritage. Overall funding to support this grant cycle is $50,000, with a maximum award of $10,000 per application. It is anticipated that five or more applicants may receive awards. Application deadline: Postmarked or received by April 29, 2011. View eligibility guidelines, FAQs, and download a grant application at www.sos.wa.gov/library/libraries/grants/grants.aspx.

For more information, contact Evan Robb, Project Manager, Washington Rural Heritage, 360-704-5228, [email protected], or Anne Yarbrough, Grants Program, 360-704-5246, [email protected].

Washington Rural Heritage is supported with Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funding provided by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services.

In 1841, a stubborn 64 year old Methodist preacher named Joseph Williams left his home in Ripley County, Indiana to travel to the Oregon Territory. His family and neighbors all advised against it, pointing to dangers, hostile Indians and wild beasts.  “But my mind leads me strongly to go: I want to preach to the people there, and also to the Indians, as well as to see the county.”

Methodist Mission, Oregon, 1834

He travels to the Oregon and back in the next two years, sometimes alone, sometimes in company with French fur traders and their Indian wives, or other Americans making for California or the Willamette Valley. He is a tough old bird, surviving swollen rivers, fevers, a mishap with an ax that opens his shin, and the more than occasional snubs to his preaching from fellow travelers and some of the established missionaries.

To modern eyes he is an odd mixture of prejudice and openness. He notes many unbelievers who treat him kindly as well as those who make his life a misery with swearing and brutality.  He shows no special connection to the Indians he meets but deplores the fact that many of the established Oregon missions are doing so little to care for the Indians in their areas. He criticizes other missionaries for the coldness of their services and their emphasis on farming and caring for their own comfort and safety above that of the natives they went there to serve. (This may account for some of the snubs to his preaching mentioned above.)

Meet Joseph Williams and read his story in Narrative of a tour to Oregon, 1841-2 in Classics in Washington History.