From the Desk of Jeff Martin 

The Bigelow Family mementos are a marvelous collection of memorabilia of an early Thurston County family.   The collection consists of a hand written journal (and transcription), photos, newspaper clippings, and birth, death and marriage records.

Written by

Daniel R. Bigelow

Digitized version of the unpublished diary

[Daniel R. Bigelow diary, 1848-1853] (118, [7] p.) — [Transcription of] the Daniel R. Bigelow diary, 1848-1853 / transcribed by Roger Easton — Reminiscences of the last survivor of the First Territorial Legislature of Washington / Alice Palmer Henderson (The State, [1899?], p. 295-299) — Through many perils : Mrs. [William] White’s journey across the continent to meet her husband … / (account by Margaret Margaret McCallen Stewart White Ruddell, mother of Anne Elizabeth White Bigelow) (Weekly ledger (Tacoma, Wash.), [189-?], p. 12+)

Collection appears courtesy of George Bigelow (grandson of Daniel R. Bigelow); Some pages in this collection are not searchable because they are handwritten.

Daniel Richardson Bigelow was born March 21, 1824 in Belleville, New York. He joined a wagon-train and headed west on the Oregon Trail to Portland, then sailed up the coast in the schooner Exact to Puget Sound in Nov. 1851. He established a law office in Smithfield (now called Olympia). On June 18, 1854, he married Ann Elizabeth White, the first school teacher in the area. Ann was born Nov. 3, 1836 in Illinois and arrived in Olympia with her family in late 1851. Daniel was Treasurer of Thurston County, a member of the first legislature of Washington Territory, Superintendent of the Olympia School, and President of the Board of Trustees of Puget Sound Wesleyan Institute (forerunner of the University of Puget Sound). He was one of three commissioners who completely rewrote the laws of Oregon Territory at Salem during the summer of 1853. Their recommendations were accepted by the Legislative Assembly and enacted into law, creating the new Territory of Washington. Daniel Bigelow died Sept. 15, 1905 at Olympia. Ann Elizabeth Bigelow died Feb. 8, 1926. The Bigelows had 9 children.

From the desk of Evan Robb

The National Park Service turns 100 on August 25, 2016.  In honor of that centennial celebration, the Port Angeles Public Library—located right on the footsteps of Olympic National Park—recently interviewed a number of its patrons about their experiences visiting, living in, and working at national parks throughout the U.S.  These audio recordings are now accessible online at: http://sos.wa.gov/q/listenup.

We especially enjoyed ranger Dean Butterworth’s story of guiding troubled teens on a snowshoeing trip in Mount Rainier National Park: http://www.washingtonruralheritage.org/cdm/ref/collection/nols/id/4155.

This is the first of an ongoing series of oral histories projects planned by the Port Angeles Public Library. Their new program, Listen Up! Stories from the Northwest Corner will collect and archive a wide variety of stories from Clallam County residents. Inspired by StoryCorps, the interviews will be made available for listening through the North Olympic Heritage website—part of the Washington State Library’s Washington Rural Heritage program.

The North Olympic Library System is hosting a free listening party at the Olympic National Park Visitor Center on Tuesday, June 21, 7pm, at the Olympic National park Visitor Center, 3002 Mount Angeles Rd, Port Angeles. Stop by to hear locals recall their favorite National Park stories and memories!  And if you can’t make it, the recordings will also be available at the Visitor Center all summer long.

From the desk of Jeff Martin:

Maps add a visual element to history. The State Archives and the State Library hold extensive map collections dealing with the Washington State and the surrounding region. Maps for these digital collections are drawn from state and territorial government records, historic books, federal documents and the Northwest collection. Here are two examples from this growing collection.

Author: Roberts, Henry, Lieut.

Title: Chart of the N.W. coast of America and the N.E. coast of Asia, explored in the years 1778 and 1779 [electronic resource] / prepared by Lieut[enan]t Hen[r]y Roberts, under the immediate inspection of Capt. Cook ; engraved by W. Palmer.

Imprint: London : Wm. Faden, geographer to the King, Charing Cross, 1784.

Note: Electronic data.

  “July 24, 1784.”

Relief shown pictorially. Depths shown by soundings.

“The unshaded parts of the Coast were taken from a Manuscript Chart which a Russian furnished us with …”

Includes notes.

Vertically fold-lined at center.

This link will take you to the online map.

Corporate Author: Illman & Pilbrow.

Title: Oregon Territory [electronic resource]

Imprint: [New York] : Illman & Pilbrow, [1833]

Description: 1 map : hand col. ; 25 x 31 cm.

Notes: Electronic data.

Shows locations of Native American tribal groups.

Relief shown by hachures.

Prime meridians: Greenwich and Washington.

Probably drawn by David H. Burr.

“Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1833 by Illman & Pilbrow in the Clerk’s office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York.”

Longitude coordinates given inaccurately.

“1837” and “48” handwritten at lower right corner in margin.

Would you like to see the map in all it’s glory?  Click here to go to the map of the Oregon Territory.

Here is Jeff’s latest spy; a fascinating record of travels in Washington and Oregon at the turn of the 20th Century.

From the desk of Jeff Martin

Written by

Elma MacGibbon

Shaw & Borden Co., Printers and Publishers, Spokane, Washington

Publication date: 1904

INTRODUCTION

I have had the opportunity, during the last few years, to travel very extensively throughout the West, and considerable in the East, with my husband, and finding people in general greatly interested in my oral description of the numerous places I have visited. I decided to give a history of the many cities and their surroundings as I saw them during my visits, at different seasons of the year.

Realizing that it will be of interest and information to the reading public, I now present to you Leaves of Knowledge.

Elma MacGibbon

Classics in Washington History – Leaves of Knowledge, Elma MacGibbon, 1904

The latest state document discovery from Jeff Martin

The Fourteenth Session: A brief history of the men who represented the million and a half people of the state of Washington in the legislature of 1915

Prepared by
Alfred T. Renfro
Beaux Arts Village, Washington
Publication date: 1915

A brief history of the men who represented the million and a half people of the State of Washington in the Legislature of 1915.
It is not the purpose or object of this book to discuss the Legislature as a whole or the merits of the bills. Neither is it a manual. The acts of the Legislature are recorded in the Journal, the results in the Session Laws, and the pocket manual covers the field.

This work will endeavor to treat [sic] of the personnel of the Legislature. Devoting its pages to the personal side of the men who made the laws. In some cases where the author knew, there will be found an “intimate peep” [sic] into the lives and characters of the members.

Another gem from within the document… “Governor Lister will be remembered in political history as the ‘Veto Governor.’  Of all vetoes recorded since statehood there appears to be over 40 percent credited to his administration.”

Washington State Library Electronic State Publications – The Fourteenth Session

Let us know in the comments if you find anything else that is particularly compelling.

From the desk of Shawn Schollmeyer

May 18, 1917 Echo Zahl starts work for the Star

“Wild Young Female Person is going to tell Star readers how Seattle looks to Co-Ed fresh from University campus…”

As the World War I began in Europe and the US began preparing for the eventual entry to the war in 1917, the Seattle Star was bringing a little levity to the front page news. In May they introduced, Echo June Zahl, a recent graduate from the University of Oregon Journalism School and a fresh young feminist face to their readers.

With a feminist eye and a nutty sense of humor she wins over a new audience and quickly gains regional notoriety. One poor woman is thrown out of a lake retreat full of spiritualists for unknowingly appearing as Echo’s doppelganger, a known personality of the media.

She shows how the latest bathing fashions are just not suitable for a practical, modern girl who actually wants to swim. Echo loved adventure and would venture out on horseback, travel long distances, and even surf for a good story.

While many of her assignments were interviews with actors, actresses and local business folk, she drew attention to many, more serious topics important to the working Seattle community and the everyday, regular guy with her articles on  visiting soldiers at Fort Lawton, & Camp Lewis, building support for local Red Cross activities supporting the war effort and the struggles of the city carmen during the big labor strike. When you start your research of the WWI era, consider following some of Echo’s pursuits of daily life in Seattle and the citizens of Washington affected by the news of their boys going off to war and the people who stayed home to keep their families and way of life as normal as possible. 

Introducing Echo: The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 18 May 1917. Chronicling America:
Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.

Braving the Bucking Board: The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 16 June 1917. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.

“Echo Zahl Visits Fort Lawton” :The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 04 June 1917. Chronicling
America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.

“Spurns Nifty Bathing Suits” as not suitable for swimming: The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 15 June 1917. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.

“Echo Zahl See’s Carman’s Home: Tells How Family with 7 Children Struggles to Live on Inadequate Wage Paid By Traction Company.”: The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 18 July 1917. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.

And before it was popular – she even made her own emoji!: The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 12 June 1917. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.

Find more from this great early 20^th Century journalist on ChroniclingAmerica.com in Washington’s own Seattle Star.

Volume 12, March 3, 2016 for the WSL Updates mailing list

Topics include:

1) STATEWIDE DATABASE LICENSING RFP RELEASED

2) WASHINGTON RURAL HERITAGE DIGITIZATION GRANTS NOW ACCEPTING PROPOSALS

3) FREE BOOKS FOR WASHINGTON LIBRARIES

4) ARMS OPEN WIDE: LIBRARY OUTREACH TO CUSTOMERS WITH PRINT DISABILITIES

5) STAR_Net Webinar Series Announced

6) NN/LM PNR TRAINING OFFERINGS

7) CONFERENCES, ANYONE?

8) FREE CE OPPORTUNITIES NEXT WEEK

Read the rest of this entry »

Kheel Center-Flickr Account CC 2.0

On March 2, 1911 the Washington state congress passed House Bill 12/Senate Bill 74 which limits women’s work day to an eight hour day.  While the cause had been championed for years, in 1910 Washington women gained the vote bringing new power (and votes) to the cause.  Several influential employers in the state came to Olympia to speak of the dire results this bill would have on their businesses, suggesting that manufacturers would move their businesses elsewhere.  Despite these objections the bill passed making Washington one of the first state’s in the nation to grant women an eight hour workday. Clippings from Washington newspapers, from the Chronicling America site, tell just a part of the story.  If you want to read more about it historylink.org tells a more complete story.  If you’d like to read it straight from the horse’s mouth, the bill’s passing was reported around the state of Washington.  Links to the primary documents are found below.

Headlines:
8 Hour Work Day for the Women – The Seattle Star, February 15, 1911
Preparing for the eight-hour workday for women – The San Juan Islander, March 31^st, 1911
Merchant is Peeved – The Labor Journal, May 19, 1911

From the desk of Evan Robb

The Washington Rural Heritage project was recently featured in a piece by OCLC—the company behind CONTENTdm.  The piece highlights our use of interactive maps, geo-referenced digital objects, and timelines, using free tools from Northwestern University’s Knight Labs. Read more here: http://www.oclc.org/en-US/news/announcements/2016/CONTENTdm-news-item-January-2016.html

From the desk of Evan Robb

Washington Rural Heritage staff hit the road recently to help the Ellensburg Public Library digitize unique works by New Deal-era artist Ernest R. Norling.

Known most widely for his important 1939 book on drawing, “Perspective Made Easy,” Norling also made a significant contribution to documenting Washington’s industry and history in the wake of the Great Depression. His murals depicting early pioneers, agricultural workers, Northwest logging crews, or CCC men at work, grace a great many public and private schools, buildings, and businesses throughout Washington. [Read an oral history interview with Norling by the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art here].

To digitize oversize works like Norling’s, Washington State Library staff set up a mobile studio of sorts in the Ellensburg Public Library’s archives and local history collections space (the Library stores and preserves works owned by the City of Ellensburg and the Ellensburg Art Commission). We used a field camera along with a large format lens and digital “scan back,” tethered to a laptop, as shown in the photo at left. The result is a high-resolution, reproduction-quality image of Norling’s painting. It will be digitally preserved by the Washington State Library, and a lower-resolution “access” copy will be made viewable to the general public. The digital photography equipment used for this project has also been used extensively to digitize three-dimensional art work, as well as objects and artifacts held by cultural organizations throughout the state.

Norling’s work, along with a large portion of the City of Ellensburg’s art collection, will appear online this spring, as part of the larger Ellensburg Heritage Collection. Staff at the Ellensburg Public Library are performing the bulk of art digitization and description on their own, with a 2015-2016 Washington Rural Heritage grant.

Washington Rural Heritage is a statewide digitization program, serving Washington’s public and tribal libraries as well as their institutional partners (museums, historical societies, etc.). Library Services and Technology Act funding for the program comes from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services. A new Washington Rural Heritage competitive grant opportunity will be available for libraries by early March. Those with questions or project proposal ideas are encouraged to contact Evan Robb, Digital Repository Librarian, at 360-704-5228, or [email protected].