Talk:History of Seattle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] First Impression 6 Dec 2003

At a quick read, some of this is valuable, some of it is redundant to material under Seattle, and I believe some of it is just wrong. I'm inclined to try to move material around more appropriately between the two articles, and try to identify factual discrepancies, unless someone else would rather take this on. I'm also posting this on Talk:Seattle. If no one else claims out this task by Dec 10, I'll plunge in. -- Jmabel 07:50, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted Material (maybe worth mining)

Edit under way. The following is non-historical material excised from the article; I haven't looked too closely at it; some of this could be worth mining for the Seattle article, although I suspect it is mostly already there. -- Jmabel 22:46, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Seattle is located along Puget Sound, in between two large mountain ranges, the Olympics and the Cascades. The climate is mild, with the temperature moderated by the sea and protected from winds and storms by the mountains. The area is hilly, though it flattens out as one moves out from the center of the city. The rain the city is famous for is actually unremarkable; at 35 inches of precipitation a year, it's less than most major eastern seaboard cities. What makes it seem so wet in Seattle is the cloudiness, which besides the summer lasts most of the year, and that most precipitation falls as light rain, not snow or heavy storms. There are two large lakes, Lake Washington and Lake Union, and many smaller ones. The rivers, forests, lakes, and fields were once rich enough to support one of the world's few sedentary hunter-gatherer societies. Opportunities for sailing, skiing, bicycling, camping, and hiking are close by and accessible almost all of the year.

Traveling through Seattle, it's hard to find an area that has nothing to recommend it. At the top of every hill there is a view of a lake or the ocean, and at the bottom of every hill is a shore. There is no definable nice part of town; though there are certainly relatively wealthy neighborhoods, they are small and interspersed with less well off ones. Though there are poor neighborhoods, there are few slums. The predominate building material is wood, and has been since Native Americans lived in longhouses.

[edit] Question

Joe, as a native of Seattle myself, I have to say two things. One is that I'm so glad you're expanding its history article! I think you're doing a great job. The second, though, is a minor quibble: why "Silicon Forest"? It strikes me as an odd heading, and is a phrase I've never heard applied to Seattle (and while I'm not completely hip, I find it odd I haven't). Is it a usage peculiar to you? At any rate, I'm suggesting we call it "Recent History" or something a little plainer, just for simplicity's sake: I just wanted to run it by you out of courtesy, and because I did want to thank you for the work you've done. Any thoughts? Thanks, Jwrosenzweig 00:56, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I would think we can come up with something catchier than "recent history". "Silicon Forest" is moderately widely used. Google gives over 5,000 hits, though its hard to quickly sort out how many of those might be from the company of that name. Feel free to change it, I promise not to be offended.

In case you didn't notice, this is not mostly my material, its somebody's paper that was dumped into the site. There's still a lot of work to do. The man doesn't seem to even notice that a labor movement exists, this in a town that had a General Strike in 1919. But it's better than nothing, and it's a start. I still have to hit up the paper itself for his references, etc., but I'm busy the rest of the evening & will be on it tomorrow. Hack away, but I'd appreciate if you leave it to me to integrate the major "undigested" material that I'm in the middle of grappling with.

-- Jmabel 01:04, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

At this point, I've "digested" all of the Emmett Shear material except for his account of the early years, which - even though it quotes from Speidel's Sons of the Profits - is close enough to the "establishment" line to suggest that he never read Speidel's later Doc Maynard, my guide to what I wrote about this period. Within the next 48 hours I will attempt to integrate this material, fairly presenting both views. Then I'm probably going to stay mostly out of this article for a couple of weeks to let other people have a shot at it. It would be appreciated if people hold off on other significant edits on the pre-1900 material until I've had a chance to complete this edit. -- Jmabel 07:51, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Couldn't sleep tonight, so I finished it up. Edit away! -- Jmabel 11:56, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I never did read Doc Maynard, good guess ^^. The paper wasn't written as a historical piece, it's about the development of the layout of the city, so it misses a lot of important details (wobblies and the general strike as was pointed out). I hope it was useful anyway!

- Emmett 7:43 Feb 05 2004 (UTC)

Yes, very useful. As you can see, I've slowly been adding some other topics.

- Jmabel 01:13, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Split the article?

I'm inclined to split this into three articles, with navigation between them:

  • History of Seattle before 1900
  • History of Seattle 1900-1940
  • History of Seattle since 1940

I realize that for now the middle one is a bit light, but this seems the natural place to make the breaks: The first would cover the lumber boom and the Yukon Gold Rush, the second would cover the shipbuilding boom and the depression, the third would cover the Boeing boom (and bust) and the rise of the current cosmopolitan, high-tech city. Does anyone object to this? If no objections are raised by Dec 12, I'm going to do this split (and add corresponding navigation) as the last step of my current work on this article. -- Jmabel 10:00, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

  • Done. Jmabel 00:12, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Counterculture, Activism, etc.

Right now, this is a very-establishment-oriented article, especially post-1900. That's because it is essentially Emmett Shear's material, following historian Roger Sale, except for a few interpolations I made while editing. Before I walk away from this for a while, I'm going to add some stub sections, etc. to at least remind people of what is missing. -- Jmabel 18:08, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

  • Done. Jmabel 00:12, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] I'm out of here for a while

OK, I've now built this out as a group of articles: History of Seattle, History of Seattle before 1900, History of Seattle 1900-1940, History of Seattle since 1940. And, of course, there is always Seattle. I'm generally satisfied with the framework, although plenty of work remains. I'm going to refrain from editing any of these historical articles myself for at least 2 weeks, lest they become "my" articles instead of the wikipedia community's articles. (At this point, the content is probably about half Emmett Shear's and about half mine.)

The one structural alternative I want to suggest is that maybe the Klondike Gold Rush would make a better dividing line that 1900. I had to split the articles somewhere. I leave it to someone else to rework accordingly if they want. -- Jmabel 00:12, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] the audacity of the early 20th century

 Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (January 2007)

As a Seattle native, I was glad to see the mentioning of the slucing away of Denny hill to form the Denny regrade, but other audacious projects were not mentioned, a river was diverted (I forget which one), the level of lake washington was changed, the channel and locks connecting Lake Union and Lake Washington to Puget Sound were built. I don't have enough details to write it myself, but perhaps someone with access to resources, will take an interest in the history, if they know it is there.

  • Point well taken. I may try to follow that up some time. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:16, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

I also wonder about Fort Lawton, not being mentioned, along with its hand over to the city to become Discovery Park.--Silverback 10:38, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • We do have an article on Daybreak Star, but I'm not sure what else we have on that. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:16, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
Thanx, that got me to a page on Discovery Park too.--Silverback 19:04, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Workers committee?

I heard that there was a period of 6 months or so during the 30s when Seattle was ruled by a "workers committee". I don't know any more about it, I imagine it was a period of labor unrest and communist influence.--Silverback 10:44, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • 1919, and it was only a week. The General Strike. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:16, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
Thanx. I thought it was within my great uncles life time, but I guess not. --Silverback 19:06, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] AT&T Wireless

AT&T Wireless was prominent in the 1990s boom, probably the most prominent telecommunications company in Seattle at that time. Yes, I know it was later absorbed by Cingular, but it still merits mention in summarizing the 1990s boom. Lukobe, you say in your edit summary "yes, but right after it says 'the aforementioned companies remain relatively strong,' so since AT&T Wireless doesn't exist at all anymore, it should be removed". Isn't it possible that the next sentence is where a slight rewording is needed? It's not like AT&T Wireless failed, it simply was sold for quite good money, $41 billion. That's about Bill Gates's net worth, not chump change. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:17, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Good point. I guess it is the next sentence that's really the sticking point. I'll reinstate AT&T and tweak what comes after.. --Lukobe 18:17, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Raising of the city

 Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (January 2007)

The burying of the first floor of buildings in the Pioneer Square area is a really interesting piece of the city's history that's not mentioned here. [1] -- Beland 02:49, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I just added something on the building of the Ship Canal, another enormous engineering task from that era. The Pioneer Square story would certainly be worth adding, if someone can work out how to tell it concisely. - Jmabel | Talk 07:26, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent edits by GoDot

I disagree almost completely with the recent edits by GoDot. There may be a good edit or two buried in there somewhere, but he has turned this article into more or less a duplicate of History of Seattle before 1900. He has removed both an overview (of a series of boom and bust cycles) and, as far as I can tell all history since 1900! This shows such a radical disagreement on what this article is meant to be that I hesitate to revert unilaterally without asking others to step in and say what they think the article should cover. My belief is that this should be a single, appropriate-length article providing a general picture into which we can fit the three more detailed articles History of Seattle before 1900, History of Seattle 1900-1940, History of Seattle since 1940. It should be the main article of an article series, much as French Revolution provides an overview summarizing Causes of the French Revolution, Estates-General of 1789, National Assembly (French Revolution), Storming of the Bastille, etc. - Jmabel | Talk 23:56, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

GoDot, why was this done? Your edit summaries do not provide an explanation. I am with Jmabel's feeling that "this should be a single, appropriate-length article providing a general picture into which we can fit the three more detailed articles...the main article of an article series." --Lukobe 02:17, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Reverted all subsequent to last by Jeff Soapy Smith (add Klondike Gold Rush). I inadvertently pasted a block of text for another article (before 1900) into this one. Mea culpa. I'll figure which and where, off-line when I have time. I felt there was something a little too similar between them at the time, but I didn't realize what it was. For now, the last word on the definitive History of Seattle is Jeff Soapy Smith : ) --GoDot 21:22, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Emmett Shear material

I now have a copy of Emmett Shear's paper, which Yale recently removed from their site where we had it linked (thanks, Emmett). Yale doesn't allow the Internet Archive to re-publish from their site, so it's never going to show up on the archive. Emmett would apparently be perfectly happy for Wikimedia to make his paper available again online. Is there some appropriate place to put it? Can it go in WikiSource? If not, does anyone have suggestions? - Jmabel | Talk 16:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it can definitely go in WikiSource. From [2]:
“ Wikisource (en.wikisource.org/) is a Free Library of source texts which are in the public domain or legally available for free redistribution. Wikisource is an official project of the Wikimedia Foundation and a sister project of Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. ”

So as long as Emmett agrees to put his paper under a free license or in the public domain, it's all good. --Lukobe 18:12, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

It's now at wikisource:Seattle: Booms and Busts. I'm in the process of tedious cleanup, because it was an RTF file. - Jmabel | Talk 01:02, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Nice.. thanks! --Lukobe 06:32, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] U.W. Library photo collection

I trimmed out the long list of links to U.W. library photo collections, reducing it to just a link to Photographic collections grouped by subject. This was turning into too much of a link repository.

Here are the links I cut. Many of these might be appropriate links in articles with a narrower focus, and I'd welcome them being appropriately "distributed".

  • William F. Boyd Photograph Album 43 photographs of early Seattle, particularly scenes of the aftermath of the Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889, and Washington state, ca. 1888-1893.
  • Boyd and Braas Photographs 45 photographs, c. 1888-1893, of early Seattle, including the waterfront and street scenes, Madrona and Leschi parks, Native American hop pickers, and portraits of Seattle pioneers.
  • Asahel Curtis Photo Company Photographs Photographs (ca. 1850s-1940) depicting activities in Washington state, the Pacific Northwest, and Alaska and the Klondike.
  • Frank La Roche Photographs. 312 photographs c. 1888-1910 depicting scenes of the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush, Seattle, Washington state, Alaska, western United States, and Canada.
  • Lake Union Improvement Company Photograph Album A small photograph album (ca. 1891) used as a sales tool. Photographed by Frank La Roche, it contains an historical photographic record of early Seattle and its expansion northwards along the shores of Lake Union.
  • James Patrick Lee Photographs 270 photographs of Seattle, ca. 1904-1940, depicting regrading projects, municipal services, and local neighborhood architecture, as well as scenes from the Great Depression including "Hooverville" and labor rallies of the unemployed.
  • Theodore E. Peiser Photographs. 140 images from the later part of the 19th century to about 1907. Among his subjects were images of troops preparing to embark from Fort Lawton to China in 1900, the Territorial University (later University of Washington), and early Seattle scenes.
  • Prosch Seattle Views Album. 169 images by Thomas Prosch, one of Seattle's earliest pioneers, documenting the early history of Seattle and vicinity, c. 1851-1906.
  • Seattle Photographs Ongoing database of over 1,700 historical photographs of Seattle with special emphasis on images depicting neighborhoods, recreational activities including baseball, the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, "The Great Snow of 1916", theaters and transportation.
  • Calvin F. Todd Photographs Collection includes images from 1905-1930 of the University of Washington campus and scenes from Seattle including the waterfront, various buildings especially apartments, regrading activities, and the Pike Place Market.
  • Arthur Churchill Warner Photographs. Images by the pioneer photographer A.C. Warner, from the late 1800s and early 1900s, of Seattle conventional street scenes, waterfront activity, city parks, and regrading of downtown.

- Jmabel | Talk 07:02, 18 October 2006 (UTC)