Topic: Government & Politics
This video by Josh McNichols and Jerome Montalto details HistoryLink.org's unexpected role in the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, protests that were dubbed the "Battle of Seattle."
Like all sizeable American cities, Seattle since its earliest days has attracted its share of prostitution, gambling, illegal drug and liquor sales, and a variety of other behaviors and activities tha...
Official corruption began in Seattle's early days and continued with only sporadic interference for more than 100 years. Territorial laws, and later state laws, banned various vices, but were largely ...
This essay offers a brief introduction to the state of Washington, its jurisdictional development and government, and its official symbols.
Brock Adams represented Washington for 12 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and six in the U.S. Senate, and also served as the U.S. Secretary of Transportation in the Carter administration. H...
Beginning in the 1930s, Northwest skiers attempted to get a permanent ski lift built on Mount Rainier to make it the center of Washington skiing, efforts that were resisted by the National Park Servic...
During the first week of July 1909, suffrage proponents from across the country gathered in Seattle to participate in the 41st Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and...
Stella Alexander was a woman ahead of her time. She broke into the previously exclusive boy's club of Issaquah politics when she was elected to the town council in 1927, and in 1932 was elected to a t...
Born in Indiana in 1845 and educated at the University of Michigan Law School, John Beard Allen moved to Olympia in his mid-20s. He served as U.S. Attorney for Washington Territory for 10 years, and t...
The Greater Seattle Chapter of the American Jewish Committee (now called the American Jewish Committee (AJC) Seattle Regional Office) was formed in January 1946. The organization was an affiliate of t...
State Senator Calvin "Cal" Anderson, who represented the 43rd District (encompassing portions of Seattle including the Capitol Hill neighborhood), was Washington's first openly gay state legislator. O...
George Benson was a popular Capitol Hill druggist, brass band musician, and five-term member of the Seattle City Council from 1974 to 1994. A native of Minnesota, Benson moved to Seattle in 1938 and u...
Located where the Nisqually River empties into southern Puget Sound on the Pierce-Thurston county border, the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge protects the river's estuary, providing...
The political careers of the Bishop brothers, Thomas G. and William Jr., spanned a critical transition period for Coast Salish people in Western Washington between 1900 and 1935 that shaped subsequent...
The Seattle Chapter of the Black Panther Party was the party's first outside California and the second outside Oakland, where the party was founded in 1966. Nineteen-year-old Aaron Lloyd Dixon (b. 194...
Homer T. Bone, a Democratic senator representing Washington in the United States Congress (1932-1944) and later a Judge in the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (1944-1956), has been dubbed...
Don Bonker's political career began in 1966 when he was elected Clark County auditor. In his eight years in the position, he attracted attention by being one of the first county officials in the state...
The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) was created in 1937 as a temporary agency with a limited mission: to market and distribute electricity from Bonneville Dam, on the Columbia River. Its support...
This biography of James d'Orma "Dorm" Braman, Seattle City Council member beginning in 1954, and Seattle mayor from 1964 to 1969, was written by his son, Jim Braman.
In this op-ed essay for The Seattle Times, Walt Crowley compares the "transition" of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels to that of Wes Uhlman, Charles Royer, Norm Rice, and Paul Schell. Crowley was an aide to...
For residents of the San Juan Islands in the late nineteenth century, receiving and sending mail and parcels offered special challenges of distance and isolation. It might be months before a letter po...
In 1972, the Seattle School District launched the first phase of what became a decades-long experiment with mandatory busing to integrate its schools. Initially limited to a few thousand middle school...
Most Washingtonians have never heard of Harry P. Cain. For those who have, he is little more than a footnote in the history of mid-twentieth-century America, a colorful, controversial, and unpredictab...
John E. Campbell of Everett served as a member of the Washington State House of Representatives in the 1909 and 1911 sessions. He was elected to the state Senate in 1912, representing the 38th Distric...