Topic: Women's History
Tamara A. Turner is a retired medical librarian, a longtime resident of Seattle's University District, and a gay-rights activist. In this oral history transcript she recalls the district, especially t...
Jolene Unsoeld's political beginnings date to the early 1970s, when as a self-described citizen meddler she worked on Initiative 276, a successful 1972 ballot measure that required the state to make i...
On November 8, 1910, the male voters of Washington state went to the polls, and voted nearly 2-1 to amend the state constitution, extending the right to vote to Washington women. This 1910 article on ...
Lillian Walker was an African American civil rights activist in the Bremerton area. Raised in rural Illinois, Walker went on to Chicago to pursue nursing, and moved to Bremerton in 1941 with her husba...
Marjorie Walker was an unconventional and well-to-do New York artist who left city life to live on rural San Juan Island. She'd first seen the San Juan archipelago, located between the Northwest Washi...
As a young girl in Maine, Mary Richardson set her mind to become a missionary. Upon marrying Elkanah Walker in 1837, the couple set out for the Oregon Country. They settled among the Spokane Indians t...
Pearl Wanamaker was a long-serving Superintendent of Public Instruction (1941-1957), whose years in the non-partisan office addressed World War II educational and vocational demands, and managed the b...
The queen of Northwest ceramics, Patti Warashina is internationally recognized for her technically refined, figurative sculptures that helped expand the boundaries of clay as a medium. While poking fu...
Florasina Ware was the quintessential activist, known for raising a strong and logical voice on behalf of children, the elderly, and the poor.
This is a talk given by Brewster Denny (1924-2013) to the Pioneer Association of the State of Washington on November 2, 1996. Brewster Denny was the great grandson of Seattle pioneer Arthur Denny...
The Washington State Conference for Women, held in Ellensburg in July 1977, was an attempt to bring women together to talk about common problems and develop strategies for solving them. Instead, it be...
Christina McDonald McKenzie Williams (1847-1925), the daughter of Hudson's Bay Company chief trader Angus McDonald (1816-1889), spent her childhood and young adulthood at Fort Colvile on the Columbia ...
Alice Jeanette Williams had a long and productive career as a political force in Seattle. She was the first woman chair of the King County Democrats and a 20-year member of the Seattle City Council (1...
Roberta Lynn Williams was one of the most influential personal-computer-game designers of the 1980s and 1990s, becoming known as the "Mother" and "Queen" of video adventure games. Williams began her c...
Describing herself as a moderate Democrat, a social liberal, and a practical feminist, R. Lorraine Wojahn of Tacoma was a powerful Washington state legislator for 32 years. She served in the House of ...
Grassroots organizing was critical to the 1910 campaign for Washington women's suffrage and Snohomish County played an important part in the event. Most prominent was journalist Missouri Hanna (1856-1...
Washington women won the vote in 1883, then lost it in 1888. They reclaimed the right to vote in 1910, breaking a 14-year gridlock in the national crusade for woman suffrage and making Washington stat...
In 1909, the Woman's Building on the University of Washington campus opened as part of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition to showcase women's art and to provide hospitality to visiting women. It serv...
In 1891, a group of prominent Seattle women founded the Woman's Century Club, a club designed for the cultural and intellectual development of its members and for social service. The club's name refer...
The main purpose of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was to achieve prohibition of alcoholic beverages by law. The organization, which is still in existence, came into being in 1873 and 1...
During World War II, women aviators took on flying roles for the U.S. Army Air Force. As civilian pilots, they ferried aircraft, towed targets for aerial and ground antiaircraft fire, and flight-teste...
The realm of rock 'n' roll (despite its many liberating attributes) is also a notoriously sexist one -- a place where males have always vastly outnumbered females as active players and where an exclus...
Women Painters of Washington (WPW) began as one of the earliest arts organizations in this region and remains among the very few statewide women's arts associations in the country. The group formed in...
Everett’s reputation as a mill town dominated by the lumber and shingle trade – industries that employed only men – has long overshadowed the importance women played in the...