Topic: People's Histories
Patty Whisler is a former resident of Seattle's University District and a current neighborhood activist and volunteer there. She is known as the unofficial "Godmother" of the District. This is a trans...
This is a transcript of an oral history by Ray Chinn, whose family owned Lun Ting Restaurant on University Way in Seattle's University District from 1938 until 1979. Chinn was the first and youngest A...
This is a transcript of an oral history by Stephen Herold. He is the former owner of the Id Bookstore, an anarchist bookstore in Seattle's University District during the late 1960s and early 1970s, an...
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...
Vivian McPeak, a resident of Seattle's University District, is the founder of Seattle Peace Heathens, executive director of Seattle Hempfest, and a local peace and social-justice activist. This is a t...
Robert F. "Bob" Ingram was a police officer at the University of Washington from 1951 to 1978, retiring with the rank of Captain and head of all the department's criminal investigations. The following...
In this People's History, Leigh Sheridan, HistoryLink's education intern, recounts her first encounter with Vashon Island's famous "Bike in the Tree." Her narrative focuses on how she learned more abo...
In spring 1980, reporter Doug Honig interviewed architect and preservationist Victor Steinbrueck (1911-1985) for the Seattle Sun weekly newspaper. Honig's interview appeared in the May 14, 1...
Victor Steinbrueck (1911-1985) was one of Seattle's most outspoken proponents of preservation, conscientious urban planning, and labor. Best known today [1999] for his pen and ink sketchbooks of the c...
This is a talk on the Vietnam War presented by Walt Crowley (1947-2007) in September 1984 at the Seattle Center. Walt was invited to speak as a writer for the "anti-war tabloid," Helix, to a gathering...
On May 7, 1970, Bill Kennedy, then a University of Washington student, witnessed a surprisingly brutal vigilante retaliation against anti-war demonstrators. He recounts his memories and feelings that ...
This reminiscence was written by Dorothea Nordstrand (1916-2011), who as a young woman worked as a teller at the Green Lake State Bank, located in Seattle's Green Lake neighborhood. In it she remember...
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 ...
A condensed edition of this essay was published in The Seattle Times Sunday Opinion Section on October 30, 2005. This version offers a fuller tour of Washington's "tectonic" political shifts and elect...
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...
High school student Daniel Wayne interviews his grandfather George Madden, who grew up on Queen Anne in the 1920s and 1930s, and lived in Seattle during World War II.
This reminiscence of the day, on August 14, 1945, that World War II ended was written by Robert B. Edgers, who was 15 at the time. He lived in Sylvan, on Fox Island, located in Puget Sound just south ...
Brian Boyle has worked as a mettallurgic engineer, miner, county commissioner, university professor, environmental consultant, and for 12 years (1981-1993) was the Commissioner of Public Lands of Wash...
Cindy Mitchell is the Chief Financial Officer and Senior Director of Public Affairs at the Washington Forest Protection Association (WFPA) in Olympia. In this May 2025 interview with HistoryLink&rsquo...
Finn Wilcox (b. 1953) ran away from his Klamath Falls, Oregon, home, at the age of 16 to ride freight trains and pursue his dream of becoming a poet. He found his way to Port Townsend in the early 197...
Tim McNulty (b. 1949), an award-winning poet, essayist, nature writer, and conservation activist, has lived on the Olympic Peninsula since 1972 and remains influential in the Northwest environmental c...
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...
Although the Winter Olympics began in 1924, athletes from Washington did not participate until the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, where five local skiers went to compete. Two...
On May 24, 2002, Walt Crowley delivered the following historical "primer" on Washington state politics to the Western States Caucus of the Democratic National Committee held in Seattle. The talk revie...