Oregon Historical Quarterly Winter 2002

Beyond Place: A Forum
Bioregionalism and the History of Place, by William L. Lang
Bioregional and Cultural Meaning: The Problem with the Pacific
Northwest, by William G. Robbins
Bioregions and Nation-States: Lessons from Lewis and Clark in the Oregon Country, by Mark Spence
Bioregional Politics: The Case for Place, by Sara Dant Ewert

Historians have often set the parameters of their studies according to politically or economically defined boundaries. More recently, some historians have begun to consider patterns of change in terms of bioregions -- areas defined by natural, environmental systems, such as river drainages and mountain ranges. In this forum, Western historians consider bioregional approaches to the study of history. As William Lang explains in his introduction, "Historians have been slow to embrace the idea of bioregionalism" because of the ambiguities of the approach. William G. Robbins addresses the materialist position, which emphasizes people's physical interactions with nature. He points out that the geographic and climatic variety of the Pacific Northwest requires care and attention in applying the bioregional approach to the area. Mark Spence suggests using the route of the Lewis and Clark expedition as a framework for considering ecological, political, cultural, and economic processes and conditions that have shaped that landscape. He also points out that humans, through careful landscaping, may shape the natural features of a place to fit a particular interpretation of history. Sara Dant Ewert turns questions about the feasibility of bioregional perspectives for historical research on their head, asking, "can we understand politics using the naturally defined boundaries born of a bioregional approach?" She considers both the Buffalo Commons idea on the Great Plains and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

 

Picturing the Corps of Discovery: The Lewis and Clark Expedition in Oregon Art, by Jeffry Uecker 

In the nearly two hundred years since the Corps of Discovery made its way from the Missouri River to the Pacific, the Lewis and Clark Expedition has been the subject of hundreds of works of art. Oregon art about the Lewis and Clark expedition, Jeffry Uecker explains, illumines the memory and values of the state's people. Scores of paintings, sculptures, and other works of art illustrate how the visual interpretation of the past both reflects and influences Oregonians' understanding of their state, its history, and its culture and also their understanding of themselves. The article is illustrated with full-color reproductions of several works of art and includes an inventory of Oregon art about the expedition.

"I Didn't Do Anything Anyone Else Couldn't Have Done": A View of Oregon History through the Ordinary Life of Barbara Mackenzie, by Katrine Barber and Janice Dilg

Barbara Mackenzie's life was unremarkable for the most part, differing from that of many of her contemporaries only in the particulars. She grew up in Oregon, trained to be a teacher, raised a child, and then engaged in a career in social work with the Red Cross. She later oversaw the relocation of inhabitants of Celilo Village prior to its inundation by The Dalles Dam. Katrine Barber and Janice Dilg demonstrate how Mackenzie's life personifies the sweeping changes that expanded nineteenth-century women's lives from the limited private sphere of home and family to a broader sphere where women claimed important public roles, particularly in education, volunteerism, and paid, professional work throughout the twentieth century. Drawing on oral history interviews with Mackenzie and access to her personal papers, Barber and Dilg use this ordinary life to consider some of forces that shaped many women's lives during the first half of the twentieth century.

The Making of an American, by Shizue Iwatsuki, introduction by Linda Tamura
Shizue Iwatsuki's memoir, orignally published in 1943, offers a first-person view of the life of a Japanese American in Hood River, Oregon, during the first part of the twentieth century. Mrs. Iwatsuki and her husband immigrated to the United States in 1916 and settled in Hood River, Oregon. The physical efforts of establishing an orchard, the struggles to make it succeed financially, and the loneliness of being far away from family emerge clearly from this memoir, as Mrs. Iwatsuki describes her work in raising children and caring for her husband after a crippling accident. In an accompanying introduction, Linda Tamura rounds out the story of Mrs. Iwatsuki's life, explaining her achievements as an award-winning poet and active community member. Tamura also offers background information on the history of Japanese Americans in Oregon during the early twentieth century.

Research Files
Documenting Women's History: Using Oral History and the Collaborative Process, by Katrine Barber and Janice Dilg
Katrine Barber and Janice Dilg discuss the challenges they encountered and the methods they used while writing their article about Barbara Mackenzie, also in this issue. Women's lives can be difficult to document because their activities often are not recorded in the traditional historical record. Oral history, collaborative work, and diligent searching for written documentation helped them to piece together the information necessary to understand one woman's life and to place it in the larger context of women's history.

Affiliate Spotlight, edited by Richard H. Engeman
Polk County Historical Society

Rick Harmon, Crater Lake National Park: A History, reviewed by G. Thomas Edwards

Robert W. Hadlow, Elegant Arches, Soaring Spans: C.B. McCullough, Oregon's Master Bridge Builder, reviewed by Ward Tonsfeldt

Margaret Elley Felt, Gyppo Logger, reviewed by Robert Leo Heilman

Daniel Kemmis, This Sovereign Land: A New Vision for Governing the West, reviewed by David Sarasohn

Richard Manning, Inside Passage: A Journey Beyond Borders, reviewed by Ryan J. Carey

Greg Hall, Harvest Wobblies: The Industrial Workers of the World and Agricultural Laborers in the American West, 1905-1930, reviewed by Marcus Widenor

David Hamilton Murdoch, The American West: The Invention of a Myth, reviewed by Paul Fees

John Phillip Reid, Contested Empire: Peter Skene Ogden and the Snake River Expeditions, reviewed by Nathan Douthit

Paul S. Sutter, Driven Wild: How the Fight against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement, reviewed by James M. Glover

Derek Hayes, First Crossing: Alexander Mackenzie, His Expedition across North America, and the Opening of the Continent, reviewed by E.W. Giesecke