Oregon Historical Quarterly Winter 2003

The Political Legacy of Robert W. Straub, by Richard A. Clucas (download the article pdf)
Oregonians often recall Tom McCall as the governor who moved Oregon into the national spotlight by promoting it as a state with an exceptional standard of living made possible by a commitment to a clean environment. Robert Straub, however, actually provided a major push for the environmental policies that have so often been associated with McCall. “For all of his accomplishments, . . . one can argue that Straub's most important political legacy was in championing conservation and in helping create the environmental ethic that has come to be identified with Oregon,” Richard A. Clucas argues in an essay that details the accomplishments of the former governor of Oregon who died in late 2002.

“The Leviathan of the North”: American Perceptions of the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1816-1846, by William R. Swagerty
Historians have long examined events leading to the 1846 Oregon Treaty that established a border between American- and British-controlled lands in the Pacific Northwest and the roles played by of fur traders, the Hudson’s Bay Company, and John McLoughlin. William R. Swagerty adds to the discussion by examining the attitudes of Americans toward the HBC during the period of joint occupancy. Swagerty draws on published accounts by Americans active in the fur trade, personal records of travelers and missionaries, and recent scholarship to explore how “Americans had entered the period of joint occupancy with a glimmer of knowledge of the Bay Company’s presence to the north and west of American interests” but, by 1845, the “hegemony of the Leviathan of the North had been broken.”

Theodore B. Wilcox: Captain of Industry and Magnate of the China Flour Trade, 1884-1918, by Daniel J. Meissner
During the late nineteenth century, the production of wheat in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and the Palouse in eastern Washington was so tremendous that merchants sought markets as far away as China. Competition for a limited market following the financial panic of 1873 put pressure on many small mills in the Pacific Northwest. Portland’s Ladd and Tilton Bank foreclosed on several failing mills in the early 1880s and handed them over to a promising young entrepreneur, Theodore B. Wilcox. Daniel J. Meissner uses historical data and contemporary periodical literature to tell the story of how Wilcox, “an ambitious New England bank teller who had become an aggressive Portland businessman, . . . systematically built his flour-milling company into one of the most successful enterprises on the Pacific Coast.” Wilcox’s development of a flour empire, made possible by his close ties with influential Portlanders such as William Ladd, not only presents an important aspect of Portland history but also adds to the literature on boomers of the Gilded Age such as James J. Hill, Andrew Carnegie, and John D. Rockefeller.

“As Truly American as Your Son”: Voicing Opposition to Internment in Three West Coast Cities, by Ellen Eisenberg
Honorable Mention, 2004 Joel Palmer Award (download the article pdf)
The story of the internment of thousands of Japanese Americans by the U.S. government during World War II is generally known, but historians are still working to understand the causes and implications of the events. Professor Ellen Eisenberg contributes these efforts by examining the small groups that spoke out in defense of Japanese Americans. Analyzing primary documents from the hearings of the Tolan Committee — which considered the need for evacuation — and from later court cases in San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland, Eisenberg finds that “networks of personal contacts between religious and social activists and local Japanese American communities were important in fostering organized opposition to mass internment.” Such networks generally drew on two urban elements: a large Japanese American population and a large urban university. Organized opposition movements did develop in San Francisco and Seattle, which had both elements, but failed to develop in Portland, which had neither.

Oregon Places
The Nestlé Condensary in Bandon, by Joe R. Blakely
The old Nestlé Condensary in the Bay of Bandon, Oregon, caught the attention of local historian Joe Blakely, and his initial aesthetic interest became a research project. The result is a detailed account of Nestle’s short-lived enterprise the Bandon Condensary. Utilizing contemporary newspaper accounts and historical records of Bandon, Blakely illustrates the relationships between the Nestlé company, dairy farmers, and the larger economy of the town of Bandon.

Research Files
Using Artifacts to Study the Past: Early Evidence for John Day Exploration, by Michael McKenzie (download the article pdf)
Artifacts have the potential to inform historians about the past in ways that written records cannot. Recently, the Oregon Historical Society acquired a basalt rock inscribed with the date 1811 and a cross, originally found near the headwaters of the Middle Fork of the John Day River. Michael McKenzie uses historical data, primary documents, and technological techniques to hypothesize that members of the expedition sponsored by John Jacob Astor and led by Wilson Price Hunt in 1811-1812 may have inscribed the rock. Through his detailed explanation of the process by which artifacts are interpreted, McKenzie makes an argument for the contribution of artifact study to historians’ understanding of a sense of place.

David Rains Wallace, The Klamath Knot, reviewed by William Kittredge

Stephen Haycox, Frigid Embrace: Politics, Economics, and Environment in Alaska, reviewed by Hal Rothman

Fred Beckey, Range of Glaciers: The Exploration and Survey of the Northern Cascade Range, reviewed by William B. Beyers and Stephen J. Hyde

William D. Layman, Native River: The Columbia Remembered, reviewed by Carlos A. Schwantes

Nathan Douthit, Uncertain Encounters: Indians and Whites at Peace and War in Southern Oregon, 1820s–1860s, reviewed by Gregory E. Smoak

Lillian A. Ackerman, A Necessary Balance: Gender and Power among Indians of the Columbia Plateau, reviewed by Rodney Frey

Jeffrey B. Ochsner and Dennis Alan Anderson, Distant Corner: Seattle Architects and the Legacy of H.H. Richardson, reviewed by William F. Willingham

 

Olympic Peninsula Intertribal Cultural Advisory Committee, Jacilee Wray, editor, Native Peoples of the Olympic Peninsula: Who We Are, reviewed by Sandy Johnson Osawa

Robert Shimabukuro, Born in Seattle: The Campaign for Japanese American Redress, reviewed by Robert J. Gould

Sharon J. Busby, Spruce-Root Basketry of the Haida and Tlingit, reviewed by Peter L. Corey

Stan Flewelling, Shirakawa: Stories from a Pacific Northwest Japanese American Community, reviewed by June Arima Schumann

Gary J. Hausladen, editor, Western Places, American Myths: How We Think about the West, reviewed by Martha Henderson