Barina Trent

History 422

Pacific Northwest History

Final Essay 1

Race and social class influenced the settlement of the Pacific Northwest.
When considering the racial and class tensions of twentieth century Pacific
Northwest, how representative were the lives of the people you read about?
How did race influence political decisions: give specific examples of race-
based political laws and the reasons why these laws were created. How did
people display their social status? How does race and class impact society
and politics in the Pacific Northwest today?

The people of the Pacific Northwest were all represented from the regional boosters

that wanted to boost the economy to the workers who were looking to get rich off of the

abundant resources that were advertised on the many railroads. They would migrate

with hopes of finding the riches posted on the posters and pamphlets. Most were

working for wages which wasn’t too common for that time because commonly they were

self-employed or sustained themselves by farming or running a small shop or store.

Some of the primary gainful occupations were miners, loggers, floaters, sawmill

workers, fisherman, oysterman, and agricultural laborers.

According to Schwantes the frontier ideals of individualism and personal

advancement clashed with the dependency of inherent working for wages. This was

because many unskilled or semi-skilled workers headed west expecting to achieve the

personal success promised to them by the promoters of western opportunity

(Schwantes p. 328).

Railroads and industrialism changed the economy of the Pacific Northwest by

making it easier to extract the natural resources at an even faster rate but also added to
the divisions between class and race. The economy of the Pacific Northwest was

characterized by the Bindle stiff and home guards. Home guards were composed

mainly of skilled workers who married, and raised families. Bindle stiffs carried all his

possessions on his back and moved from job to job. Whites had most of the skilled

positions and then the minorities had more numbers in the semi-skilled or unskilled

positions and many were on the bottom of the economic ladder.

Women also rarely worked for wages prior to the Second World War because most

of the jobs were dominated by males because of the activities were centered on natural

resource industries.

Race played a very large part that women fought for the right to vote and have a

voice. According to the interview with Professor Susan Armitage the progressive era

was a story of women in politics, women in municipal politics because women were

not nationally ready to step on the political scene because they didn’t have the right

to vote. This didn’t say that women were not actively involved in politics and many

advocated having the right to vote and be more involved (Hirt, Lecture 11).

During these time the active reform efforts of middle class women, while falling

short of direct political challenge to men indicated the development of middle class

gender relationships that made women more confident and assertive in public

activities than had been earlier generations of women. To these reformers, gender

was such a strong tie among women that class (and sometimes even racial)

differences paled in comparison (Blair, P. 15).

Around the 1880s middle class women in Seattle, Boise, Portland and many

other small towns organized women’s clubs with serious civic agendas. These clubs
 were in support of health care, hospitals, orphan homes, libraries, YWCAs,

settlement houses, education, arts, and preservation and in addition to more

conventionally “political” crusades for temperance and woman suffrage (Blair, P.15).

Women knew they had a traditional role but they wanted to be seen as equals in

politics and for working wages. The argument was that women would somehow lose

their feminine side once they stepped into the political sphere. There were many

enactments into primary law during the progressive years which included a model

workman’s compensation program (1911), an eight hour work day for women

(1911), and constitutional amendments providing women’s suffrage (1910)

(Schwantes P. 349).

Motor transportation like trucks, automobiles, highways, and gas powered

tractors altered the daily lives of the typical farmers who no longer had a need for casual

labor. Motor transportation ended the isolation for farm, ranches, and lumber camps.

Many harvest hands stopped their wandering and settled down to get married and start

a family. They could now take their families with them to the job and not need to travel

from job to job. According to Schwantes there was like nothing else besides owning

your own car or truck even if it was a used one that symbolized admission to the middle

class (Schwantes P. 373).

Race and class is very different today because we have an African American

president, and our governor is a woman even though women only had a right to vote

since 1911. The Nisqually tribe has been buying old farmlands to convert them back to

wetlands and providing jobs and helping the environment. Many of the fisheries

departments of the various tribes are making an effort to increase the salmon runs.
 In Pierce County the Puyallup Tribe is one of the 5 largest employers providing jobs

for Native American and many other races. They are also completing a 300 million

dollar seaport on the Tacoma waterfront in a joint venture with the world’s largest

private container and shipping company.

Interaction with tribal entities will increase over the coming decades and there

value and respect for Native Americans will make great gains (Mapes, 2008).
 Works Cited

Blair, K. (1988). Women in Pacific Northwest History. Seattle : University of Washington

Press.

Hirt, Paul (2010). Lecture Number 11, Washington State University, Pullman, WA

Mapes, Lynda V (2008) Seattle Times staff reporter: Seattle times

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20080217&slug=tribes17m

Schwantes, C. (1996). The Pacific Northwest an interpretive history . Lincoln : University

of Nebraska Press.
 Barina Trent

History 422

Pacific Northwest History

Essay 2

Technological innovations and inventions dramatically impacted the historical

development of the Pacific Northwest. Describe several innovations/inventions.
Why were innovations/inventions created? How were they different from their
predecessors? What impact did these innovations/inventions have upon Pacific
Northwest social structure and economics? Who benefited? Who did not?

According to Schwantes the Pacific Northwest’s earliest railroads served local

needs, such as portaging passengers and freight around the falls of Columbia or

moving wheat from the breadbaskets of the Walla Walla Valley (Schwentes P 187). The

arrival of the railroads in the Pacific Northwest during the 1880s marked on of the key

turning points in the region’s history. Steamboats expanded the transportation networks

but were very limited and had many formidable obstacles to overcome.

Railroad companies became powerful economic players in the Pacific Northwest,

and they toiled to shape its economic development to their benefit.

They became the largest private landowners in the region, and manipulated

enormous influence over the distribution and utilization of land. They also became the

biggest boosters of the Pacific Northwest. They distributed millions of flyers and

pamphlets in the eastern states and in Europe. Railroads profited in multiple ways from

the population incursion that they encouraged. Many of the flyers were promising some

sort of paradise and many wage workers migrated to find the many riches that were

promised and then they find out they would be working for wages.
 One scope in which railroads accelerated growth was the logging industry. The

first explorers and fur traders had noticed the abundant timber and made some

economic use of it, and the California Gold Rush created a demand for northwest wood

products that really launched the lumber industry.

In the early twentieth century the lumber industry was the Pacific Northwest’s

largest employer and economic mainstay and few people questioned whether acres of

stumps were ugly or wasteful. Harvesting the region’s “limitless” forest was popularly

equated only with money and jobs, prosperity and growth (Schwantes P. 200).

In 1827 near Fort Vancouver the first initial sawmill was built and then after

expanding operations the mill shipped lumber as far away as the Hawaiian Islands.

Many of these sawmills were crude and hand operated but the next step was to have

the mills powered by steam or water. An innovation that would change the nature of

sawmilling was circular saws that would give way to the band saws. The circular saws

decreased waste and increased by ten the number of lumber it could cut per day

(Schwantes P. 218).

Just as railroads industrialized and hastened production throughout the economy

of the Pacific Northwest the steam donkey further industrialized and hastened

production in the timber industry. Steam donkeys were introduced during the 1880s to

replace the ox and horse teams that hauled fallen logs out of the forest. According to

Professor Hirt the steam donkey allowed the exploitation of timber on a much more

remote and steep areas than before (Hirt, Lecture 8).

Until the early 1880s logging was confined mainly to the water’s edge, where the

cargo mills of Puget Sound, Grays Harbor, the Lower Columbia River and Coos Bay
served far flung markets. The development of special narrow gauge logging railroads in

the 1880s opened up because timber near tidewater was being depleted.

Until the 1880s trees were felled with axes or cut or bucked into standard lengths

with cross cut saws. Then loggers in the California redwoods discovered they could use

saws to fell trees the new technology spread quickly. The two men cross cut saw

became the logger’s principal tool. High lead logging dates were from the years 1905 to

1910 which further sped up operations during the next forty years.

A high climber used a special belt and spiked boots to muscle his way 200 feet

up the tree and then cop off the top and then attached heavy pulleys and cables to haul

the logs clear of stumps and debris to be landed (Schwantes P. 218).

This productive growth was not limited to timber alone the fishing industry had its

own changes and innovations. The modern salmon industry of the Pacific Coast

originated when a small cannery was established. The profits were thriving because of

sales in the East and it was a cheap and nourishing food for the working class.

One invocation that helped the fishing industry was the development of steam

engines enabled fishing boats to travel further up the river in pursuits and then made it

easier for the crews to handle much large nets and catches. Another was the Iron chink

which mechanized the salmon cleaning process and in turn doing the work of fifty men

(Schwantes P. 202). Due to cutthroat competition and unsound practices which included

stringing traps and nets across the river mouths so that few adult fish survived to

spawn. According to Hirt the cutthroat completion and a lack of effective regulation of

the harvest eventual lead to a bust in this industry after the turn of the century. With
boats and nets, fish wheels, etc. strung bank to bank on the rivers, fishermen were

simply too efficient to ensure the survival of their businesses (Hirt, Lecture 8).

According to Robbins the wonderful natural abundance that provided substance

for Native peoples and that has attracted newcomers to the Northwest for more than a

century still has a powerful hold on the region. Although high-tech industries and the

attractions of outdoors amenities have surpassed agriculture, mining, logging, and

fishing as the Northwest’s most visible economic indicators, what we might call “nature’s

industries” are, still at the heart of its cultural landscape (Robbins, P. 162).
 Works Cited

Hirt, Paul (2010). Lecture Number 8, Washington State University, Pullman, WA

Robbins, W. (2001). The Great Northwest The Search for Regional Identity. Corvallis:
Oregon State University Press.

Schwantes, C. (1996). The Pacific Northwest an interpretive history . Lincoln : University

of Nebraska Press.