Junius Rochester

Junius Rochester, whose family has shaped the city for many generations, is an award-winning Northwest historian and author of numerous books about Seattle and other places.

Seattle’s Homegrown Communist Leader

In 1945, following the Second World War, and when anti-Soviet feeling in the U.S. was burgeoning, a young man from Seattle named Eugene Dennis succeeded Earl Browder as leader of the U.S. Communist Party.

Washington State’s Long Journey for Women’s Suffrage

A suffrage bill was passed in 1883, but it got mixed up in temperance crusades, so it really didn't get enacted until 1910.

Political Radical: The Northwesterner Who Fought in The Spanish Civil War

Seattleite Bob Reed and his former comrades-in-arms keep the memory alive of those bittersweet days through “VALB and Friends,” – Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

“Much Appreciated but Not a Financial Success”: A Long-Lost Opera About The Whitmans

Staged by the famous Seattle showman John Cort, the opera about Narcissa and Marcus Whitman ran for 12 Seattle performances at the Moore Theatre in 1912.

Mark Tobey’s Time with Seattle

The goateed, wiry artist became an amateur pianist and composer, wrote prose and poetry, and enjoyed an insatiable appetite for film, science, concerts, travel, and the theater. 

The Great Northwest Reindeer Project

The Norwegian reindeer, with Sami herders, were meant to provide meat for Alaskan Natives. The cultural exchange became a rich one.

1920s: Seattle’s King of the Speakeasies

While Americans listened to a new invention called the radio, and watched another called moving pictures, Doc Hamilton and many others opened subterranean, out-of-the way, private night clubs called “speakeasies.” 

A Vibrant Pacific Northwest Labor History (and Backlash)

The Centralia Massacre in 1919 and the Seattle General Strike the same year were examples of radical Wobbly activity in America and the timberland Northwest.

Why Did Catholic Missionaries Succeed in the Northwest?

Arriving as early as 1838, these tolerant, hardy "Blackrobes" had an important visual aid.

Tales of Reuse: Steeples and Skyscrapers

Big cities need the contrast and diversity of buildings with varying scale and design.  Religious temples can offer such diversity and architectural appeal.

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