Talk:History of Seattle

Contents

1 First Impression 6 Dec 2003 2 Deleted Material (maybe worth mining) 3 Question 4 Split the article? 5 Counterculture, Activism, etc. 6 I'm out of here for a while 7 the audacity of the early 20th century 8 Workers committee?

First Impression 6 Dec 2003

At a quick read, some of this is valuable, some of it is redundant to material under Seattle, and I believe some of it is just wrong. I'm inclined to try to move material around more appropriately between the two articles, and try to identify factual discrepancies, unless someone else would rather take this on. I'm also posting this on Talk:Seattle. If no one else claims out this task by Dec 10, I'll plunge in. -- Jmabel 07:50, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Deleted Material (maybe worth mining)

Edit under way. The following is non-historical material excised from the article; I haven't looked too closely at it; some of this could be worth mining for the Seattle article, although I suspect it is mostly already there. -- Jmabel 22:46, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Seattle is located along Puget Sound, in between two large mountain ranges, the Olympics and the Cascades. The climate is mild, with the temperature moderated by the sea and protected from winds and storms by the mountains. The area is hilly, though it flattens out as one moves out from the center of the city. The rain the city is famous for is actually unremarkable; at 35 inches of precipitation a year, it's less than most major eastern seaboard cities. What makes it seem so wet in Seattle is the cloudiness, which besides the summer lasts most of the year, and that most precipitation falls as light rain, not snow or heavy storms. There are two large lakes, Lake Washington and Lake Union, and many smaller ones. The rivers, forests, lakes, and fields were once rich enough to support one of the world's few sedentary hunter-gatherer societies. Opportunities for sailing, skiing, bicycling, camping, and hiking are close by and accessible almost all of the year.

Traveling through Seattle, it's hard to find an area that has nothing to recommend it. At the top of every hill there is a view of a lake or the ocean, and at the bottom of every hill is a shore. There is no definable nice part of town; though there are certainly relatively wealthy neighborhoods, they are small and interspersed with less well off ones. Though there are poor neighborhoods, there are few slums. The predominate building material is wood, and has been since Native Americans lived in longhouses.

Question

Joe, as a native of Seattle myself, I have to say two things. One is that I'm so glad you're expanding its history article! I think you're doing a great job. The second, though, is a minor quibble: why "Silicon Forest"? It strikes me as an odd heading, and is a phrase I've never heard applied to Seattle (and while I'm not completely hip, I find it odd I haven't). Is it a usage peculiar to you? At any rate, I'm suggesting we call it "Recent History" or something a little plainer, just for simplicity's sake: I just wanted to run it by you out of courtesy, and because I did want to thank you for the work you've done. Any thoughts? Thanks, Jwrosenzweig 00:56, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I would think we can come up with something catchier than "recent history". "Silicon Forest" is moderately widely used. Google gives over 5,000 hits, though its hard to quickly sort out how many of those might be from the company of that name. Feel free to change it, I promise not to be offended.

In case you didn't notice, this is not mostly my material, its somebody's paper that was dumped into the site. There's still a lot of work to do. The man doesn't seem to even notice that a labor movement exists, this in a town that had a General Strike in 1919. But it's better than nothing, and it's a start. I still have to hit up the paper itself for his references, etc., but I'm busy the rest of the evening & will be on it tomorrow. Hack away, but I'd appreciate if you leave it to me to integrate the major "undigested" material that I'm in the middle of grappling with.

-- Jmabel 01:04, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

At this point, I've "digested" all of the Emmett Shear material except for his account of the early years, which - even though it quotes from Speidel's Sons of the Profits - is close enough to the "establishment" line to suggest that he never read Speidel's later Doc Maynard, my guide to what I wrote about this period. Within the next 48 hours I will attempt to integrate this material, fairly presenting both views. Then I'm probably going to stay mostly out of this article for a couple of weeks to let other people have a shot at it. It would be appreciated if people hold off on other significant edits on the pre-1900 material until I've had a chance to complete this edit. -- Jmabel 07:51, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Couldn't sleep tonight, so I finished it up. Edit away! -- Jmabel 11:56, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I never did read Doc Maynard, good guess ^^. The paper wasn't written as a historical piece, it's about the development of the layout of the city, so it misses a lot of important details (wobblies and the general strike as was pointed out). I hope it was useful anyway!

- Emmett 7:43 Feb 05 2004 (UTC)

Yes, very useful. As you can see, I've slowly been adding some other topics.

- Jmabel 01:13, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Split the article?

I'm inclined to split this into three articles, with navigation between them:

• History of Seattle before 1900
• History of Seattle 1900-1940
• History of Seattle since 1940

I realize that for now the middle one is a bit light, but this seems the natural place to make the breaks: The first would cover the lumber boom and the Yukon Gold Rush, the second would cover the shipbuilding boom and the depression, the third would cover the Boeing boom (and bust) and the rise of the current cosmopolitan, high-tech city. Does anyone object to this? If no objections are raised by Dec 12, I'm going to do this split (and add corresponding navigation) as the last step of my current work on this article. -- Jmabel 10:00, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

• Done. Jmabel 00:12, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Counterculture, Activism, etc.

Right now, this is a very-establishment-oriented article, especially post-1900. That's because it is essentially Emmett Shear's material, following historian Roger Sale, except for a few interpolations I made while editing. Before I walk away from this for a while, I'm going to add some stub sections, etc. to at least remind people of what is missing. -- Jmabel 18:08, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

• Done. Jmabel 00:12, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm out of here for a while

OK, I've now built this out as a group of articles: History of Seattle, History of Seattle before 1900, History of Seattle 1900-1940, History of Seattle since 1940. And, of course, there is always Seattle. I'm generally satisfied with the framework, although plenty of work remains. I'm going to refrain from editing any of these historical articles myself for at least 2 weeks, lest they become "my" articles instead of the wikipedia community's articles. (At this point, the content is probably about half Emmett Shear's and about half mine.)

The one structural alternative I want to suggest is that maybe the Klondike Gold Rush would make a better dividing line that 1900. I had to split the articles somewhere. I leave it to someone else to rework accordingly if they want. -- Jmabel 00:12, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

the audacity of the early 20th century

As a Seattle native, I was glad to see the mentioning of the slucing away of Denny hill to form the Denny regrade, but other audacious projects were not mentioned, a river was diverted (I forget which one), the level of lake washington was changed, the channel and locks connecting Lake Union and Lake Washington to Puget Sound were built. I don't have enough details to write it myself, but perhaps someone with access to resources, will take an interest in the history, if they know it is there.

• Point well taken. I may try to follow that up some time. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:16, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

I also wonder about Fort Lawton, not being mentioned, along with its hand over to the city to become Discovery Park.--Silverback 10:38, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• We do have an article on Daybreak Star, but I'm not sure what else we have on that. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:16, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

Thanx, that got me to a page on Discovery Park too.--Silverback 19:04, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Workers committee?

I heard that there was a period of 6 months or so during the 30s when Seattle was ruled by a "workers committee". I don't know any more about it, I imagine it was a period of labor unrest and communist influence.--Silverback 10:44, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• 1919, and it was only a week. The General Strike. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:16, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

Thanx. I thought it was within my great uncles life time, but I guess not. --Silverback 19:06, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)