Tag Archives: northwest history room

A Tribute to Mothers in the Archives

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A female parent. A woman in authority. An old or elderly woman. Maternal tenderness or affection. The source or origin. To give birth to, or give rise to. To care or protect like a mother.

If you look in Merriam-Webster’s, there are many definitions of the word ‘mother;’ all but one are complementary. ‘Mother’ refers to nurturing, support, and creation. ‘Mother’ is an idea and an action as much as she is a specific person.

A woman in white holds a baby, three men stand with their backs turned to the camera. The group is overlooking a body of water, possibly a river.

An unidentified woman and child with a group. Pettersen Family collection, Everett Public Library.

I spent some time looking at our digital collections to see how our archives represent mothers. Some images seem obvious: nuclear families with women holding babies. Even though these images came to us without any labels, we make the assumption that we see a mother holding her child. In life, mothering is more intricate than biology.

A woman, man, and baby sit in a yard. The man holds the baby up to face the camera. The day appears sunny and warm.

Unnamed family in yard, Pettersen Family collection, Everett Public Library.

When collections of photographs are donated, they come to us in a variety of states. Some are fully described – every archivist’s dream – while others have no information. Sometimes people leave items for us when we are not around, a bag on a chair with no contact information. These situations leave us making our best guesses at what we are seeing, and I am certain that we sometimes miss the mark.

A child with a bowtie kneels in a garden patch behind small potted plants. Above him, in a window behind him, is a woman looking out at the photographer.

Child and woman, unknown source, Everett Public Library.

The past is full of complicated family situations. Mothers died in childbirth and their widowers remarried, sometimes even to single sister-in-laws. Maybe what appears to be a biological mother could be an aunt or someone unrelated. A parent secretly raised a child born to one of their unwed daughters. Children were adopted into unrelated families, but remained unaware of their origins even into old age. Families kept birth secrets to the grave. Children without supportive parents in their lives turned to older siblings and other adults for the love and care they needed to thrive. Does this change the name we call the people who nurtured these children through their years? Perhaps some people chose to not take on the title ‘Mother’ when raising a child that wasn’t biologically their own, preferring guardian, foster parent, stepmom, grandmother, auntie, mentor, or some other term, but they still earned the verb form of the word. The labor of love they undertook was mothering.

A woman in a large hat and long dress stands to the right holding a baby in white. Behind her to the left are a girl around 10 in a furry hood, and a toddler in what looks like a cape. They are holding hands. Behind them a train smokes, waiting to depart, or just arrived.

Family at train station, courtesy of Erik Wahleen, Everett Public Library.

Being an archivist means describing the materials in our care as accurately as we can. You’ll notice that the titles of the images in this post are vague. We shy away from making assumptions as much as possible. The first image I posted referred to the people pictured as a group, another as a woman and child. It seems like the term ‘family’ was reserved for images where people were physically close; their connections undeniable. We try to keep our descriptions clinical and unbiased, though the images we see evoke memories and associations of our own.

A group of children and women sit in a semi-circle inside a wooden building. Two in the group appear to be adults, the rest range from infant to perhaps preteen.

Tulalip women and Children, J.A. Juleen collection, Everett Public Library

Sometimes members of the community work together to return names and relationships to those pictured. The above image is from a collection of photographs taken at the Tulalip Treaty Day gathering of 1914. In the intervening years since the images entered our care, Tulalip citizens have worked with them to identify numerous attendees. Unfortunately none of the individuals in this image are among the identified, but there is always hope that their stories may be told again some day. Part of working with local history is trying to fill in these gaps. What seems clear from studying this image is that the children here are surrounded by people who are looking after their welfare; they are loved and supported. Mothered.

Sepia image of a group of women seated on the steps of an elaborate porch.

Everett Woman’s Book Club on the steps of the Monte Cristo Hotel, Everett Public Library

As alluded to in the Merriam-Webster’s definitions above, sometimes mothers give birth to entities other than children. This image shows the Everett Woman’s Book Club. At the time it was taken all members needed to be married. Undoubtedly many of them, if not most, had raised or were raising children when they posed on the steps of the old Monte Cristo Hotel. At the same time, this group of women founded Everett’s first public library, and many were involved in founding and maintaining its first hospital. Founding Mother is a title that honors the work of women.

A woman with her hair piled into a bun, wearing a high-collared white dress with a sleeves.

Emma Yule, Everett Public Library

While the married women of the Everett Woman’s Book Club were founding Everett’s institutions, unmarried women like Emma Yule were educating Everett’s children. The social rules that kept unmarried women out of the Everett Woman’s Book Club demanded that those who taught the children of those club women remain unwed. Ms. Yule was Everett Public School’s first teacher; she went on to be Principal and even Superintendent of the rapidly-growing school system. She never married and never had children of her own, though she helped guide the upbringing and education of hundreds of Everett’s children during her tenure. Her impact was so great during her time in Everett, that decades later when she passed away in California, she was brought back for burial in Evergreen Cemetery and her former students carried her to her rest.

A portrait of a woman in a light-colored jacket, wearing a ribboned hat of similar color.

Jennie Samuels, courtesy of University of Washington Special Collections

Some women, like Jennie Samuels, sent children off to war and cared for them when they came home with invisible wounds. Mrs. Samuels not only kept her house running smoothly, her home was the social center for the Black community in Everett in the early-to-mid 1900s. Her Wetmore home was listed in the Negro Motorist Green Book as a safe place for Black travelers to stay when in the area. She was a high-ranking member of the Washington State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs for years, while running her own Nannie Burroughs Study Club in Everett. Both organizations worked toward the advancement of Black causes, and cared for underprivileged members of their communities. Black club women from around the state gathered in her home when she brought their conventions to town, and she was celebrated by her community. Jennie Samuels mothered a community in a way that impacted her whole state.

Children play in the shallows at a beach. In the background people sit on logs watching them. Behind them are some houses and a lot building.

Mukilteo Beach, J.A. Juleen collection, Everett Public Library

Whether they are the people who protectively watch over us from the logs as we play our way through childhood, or are a team of people who scramble together a festive party for us when things aren’t quite right, most of us are fortunate to be mothered by many loving souls after the day our mother gives us life.

Two tables seat a group of children who appear to be dressed up. A line of women, and some men, are standing at the back of the room, looking over them. There is a large American flag covering one whole wall.

Christmas Party for Deaconess Children’s Home, given by the Loyal Order of the Moose. J.A. Juleen collection, Everett Public Library.

This weekend we celebrate all mothers who fall under all definitions of the word. Thank you for all that you do for us, no matter how we are related. Thank you for the love, care, and guidance you’ve shown countless children, and our communities. We would be nowhere without mothers.

A Look at Everett’s Mayors

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Last week, Cassie Franklin became the 37th mayor of Everett in its 125 year history. To commemorate this change in leadership, the Northwest Room staff has been looking back at the history of mayors in our city. Did you know that we’ve had three Canadians, two Danish, and one Dutch mayor? It wasn’t until 1977 that Everett had a mayor who was born and raised in Washington!

You can check out our Everett mayors webpage and videos on Mayor Dwyer, Mayor Hartley, Mayor Ebert, and Mayor Stephanson.

Thomas Dwyer was elected on April 27, 1893, as Everett’s first mayor. He won with a mere three vote lead. (And you thought the 2017 election—with a 196 vote difference—was a close race!) In that same election, voters in Everett also chose to incorporate their 5,000-person community as an official municipality. That decision wasn’t as tough—voters chose to incorporate, with a vote of 670 to 99.

For one year prior to incorporation, Everett was led by a group called “The Committee of Twenty-One.” This popularly elected body acted as an interim authority to address issues of public concern such as crime, sanitation, and health. Only one of these 21 early Everett leaders went on to serve as mayor, James H. Mitchell (1906-1907). Although an early Everett mayor, Mitchell was better known in the community for his role as assistant postmaster. His wife, Becca, was Everett’s first postmaster.

The first official City Charter was adopted in 1893. It employed a mayor and council format and annual mayoral elections. Everett was led by 11 mayors under this Charter during its first 14 years. One mayor, Jacob Hunsaker, served two non-consecutive terms. His daughter, Hallie Hunsaker, recalled in a 1976 oral history interview with the Everett Public Library that he was a hands-on leader. He went out with a hammer and nails to personally fix a wooden plank so nobody would get hurt during a parade!

In 1907, when Everett’s population surpassed 10,000, the city passed a First-Class Charter. The new charter preserved the mayor and council format and extended the mayor’s term to two years. By this time, Everett had completely recovered from a devastating economic depression to become a thriving industrial city. Notably, Roland Hill Hartley launched his political career as mayor during this era. His tenure was marked by significant controversy and conflict, particularly around issues of labor relations and local prohibition. Hartley went on to serve in the Washington State Legislature and two terms as Governor of Washington. Over 100 years later, Hartley is still a contentious figure in local and state political history.

The political structure of the City changed again in 1912, with the adoption of a commission charter. The mayor was chosen from a small group of city commissioners and the role was largely honorary. The City functioned under this form of government for 56 years with 15 mayors. Mayors from 1912 to 1968 wielded far less authority than those governing before and after them. Lacking significant executive power, the role of mayor was largely symbolic during this era. One notable mayor of this era was John Henry Smith, a public works commissioner, who was considered a founding father of Anchorage, Alaska.

The passage of a new charter in 1968 marked the beginning of our current political era. The charter eliminated the commissioner form of government and implemented a strong mayor and council form. You can listen to Mayor George Gebert—a shoe salesman turned politician— reflect on the commissioner and mayor-council forms of government in an Everett Public Library oral history interview.

Mayor Robert C. Anderson was the first mayor to serve under the new city charter and he held the position for nine years. Anderson resigned in October 1977 for a banking job. City Council President Joyce Ebert served out the remaining two months of his term. Ebert became Everett’s first female mayor, and she was the first mayor born in Washington. Mayor Ebert had to personally sign each city employee’s paychecks during her term. Given the short term and short notice, there was no official signature plate available for her to automate the tedious process.

Five more men served as mayor after Ebert: Bill Moore, Pete Kinch, Edward Hansen, Frank Anderson, and Ray Stephanson. Ray Stephanson holds the distinction of being Everett’s longest-serving mayor, with service from 2003 to 2017. In January 2018, Cassie Franklin became Everett’s first elected female mayor.

Join us next Tuesday, January 16, at 7 p.m. at the Valley View Neighborhood Association meeting to learn more about the history of Everett Mayors! The program is free and open to the public, and it will be held at the South Everett Police Precinct. Full program details are available on our calendar.

November is Native American Heritage Month

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November is Native American Indian Heritage Month. It is an opportunity to pay tribute to the contributions of indigenous people to national history and culture. It’s also a time to reflect on the complex and difficult relationship between native cultures and the dominant culture.

While Native American Indian Heritage Month is observed nationally, it has important resonance locally. Everett was built on land ceded to the United States government in 1855. On January 22, 1855, leaders  of the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skykomish and other tribes signed the treaty with the United States government. They agreed to cede their ancestral lands and relocate to a permanent home on the bay at what is now Everett. In exchange, they would be recognized as a sovereign nation with certain fishing and water rights. These tribes became collectively known as the Tulalip Tribes.

In the pre-World War I era, several white photographers from Everett entered the Tulalip reservation to document various aspects of tribal life, community, and customs. The photos of J.A. Juleen (1874-1935) form a key part of the Everett Public Library’s Northwest Room collections. Juleen’s outsider perspective created a unique body of work documenting a new longhouse, the dedication of a story pole created by William Shelton, portraits of tribal members, and life at the reservation school. His photos of Tulalip are available in the Northwest Room’s digital collections. 

tulalipbook

As useful as these images are for recording and preserving aspects of Tulalip heritage and history, it’s critical to explore these issues through the native perspective as well. One such native perspective is presented beautifully in the book Tulalip, From My Heart. This  book presents an autobiographical account by Harriette Shelton Dover (1904-1991), daughter of the famed Tulalip storyteller and wood carver William Shelton (1868-1938), and a tribal leader in her own right. Blending history, anthropology, and memoir, Dover draws on her culture’s oral traditions to tell the stories of her community back to 1855.  Her story includes heartbreaking reflections of her experiences at the government Indian boarding school she attended as a child.

While the Everett Public Library has numerous resources available to commemorate Native American Heritage Month, the Hibulb Cultural Center is the expert on presenting and interpreting the stories of the Tulalip Tribes.

Inside the Northwest History Room: Yearbooks

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1924 Nesika page

Click to see detail

Through this blog I’ve had a chance to talk about a couple of the resources that get heavily used in the Northwest History Room (namely the Polk City directories and the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps). While there are many different areas of our collection that see frequent use, the Polks and Sanborns are joined by our yearbook collection to make up our ‘Big Three’ of local history reference materials. This year we began the massive task of digitizing our collection with the aim of getting them all online. So far we’ve received scans of all of our Everett High School Nesikas; in 2015 we’re hoping to do the same with the Cascade High School Vista. Now comes the fun but time-consuming work of uploading and describing all those pages of history in our database, but I’m not here to bore you with that!

1916 yearbook page

Click to see detail

So why are the yearbooks so important to us and the work that we do? Mainly because they’re very important to the people who contact us. Whether it’s a walk-in to our room or a phone call from overseas, people seek scans from our yearbooks for a variety of reasons. Most people are doing genealogical research; the Nesika goes back to 1909, so there are a few generations of Everett residents contained within them. In some circumstances yearbook photos are actually acceptable forms of identification, so we get individuals and family members seeking them for a variety of reasons. One afternoon I helped a walk-in researcher locate photos of their birth mom whose face they had never seen.

Aside from being of interest for personal or nostalgic reasons, our yearbook collection tells us a lot of general information about Everett’s history as it grows and adapts to changes in local and national society. I’ve only just begun working through our scans but from the beginning in 1909 to the farthest I’ve reached, 1930, I’ve seen the girls’ hair shorten along with the length of their athletic costumes. Also striking to see is the rapidly increasing participation of females in different school sports and the addition of new events like field hockey and swimming. In the boys’ athletics one can watch the rise of the legendary Enoch Bagshaw era of Everett High School football, which led to a string of championships (opens an MP3 of our Bagshaw podcast).1922 Girls Hockey team

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Some of the history documented in these yearbooks can be sad or uncomfortable. The budding Nesika series goes ominously silent in 1917 and doesn’t resume until 1919, with that year’s volume including a memorial for the students and alums who lost their lives in the First World War. Other pages in 1919 display long lists of those who served and returned. In some volumes there are pages featuring minstrel show lineups, racially and ethnically insensitive jokes, and advertisements with black-face caricatures. The jarring nature of how casual and deeply ingrained racism was during those decades helps remind us of where we’ve come from as a society and how to continue moving forward.

In addition to reading between the lines to glean cultural information from the yearbook collection, we also get to learn about Everett’s commerce and industry. Starting in the 1920s the yearbook staff sold advertising slots to local businesses. Through these ads, many repeated from year to year, one can get a picture of what businesses were common. Also present are ads from many of the major employers in the area such as Sumner Iron Works, local paper and timber mills, and packing companies presumably to entice recent graduates to join the ranks of the working class.

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Whether it’s family information, social context, or just enjoying some of the vintage artwork, you can find out all kinds of things by paging through our yearbooks. We hope that our future online collection will make this personal connection with local history more easily established for those near and far. In the meantime, scans are available at any time by request, or can be viewed at the Northwest History Room (the hard copies of the yearbooks are there as well, and are fun to look through). I will also be featuring interesting tidbits I come across during this project on our Northwest History Room tumblr – be sure to keep an eye out.

Inside the Northwest History Room: Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps

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Sanborn 1914 title pageHere in the Northwest History Room of the Everett Public Library, we get frequent visitors looking into the history of buildings and land usage. One of the first resources we point people to is our collection of Sanborn Fire Insurance maps. We have the set of 1914 maps, and a copy of the 1914 maps that was updated in 1955 to show the present state of the land. These dates come in handy for people who own older non-compliant structures because they can be grandfathered in if they predate 1955.

Aside from being able to check if your porch or outbuilding might be able to be grandfathered in, a lot can be gleaned from comparing the 1914 and 1955 maps. For example, in these two photos, you can see how the old Everett Flour Mill was gradually replaced by the sprawling Scott Paper Co. Mill (click images to enlarge).

1914 view1955 view

Over time, this expansion meant altering the natural landscape by filling in some of the tidelands and building over them on piers. Roads and rails were altered to make way.

These two photos show the expansion of residential buildings that happened at 26th and Rainier. One can see how some buildings changed use, for example going from being a dwelling (‘D’) to being a shed, or gained or lost outbuildings. Some houses, surprisingly, remained mostly the same over the course of those 41 intervening years (click images to enlarge).

1914 view1955 view

Lastly we have the key that helps us interpret all the colors and symbols used in the maps. This provides us with a wealth of information about the construction of the buildings, from the materials used on the exterior walls, to the types of windows and skylights present, to the appearance of the chimneys. This is really useful for people who are looking to restore their homes to an earlier appearance, or for people who are trying to discover what a demolished building looked like when no pictures exist (click image to enlarge).

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps key

 

I invite you to come down to the Northwest History Room at Everett Public Library’s Main Library to see what you can find out about your home, or any other Everett property you might be curious about – either David or I would be happy to show you how to use our map collection.

A Day in the Life: Local History Librarian

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Last weekend the Northwest History Room celebrated its 37th anniversary. For those who are well acquainted with our local history department, this longevity comes as no surprise. The uninitiated, on the other hand, may be wondering what we’ve been doing with ourselves all this time. In order to giver you a clearer picture, I thought I’d take you through a day in my life as a local history librarian:

Picture of jar with image of the Everett courthouse on lid.Early in the day I received a call from a woman who had acquired a little porcelain jar. On the lid was a lovely painting of the 1897-8 Everett courthouse building, and on the bottom was an inscription related to ‘B. W. Fargo.’ My caller was interested to find out whatever she could about the building pictured, and if possible, her jar. I asked her if she could send me a photograph of the jar and told her I would see what I could find out.

Black and white photograph of courthouseMy first stop was to check our resource files. Our department keeps files of clippings and other documents in a row of file cabinets, but we also keep a large digital file of scanned documents and photos, as well as typed histories of people and places. These files serve as an excellent shortcut when we’re looking into notable people and places in the area, because a lot of the work has already been done in the past. Here I was able to find the exact dates of the courthouse, as well as some historic photographs to send the caller.

Photograph of the ruins of the courthouseThis particular courthouse was designed and built in 1897 by architect A. F. Heide at the corner of Wetmore and Pacific. It was operational until 1909, when it was ravaged by a fire. County operations moved into an adjacent annex while Heide oversaw restoration work. Little more than load-bearing walls were able to be salvaged, so a new Mission-style facade was constructed and opened in 1911.

Photograph of Polk City DirectoriesNext up was figuring out who or what ‘B. W. Fargo’ referred to. For this I turned to our collection of Polk City Directories. Polks, as we call them, are similar to today’s phone books, except they lacked phone numbers in the earlier years and generally gave more information out about the businesses and individuals listed. You can often use Polks to find out a person’s occupation, spouse’s name, address, and sometimes even annual salary. When looking up a business you can find out the address, owner, and type of business.

Scan of Polk directory pageBy looking in the Polks, I discovered that Bert W. Fargo and Elizabeth Goerig owned and operated a business at 1809 Hewitt Avenue (blocks from the courthouse) called Fargo B W & Co. This business was concerned with selling crockery, art goods, furniture, and other domestic products. According to our Polks, the company operated under that name from roughly 1901 to 1905.  While there are no records in our collection from this business, it wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination to assume that this company either produced or commissioned souvenir ceramics of the courthouse and possibly other Everett landmarks. From the dates in our Polks, we may be able to date the jar between 1901-1905.

I was able to find all of this information out using our resources in about two hours. We frequently do the same for visitors looking into the history of their families or buildings that they’re curious about. That’s just a small portion of the work that we do as local history specialists. If you’d like to learn more about our work, or if you have a local history question related to the Everett/Snohomish County area, please feel free to get in touch.