By Lyndsay Smith :: Did you ever wonder what historians can do outside of academia? Well, here is one fine example. In this episode, PSU alumna Eliza Canty-Jones discusses community engagement and how she works to give a voice to the diverse histories of Oregonians as the Director of Community Engagement at the Oregon HistoricalContinue Reading Eliza Canty-Jones | Community Engagement
By Mike Mata :: February 15th marks the anniversary of the death of an early mental health pioneer and namesake of the perennially weird Portland street, Dr. James C. Hawthorne. Hawthorne, a native of Pennsylvania, was purported to have completed his medical schooling at the Medical University in Louisville, Kentucky, although archives from theContinue Reading James C. Hawthorne | An Asylum and a Boulevard
By Taylor Bailey :: On April 14, 1962, ‘Packy’ the elephant was born at the Portland Zoological Gardens. He was the first elephant born in the United States in 44 years, and that was a big deal. American animal dealers and zoos had struggled to get Asian elephants to breed in captivity, and even ifContinue Reading The Birth of Packy the Elephant
By Will Schneider :: The city of Portland, Oregon was incorporated on February 8th, 1851. While the date is significant and signaled a new point in the history of settlements along the Willamette River, hard dates can also be misleading. Beginning a history of Portland at its incorporation obscures all that came before, covering overContinue Reading Portland Incorporated as a City
By Jeannette Butts :: In 1950, Samuel Newhouse, a multi-millionaire from New York, purchased The Oregonian. This didn’t raise too many eyebrows as he was actively buying large publications. What did start to cause concern, though, was the fate of the Oregon Journal, Portland’s only other daily newspaper. Philip Jackson, the founder of the OregonContinue Reading Portland’s Newspaper Wars | How The Oregonian became a Monopoly
By Alecia Giombolini :: How a Short-Lived Portland Anarchist Newspaper Jumpstarted a National Movement The Firebrand was an anarchist-communist newspaper published in Portland, Oregon. The first issue was released on January 27, 1895 and would continue to be published weekly until September 1897 when the newspaper’s three principle publishers were arrested and convicted for “sendingContinue Reading The Firebrand | A Portland Iconoclast
By Kim Andrews :: January 17, 1893 marks the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani. This was a moment of American imperialism that had an enormous impact on the lives and livelihoods of the Hawaiian people. However, this story of Hawaiian Annexation is also a personal one. I want to highlight how the reigning monarch, Queen Liliuokalani,Continue Reading Liliuokalani’s Fight for Hawaii
By Tanya Monthey :: The first female senator to be elected into the US Senate was Hattie Wyatt Caraway from Arkansas in 1932. Twenty-eight years later, Oregon elected Maurine Neuberger to become the third woman ever to be elected for the US Senate. Though many women before Neuberger had served as US Senators, they didContinue Reading Oregon Trailblazer | Maurine Neuberger
By Evan Smiley :: In 1972, Oregon became the fourth state to decriminalize homosexuality in the U.S. after revised Sodomy Laws went into effect on January 1st. Sodomy laws exist across the United States and their purpose is to legally define what constitutes normal and abnormal sexual behavior punishable by law. Today, Oregon law clearlyContinue Reading A Blow to Bigotry | Oregon Decriminalizes Homosexuality
By Greta Smith :: This fall I worked on a project for the Clackamas County Historical Society Museum of the Oregon Territory (MOOT) where I wrote interpretive text for 13 items that belong to the Kaegi Pharmacy collection. The Kaegi Pharmacy operated in Wilsonville from 1927 until it closed in 1989, after which brothers JohnContinue Reading Kaegi Pharmacy Exhibit | Interpreting objects in virtual space