Washington University Press Search Results Page

Red Harbor

Radical Workers and Community Struggle in the Pacific Northwest

By Aaron Goings

Brings to life Grays Harbor's fiery legacy of class conflict

In the early decades of the twentieth century, Grays Harbor was the Lumber Capital of the World. While thousands of lumber and maritime workers fought for...

The Tlingit in Sitka

The Photography of Elbridge W. Merrill

By Sergei Kan

A rare window into the changing lives of Native Alaskans between the late 1800s and 1920s

Lured north by the Klondike gold rush, Elbridge W. Merrill settled in Sitka, Alaska, and took up a career as a...

Wrecked

Unsettling Histories from the Graveyard of the Pacific

By Coll Thrush

A provocative retelling of shipwreck tales from the Northwest Coast

The Northwest Coast of North America is a treacherous place. Unforgiving coastlines, powerful currents, unpredictable weather, and features such as the notorious Columbia River bar...

Fighting for the Puyallup Tribe

A Memoir

By Ramona Bennett Bill

A compelling on-the-ground account of Native activism in the Northwest

A relentless advocate for Native rights, Ramona Bennett Bill has been involved in the battles waged by the Puyallup and other Northwest tribes around fishing...

The Trees Are Speaking

Dispatches from the Salmon Forests

By Lynda V. Mapes

A call to rethink our relationship with forests

Ancient and carbon-rich, old-growth forests play an irreplaceable role in the environment. Their complex ecosystems clean the air, purify the water, cool the planet, and teem with life....

Odyssey of a Seattle Native Son

By Carver Clark Gayton

The autobiography of a local and national leader in education and civil rights

Carver Clark Gayton’s story bears witness to Seattle’s experience of race and the importance of family, teachers, teamwork, and building bridges in the...

Seattle Walks

Discovering History and Nature in the City

By David B. Williams

An updated and expanded new edition of the definitive walking guide to Seattle

One of America's most walkable cities, Seattle rewards urban trekkers with expansive scenery and architectural and historical riches. The second edition of this...

Biking Uphill in the Rain

The Story of Seattle from behind the Handlebars

Finalist for the 2024 Washington State Book Award in General Nonfiction

The rise of an improbable bike culture in the Emerald City

Seattle was recently named the best bike city in the United States by Bicycling magazine....

Stomp and Shout

R&B and the Origins of Northwest Rock and Roll

Finalist for the 2024 Washington State Book Award in General Nonfiction

Parking lot rumbles, teen dance riots, and the rise of the Northwest Sound

Long before the world discovered grunge, the Pacific Northwest was already home to...

Alaska Native Resilience

Voices from World War II

By Holly Miowak Guise

Alaska Native elders remember wartime invasion, relocation, and land reclamation

The US government justified its World War II occupation of Alaska as a defense against Japan’s invasion of the Aleutian Islands, but it equally served to...

Rising Tides and Tailwinds

The Story of the Port of Seattle

By Casey McNerthney, Kit Oldham, and Peter Blecha. With a new foreword by Senator Patty Murray and a new afterword by Stephen P. Metruck and Lance Lyttle

A century ago, Seattle was held hostage by its own waterfront. Competing railroad companies built a chaotic sprawl of rail lines, docks, and warehouses along the shoreline of Elliott Bay, creating conditions so bad that...

Oregon's Others

Gender, Civil Liberties, and the Surveillance State in the Early Twentieth Century

By Kimberly Jensen

Nativism, pseudoscience, and the campaign against the enemy within

In the era of the First World War and its aftermath, the quest to identify, restrict, and punish internal enemy “others,” combined with eugenic thinking, severely curtailed...

A Will to Serve

Stories of Patience, Persistence, and Friends Made Along the Way

By Jim Ellis and Jennifer Ott. Foreword by Sally Jewell. Afterword by Gary Locke

The autobiography of an indefatigable visionary and citizen activist

Jim Ellis was one of the most influential and impactful civic leaders of Seattle's and Washington's recent history. Though he never sought elected office, his vision and...

Norman Maclean

A Life of Letters and Rivers

By Rebecca McCarthy

The first biography of one of Montana’s most celebrated writers

A River Runs Through It and Other Stories turned Norman Maclean into a late-in-life literary phenomenon and then a household name after the success of the...

Tent City, Seattle

Refusing Homelessness and Making a Home

By Tony Sparks

Transforms our understanding of being unhoused in the United States

Tent City 3 provides Seattle’s unhoused people with a place to create and sustain not just shelter but a home. In 2000 it became one of...

50 Keystone Fauna Species of the Pacific Northwest

A Pocket Guide

By Collin Varner

A compact, user-friendly guide to ecologically significant animal species of the Northwest Coast

A keystone species is an organism that defines and supports an entire ecosystem, filling a vital ecological niche. Without these species, ecosystems would...

50 Keystone Flora Species of the Pacific Northwest

A Pocket Guide

By Collin Varner

A compact, user-friendly guide to ecologically significant plant species of the Northwest Coast

A keystone species is an organism that defines and supports an entire ecosystem, filling a vital ecological niche. Without these species, ecosystems would...

Treaty Justice

The Northwest Tribes, the Boldt Decision, and the Recognition of Fishing Rights

By Charles Wilkinson

In 1974, Judge George Boldt issued a ruling that affirmed the fishing rights and tribal sovereignty of Native nations in Washington State. The Boldt Decision transformed Indigenous law and resource management across the United States...

Heartbreak City

Seattle Sports and the Unmet Promise of Urban Progress

By Shaun Scott

How the city's marginalized communities have historically used sports as a tool for resilience and resistance

To cities, sports have never been just entertainment. Progressive urbanites across the United States have used athletics to address persistent...

Spirit Whales and Sloth Tales

Fossils of Washington State

By Elizabeth A. Nesbitt and David B. Williams

A guide to discovering the fascinating natural history beneath your feet

From trilobites near the Idaho border and primitive horses on the Columbia Plateau to giant bird tracks near Bellingham and curious bear-like beasts on the...