For over 100 years, the University of Washington Press has producedgroundbreaking books for a global community of scholars as well as essential books that tell the stories of our city and region. Over the past three years, we’ve released 150 new books, organized hundreds of public talks and other author events, and collaborated with numerous campus and community partners to carry out this vital work.
With this report, I’d like to highlight some of our recent activities—not just our fantastic new books but the many ways in which we engage the world and support the public good. From combatting misinformation with robustly peer-reviewed publications to diversifying the publishing industry to co-creating materials for Indigenous revitalization, our work touches many lives on campus, in our local communities, and around the world. We invite you to learn more about us in the following pages.
February 12 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the 1974 Boldt Decision, a watershed ruling that affirmed the fishing rights and tribal sovereignty of Native nations in Washington State and transformed Indigenous law and resource management across the United States and beyond. In recognition of this significant ruling, the University of Washington Press is honored to announce the publication of Treaty Justice: The Northwest Tribes, the Boldt Decision, and the Recognition of Fishing Rights by eminent legal historian and longtime tribal advocate Charles Wilkinson.
Expert and compelling, Treaty Justice weaves personalities and local detail into the definitive account of one of the twentieth century’s most important civil rights cases. Wilkinson tells the dramatic story of the Boldt Decision against the backdrop of salmon’s central place in the cultures and economies of the Pacific Northwest.
In the mid-twentieth century, when Native people reasserted their fishing rights as delineated in nineteenth-century treaties, state officials worked with non-Indian commercial and sport fishing interests to forcefully—and often violently—oppose Native actions. What became known as the “fish wars” of the 1960s spurred twenty tribes and the US government to file suit in federal court. Moved by the testimony of tribal leaders and other experts, Judge George Boldt pointedly waited until Lincoln’s birthday to hand down a decision recognizing the tribes’ right to half of the state’s fish. The case’s long aftermath led from the Supreme Court’s affirmation of Boldt’s opinion to collaborative management of the harvest of salmon and other marine resources.
For Wilkinson, the Boldt Decision sits alongside Brown v. Board of Education and a select few other court cases in terms of bringing justice to dispossessed peoples and resulting in far-reaching societal changes. He writes, “Like those opinions, the Boldt Decision’s ramifications are many and still felt today . . . [it] vividly displays the brilliance and worth of the American system of justice and the moral and tangible benefits it can achieve at its heights.”
As a young civil rights attorney in 1971, Wilkinson joined the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), where he worked alongside John Echohawk (Pawnee) and the late David Getches to fight for the rights of tribal nations, earning significant victories across the United States. After four years at NARF, he became a law professor, teaching first at the University of Oregon in Eugene and then at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Over the next half-century, he built a legacy as one of the foremost scholars of Indian law.
In a tribute for High Country News, Daniel Cordalis and Kristen Carpenter write that “Charles was more than a brilliant lawyer, dedicated professor and gifted author; he was a true friend to Indian Country. To him, the field of federal Indian law was not just an interesting intellectual or professional pursuit; rather, it was a testament to the perseverance of a people. He saw that Indigenous people achieved the revival of tribal nations through their own vision, determination and action, not because of the federal government or anyone else.”
Charles Wilkinson has done it again. With unmatched familiarity and command, he adds another essential volume to the amazing history of Indigenous activism and legal advocacy that has made the Northwest such a vibrant region for Native rights and power. While much more remains to be done to affirm the recognition of Indigenous sovereignty in American legal institutions, Wilkinson’s insights, vision, and legacy offer both guidance and inspiration.
Ned Blackhawk, author of the National Book Award-Winning The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History
Treaty Justice was supported by a generous grant from the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission and made possible in part thanks to the support of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe and Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. The book was also supported by the Tulalip Tribes Charitable Fund, which provides the opportunity for a sustainable and healthy community for all. Additional funding was provided by a grant from the Hugh and Jane Ferguson Foundation.
UW Press also thanks Michael Burnap and Irene Tanabe, Vasiliki Dwyer, Ellen Ferguson, Kelby Fletcher and Janet Boguch, Mary Hotchkiss and Mary Whisner, Barbara Johns in memory of David Getches, Sandeep Kaushik and Elizabeth Goodwin, Suzanne Kotz and Stephen Tarnoff, Michael Repass, and Cynthia Sears for their generous gifts in support of the book.
Read an excerpt from Treaty Justice in the Seattle Times Pacific NW Magazine.
Upcoming Events
UW Press is proud to join the Northwest Treaty Tribes, the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission (NWIFC), and the Washington State Historical Society in commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Boldt Decision.
US v WA: 50th Anniversary. February 6 and 7 at the Muckleshoot Events Center in Auburn. The Northwest Treaty Tribes and the NWIFC present two full days of events and programming, including a presentation of Treaty Justice by Charles Wilkinson’s family; a screening of Fish War, a documentary produced by NWIFC and North Forty Productions; and a series of panels reflecting on the impact of the Boldt Decision.
Usual and Accustomed Grounds. Exhibition on view February 10–September 1 at the Washington State History Museumin Tacoma. This exhibition focuses on the story of the Native fishing rights movement in Washington State and marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Boldt Decision. Through artifacts, photos, and footage, learn about how tribal people and nations resisted termination policies and fought for treaty-protected fishing access, cultural survival, and sovereignty—with impacts still felt today.
Boldt at 50: Reflecting on Treaty Justice and Tribal Sovereignty. February 12, 7:30 pm at Town Hall in Seattle. Centered around Wilkinson’s Treaty Justice, a panel will discuss the significance of the Boldt Decision and its enduring impact on the tribal sovereignty movement in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Featuring Jeremiah “Jay” Julius, a fisherman and member of the Lummi Nation; Lynda V. Mapes, author and Seattle Times journalist specializing in the environment and Native American issues; Nancy Shippentower, a Puyallup elder and activist; and Coll Thrush, noted historian and author of Native Seattle. The event is set to open with Native drummers and will also feature remarks from Darrell Hillaire, executive director of Children of the Setting Sun Productions (CSSP), and a film clip from CSSP. Books will be available from Third Place Books.
Symposium: The Boldt Decision at 50. March 30, 10:00 am–5:00 pm at the Washington State History Museumin Tacoma. This daylong symposium will explore the history of the ruling that served as an affirmation of Tribal fishing rights and sovereignty, featuring a lecture from state historian John Hughes; a panel conversation with representatives from the Nisqually Tribe, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, and the Squaxin Island Tribe; and an opportunity for program participants to connect with panelists and purchase copies of relevant historical scholarship. Guests will also have the rare opportunity to view the 1854 Treaty of Medicine Creek.
My new book, The Unknown Great: Stories of Japanese Americans at the Margins of History, cowritten with Jonathan van Harmelen, is a collection of short pieces on remarkable people and things in Japanese American history. Beyond being interesting in themselves, when put together, the stories constitute a counter-history of ethnic Japanese in North America, refuting received ideas about the group.
When it came time to think about potential covers for the book, I was not sure what to propose. As the partner of a graphic designer, I long ago learned that producing an acceptable book cover is one of the most difficult aspects of book publishing. The designer must be able to come up with something that will please the author, the press’s marketing department and—one hopes—themself. The design must immediately express the idea of the work and attract the potential reader into choosing it (the old saw notwithstanding, many many people do in fact judge books by their covers!). The author can be as much a hindrance as a help. If an author proposes images for which the rights cannot be obtained or which are not sufficiently clear or high-resolution, it just makes life difficult for the designer.
Especially tricky is producing a cover for a book like The Unknown Great that revolves around a variety of themes. Whether such a cover is typographical or illustrative in nature, the same problem remains: How can the cover designer choose just one aspect of the book to express? How can the contrasting themes be dramatized in a way that leads to a unified presentation? To be sure, my previous collection with University of Washington Press, The Unsung Great, had a cover featuring a mosaic of portraits, and I found it most satisfying. Still, I did not want a cover that looked too similar to that one. On the other hand, none of the photos that I had found to illustrate the individual articles was powerful enough to carry the weight of the entire book’s meaning by itself.
It was then that I hit on the idea of proposing for the cover a striking image that I had just come across. In 2021, my collaborator Jonathan van Harmelen and I wrote a two-partarticle on the great photographer Toge Fujihira, and in the process of research we interviewed Fujihira’s two children. Toge’s daughter Kay Bromberg graciously invited us to visit the extensive archive that she maintained of her father’s work.
Sometime later, I accepted Kay’s invitation and visited the archive. I was bowled over by the variety and depth of Fujihira’s photography. While reviewing his work from the wartime period, which he had spent in New York City, I discovered a set of snapshots he took in the mid-1940s, at a beach on what looked like Long Island. In the snaps were a number of Nisei men and women in bathing suits; he photographed them alone and in teams—even one with them all together, piled on each other in a pyramid. While the majority of the images were of women, my eye was caught by one that featured a pair of smiling Japanese American men in bathing suits, happily embracing. Their affection for each other and the obvious ease they felt in holding their (shirtless) bodies against each other shined through.
Fujihira’s photo . . . expressed so many of the “marginal” stories and themes I had discovered in Japanese American history: Nisei outside the West Coast; the postwar lives that Japanese Americans built following their wartime incarceration; the presence of creative artists, including photographers, in their communities; and yes, Japanese American sexuality.
Greg Robinson
The photographs did not list any of the names of the people involved, and neither Kay nor I was able to identify the men in the picture. It was unclear whether they were friends, colleagues, or brothers, or whether they were romantic partners (though homosexuality would have generally been considered taboo in the United States at that time, and an openly gay couple shocking). The very mystery of their identities and connection to each other heightened the both the power and ambiguity of the image: Was it homoerotic, homosocial, or fraternal? Whichever the case, it was clear that in an era when Nisei, like other American men, were conditioned to restrain their emotions, at least in public, an image showing such open warmth between them was exceptional.
Kay generously gifted me a duplicate print of the image and agreed to let me publish it. At first, I wasn’t sure in what context I should present it. While it was unlikely that the men in the photo were still alive, some seventy-five years later, I worried whether they might have descendants who would criticize me for misrepresenting them. When I had the opportunity to propose a cover image for The Unknown Great, I realized that the image of the men from Fujihira’s photo would be perfect. It expressed so many of the “marginal” stories and themes I had discovered in Japanese American history: Nisei outside the West Coast; the postwar lives that Japanese Americans built following their wartime incarceration; the presence of creative artists, including photographers, in their communities; and yes, Japanese American sexuality. Yet it evoked these themes in symbolic, not representative, fashion.
In the end, it worked out superbly. Heng Wee Tan, the cover designer, agreed to incorporate the Fujihira photo into his design. Meanwhile, he had the happy idea of putting the type on a slant, which makes it appear that the image is in motion, passing from the margin toward the center. The color is an unusual shade of orange, marking the unorthodox nature of the contents. All these elements work together to highlight the book’s examination of the margins of Japanese American history.
Greg Robinson is professor of history at l’Université du Québec à Montréal and author of several books, including The Unsung Great: Stories of Extraordinary Japanese Americans and After Camp: Portraits in Midcentury Japanese American Life.
Photographs of receding glaciers are one of the most well recognized visualizations of human-caused climate change. These images, captured through repeat photography, have become effective with an unambiguous message: global warming is happening, and it is happening now. But this wasn’t always the case. The meaning and evidentiary value of repeat glacier photography has varied over time, reflecting not only evolving scientific norms but also social, cultural, and political influences.
In Capturing Glaciers, Dani Inkpen historicizes the use of repeat glacier photographs, examining what they show, what they obscure, and how they influence public understanding of nature and climate change. Though convincing as a form of evidence, these images offer a limited and sometimes misleading representation of glaciers themselves. Furthermore, their use threatens to replicate problematic ideas baked into their history.
Excerpt from Capturing Glaciers
I visited an old friend recently. It had been years since seeing the Bow Glacier. Both of us had changed. I was last in her neighborhood on a winter day so bright and cold it transformed my breath into crystals that shivered and sparkled in the air. She was indisposed, hibernating beneath her billowy robes of winter snow. I had to content myself with a view of her front garden, soft and rounded, blue and white. In summer she presides over one of the most breathtaking scenes on the (for now) aptly named Icefields Parkway in the Canadian Rockies. Perfectly framed by peaks, the glacier perches above the indigo waters of Bow Lake, to which she is connected by thundering Bow Falls and a creek that winds its way through rainbow-pebbled flats. The whole scene can be taken in from the front porch of red-roofed Bow Lake Lodge, set on the lake’s shore by packer and guide Jimmy Simpson. In 1898 he deemed this a good spot to “build a shack.”
I met the Bow Glacier the summer I left home, one of those free-spirited summers that Hollywood films coat thickly with nostalgia. Freshly released from the corridors of teenagedom, I chose a seasonal job that could not possibly advance the career I was preparing for in college but that would give me plenty of time in the mountains: housekeeping at a historic alpine lodge. In my time off I often scrambled up chossy peaks where I met wobbling marmots and grizzlies lounging in full-blooming meadows. I drank from swift, icy streams and camped wherever suited me (because, like many seasonal workers, I believed that national park rules didn’t apply to me). The Bow Glacier looked on with dignified indifference. I stood on her surface, secure in mountaineering harness and crampons (though a couple foolish times not) and marveled at the white westing plains of the Wapta Icefield from which the Bow drains, dreaming of even grander vistas beyond. I knew in those moments I was one of thousands to behold that sight yet felt like the world had just taken form. My happiness was untouchable, not yet complicated by the conundrums of adulthood. I was immortal; death did not exist and time would never run out.
Old friends: The Bow Glacier and the author, 2003.
But time does run. And glaciers, compressions of time in frozen water, are excellent gauges of its passage. Mountain glaciers like the Bow are disappearing at rapid—and accelerating—rates. When Jimmy Simpson pondered building his shack, the Bow cascaded down to a forest abutting the lake in three undulating lobes, with the topmost flaring like outstretched eagle wings. I studied its shape from a black-and-white photograph hanging in the lobby of the lodge. Crevasse-torn icefalls separated the lobes, giving the glacier an intimidating look. It was big. It was beautiful. But the Bow Glacier has since receded. When I arrived one hundred years later, only the topmost lobe remained; dark cliff bands, wetted by Bow Falls, stood where crevasses once churned. The eagle wings were gone, and the glacier’s surface was noticeably lowered. Yet you could still see its toe from the lodge. Today it has retracted even further. Like a wounded spider, it now huddles on the lip of the cliff over which it draped in 2003, barely visible from Bow Lake Lodge.
Photographs of glaciers are about more than just glaciers. They’re also about nature, land, how we can know about such things, and the value we ascribe to them. Grasping this allows us to better appreciate repeat glacier photographs for what they can tell us about global warming, but also how they are conditioned by history and where they fall short.
Dani Inkpen
For many people who are not climate scientists, drastic recession of mountain glaciers like the Bow is clear and persuasive evidence of global warming. Since most folks have never been to a glacier, photographs are often how they learn of disappearing ice. This is achieved through what are called repeat photographs: juxtapositions of old photographs and recent re-creations taken from the same perspective at the same time of year (because glaciers fluctuate with the seasons). Curiosity about the historical photographs in repeat series, like the one hanging in Bow Lake Lodge’s lobby, eventually pulled my carefree summer in the Rockies into the trajectory of a professional life.
My book, Capturing Glaciers, is the result: it is about the people who photographed glaciers repeatedly and systematically to produce knowledge about glaciers and a variety of other subjects such as ice ages, wilderness, the physics of ice, and global warming. Throughout the twentieth century those studying glaciers used photography to capture changes in glacier extent and distribution, but they did so for different reasons and with different consequences. I trace the evolving motivations behind the use of cameras to capture images of ice and concomitantly changing ideas about what is (or is not) being captured.
The book title is thus a double entendre, referring to both the enduring allure of glaciers as repeat photographic subjects that “capture” beholders and the variety of ways people sought to capture glaciers with their cameras. I pay especial attention to the perceived value of repeat photographs as a form of evidence. Doing so illuminates some of the ways repeat photography has encapsulated and conveyed changing ideas about what glaciers are and why they matter. Photographs of glaciers are about more than just glaciers. They’re also about nature, land, how we can know about such things, and the value we ascribe to them. Grasping this allows us to better appreciate repeat glacier photographs for what they can tell us about global warming, but also how they are conditioned by history and where they fall short. It helps us see them not as static representations of the present situation, but as still-evolving elements in a process much bigger and more complex than any photograph could possibly capture.
I take a photograph-centered approach, following the photographs to archival information about the practices behind their creation. The history of how repeat photography was used to study glaciers in North America is checkered and discontinuous. Its value as a form of evidence ebbed and flowed based on ideas about what glaciers were and what knowledge-makers wanted to know. This was more than just a scientific matter. While many of the actors who populate the pages of the book were scientists, producing knowledge of glaciers required an extensive host of characters and institutions. And the meanings of repeat glacier photographs broke the bonds of scientific intention and interpretation, drawing from and circling back to potent cultural associations. We will see, then, that the value of a form of evidence is conditioned by nonscientific elements, including political and practical considerations. Evidence, like objectivity, has a history. And history continues to make itself felt in the present.
Dani Inkpen is assistant professor of history at Mount Allison University.
More from the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books Series
Campy and competitive, gay rodeo offers a community of refuge that straddles the urban and rural, providing space to both embrace and challenge the idealized masculinity associated with the iconic cowboy of the US West.
Slapping Leather: Queer Cowfolx at the Gay Rodeo brings together over a decade of research by Elyssa Ford and Rebecca Scofield, historians of gender and sexuality in the American West. The book explores the complex history of gay rodeo from the late 1960s through the 2010s as a case study for western cultural performance, LGBTQ+ community building, queer philanthropy, and the creation of a racialized and gendered image of the queer cowboy.
As part of the American Historical Association annual meeting, taking place in San Francisco from January 4 to 7, we are pleased to offer AHA members a 30% discount. Find Slapping Leather and other new and notable books through our virtual booth and take advantage of the conference discount with promo code WAHA24 at checkout through February 15, 2024.
To start, can you share about your scholarly backgrounds and what led you to gay rodeo?
Ford: My senior year in college, I decided to explore my interest in museums and completed an internship at the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Texas. The very limited racial diversity of the museum in the early 2000s made me ask questions about women, race, and rodeo in the US, and those are themes I studied in both my MA and PhD. I came across gay rodeo at that time, but it didn’t fit into the scope of my work until my first book, Rodeo as Refuge, Rodeo as Rebellion: Gender, Race, and Identity in the American Rodeo (University Press of Kansas, 2020), when I included a chapter on that rodeo circuit.
Scofield: While completing a master’s degree in Regional Studies: East Asia, I was in Tokyo looking at the acrylic nail industry when I saw a store called Rodeo Clowns, which was selling cowgirl boots to Japanese teenagers. It completely changed my academic trajectory, and I began researching the rise of western wear and looking at how the “cowboy” became a straight white man when so many people outside that limited definition were participating in country western culture. As a part of this, my first book, Outriders: Rodeo at the Fringes of the American West (University of Washington Press, 2019), included a chapter on gay rodeo.
There was so much more to examine in gay rodeo than we were able to tackle in just our single chapters. Rather than pursuing separate book projects, we decided to work together so we could combine our decade worth of research and bring our overlapping—but also different—areas of interest within gay rodeo into a single volume.
Many queer cowfolx narrate finding the rodeo as a moment of finding community. They had been convinced they were the only gay person who loved country music, riding horses, or line dancing. The ability to do the sport they loved in a safe space was revolutionary.
Elyssa Ford and Rebecca Scofield
In writing the book, you drew on multiple archives and over seventy oral interviews. Can you share more about your process and how the book took shape?
Co-authorship is not particularly common in the field of history, and neither of us had approached a project in this way before. And we had never met. In fact, we never met in person until the book was finished! However, the changes to digital communication during COVID really worked to our advantage, with Zoom and Google Docs allowing us to collaborate, communicate, and share materials. We already had conducted much of the necessary research and interviews during our first book projects, and we both knew the material so well that we quickly identified the chapters we wanted to include. We also were lucky that our specific interests within gay rodeo combined in such a way that we each developed several chapters individually and then worked collaboratively on others.
The archival materials and oral interviews were such an integral part of this project. We revisited the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles to complete a comprehensive examination of their International Gay Rodeo Association (IGRA) collection, and we continued to conduct interviews with participants as part of the Gay Rodeo Oral History Project. Both added new dimensions to our chapters and helped us tell a more complete story about the complexity of gay rodeo’s origins and evolution.
International Gay Rodeo Association Finals rodeo program. Courtesy of the Autry Museum of the American West.
You write that “as rodeo professionalized, it also narrowed the boundaries of the cowboy.” Can you elaborate on this and the effect it had on gay rodeo in its nascency?
Phil Ragsdale, and later the IGRA, initially created gay rodeo as a fundraising event and as a place for queer cowfolx to compete in rodeo. Yet it also was rooted in a hegemonic masculinity so that gay cowboys in particular could adopt, demonstrate, and exert the traditional white masculinity of the American cowboy of western mythology. This vision for gay rodeo clashed with the presence of lesbians, drag queens, and camp events, and while some participants fought for those elements, others pursued a rodeo modeled on the professional rodeo circuit. As gay rodeo struggled in the 1990s for legitimacy in the straight rodeo world, it became increasingly difficult to find space for the elements of gay rodeo that failed to fit into the dominant rodeo narrative.
Gender, politics, and geography all play into the history of gay rodeo, which you call a “case study for belonging.” Can you share more about community-building within the sport and a few examples of the tensions LGBTQ+ people faced both within and outside of the gay rodeo arena?
Many queer cowfolx narrate finding the rodeo as a moment of finding community. They had been convinced they were the only gay person who loved country music, riding horses, or line dancing. The ability to do the sport they loved in a safe space was revolutionary. However, it also came with a lot of negotiation as all the assumptions of what it meant to be a cowboy still played out in gay rodeo, often with drag queens and lesbians being made to feel less welcome at times.
Additionally, gay rodeo emerged at a time when the mainstream LGBTQ+ movement was gaining steam but came of age in the shadow of the AIDS epidemic. So the organization always had to balance the desire to be visible with an increasingly hostile public who could use AIDS as a reason for hate. Gay rodeos have been protested by religious groups, animal-rights groups, and many others. This brought gay rodeoers together to support their own efforts and also saw them combine forces with other LGBTQ+ organizations for AIDS fundraising and Pride events, and other rodeo groups, to counter animal-rights protests.
Between chapters, stories from gay rodeo participants are included as oral history vignettes. Why did you choose this type of framing?
It was important to us to share how real people expressed their gratitude and love for this space and illustrate that while we are taking an academic approach, this is a living, thriving community that allowed us access to their stories.
What does the future of gay rodeo look like?
That is the $100 question! And, it is the question that keeps many in gay rodeo awake at night. Gay rodeo is at a crossroads today as it attempts to overcome the serious impact of COVID, a changing and more welcoming society for queer people, and the lack of a single unifying force, such as AIDS or extreme homophobia. As we discuss in our final chapter, IGRA today is grappling with these questions and looking for ways to reach new groups of participants and new audiences.
What do you hope readers take away from the book?
This is a group of people who never easily fit into society’s assumptions about politics, geography, or culture. We hope this helps people rethink with more nuance who belongs where.
Elyssa Ford is associate professor of history at Northwest Missouri State University and author of Rodeo as Refuge, Rodeo as Rebellion: Gender, Race, and Identity in the American Rodeo. Rebecca Scofield is associate professor of American history at the University of Idaho and author of Outriders: Rodeo at the Fringes of the American West.
Husky crew fever is everywhere with the worldwide release of The Boys in the Boat, the film adaptation of Daniel James Brown’s bestselling book about the University of Washington rowing team that competed in the 1936 Summer Olympics.
In the 1920s, UW was considered an upstart West Coast college as it began to challenge the Eastern universities in the ancient sport of crew racing. Sportswriters scoffed at the “crude western boats” and their crews. But for the next forty years, UW dominated rowing around the world.
The secret of the Huskies’ success was George Pocock, a soft-spoken English immigrant raised on the banks of the Thames and the subject of the late Gordon Newell’s book, Ready All! George Yeoman Pocock and Crew Racing, first published by UW Press in 1987.
“As a youth in Britain, Pocock learned the rudiments of boat building from his father, who crafted boats for young Etonians. Forced to emigrate by straitened economic conditions, he journeyed to the Pacific Northwest intending to find work as a lumberjack. Fortunately for the University of Washington in Seattle, he was persuaded to establish shop there and began making shells of outstanding quality” (Publishers Weekly).
Pocock combined perfectionism with innovation to make the lightest, best-balanced, fastest shells the world had ever seen. After studying the magnificent canoes built by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest, he broke with tradition and began to make shells of native cedar.
Pocock, who had been a champion sculler in his youth, never credited his boats for the accomplishments of a crew. He wanted every rower to share his vision of discipline and teamwork. As rowers from the UW went on to become coaches at major universities across the country, Pocock’s philosophy—and his shells—became nationally famous in the world of crew.
Excerpt from Ready All!
George Pocock’s loyalty to the sport of rowing in general was his hallmark throughout his life but following the Husky crew’s surprise victory at Poughkeepsie in 1923, he found that he must assess his loyalties to the University of Washington and to his staunch friend, [head crew coach] Rusty Callow. He found himself wooed by a number of prestigious universities around the nation.
Harvard made the most pressing overtures. Three members of its rowing committee journeyed to Seattle to offer him many inducements, including a new fully equipped and rent-free boatshop, and a generous salary to maintain the shells and assist the coaching staff.
“I still could not see my way clear to accept,” Pocock recorded, “although their offer was quite magnificent compared to what I was getting at Washington, which was only the use of the garret workshop.”
Delighted, and perhaps surprised, that George had declined Harvard’s generous offer, Callow undertook a campaign on his friend’s behalf. He arranged, through the Alumni Association, the purchase of $1,500 worth of power machinery for more efficient and less laborious production, and boatbuilding space was expanded to the ground floor area below the original shop. The additional space was needed, for Pocock shells had gained overnight fame in rowing circles, and George was well on the way to a virtual monopoly of his highly specialized trade in the United States. The eight shells ordered in the fall of 1923 following the Poughkeepsie triumph were only the beginning. Five of that first big order were for East Coast schools, including Harvard. The others went to Wisconsin, California, and Washington.
Harvard also took delivery of an English-built shell, and George was delighted to receive a clipping from the Boston Globe describing the trial runs of his shell and the one imported from England. As a result of the trials, the Pocock-built shell was chosen to compete in the traditional Yale-Harvard race.
Orders kept coming in, and George and his three-man crew soon formed a highly efficient working team, although none of his employees had any previous experience in boatbuilding. They had, however, worked under George’s supervision at Boeing, and like most of the wartime work force, had been laid off. He was thus able to pick from the best of his former craftsmen, and they quickly mastered their new trade.
George Pocock in the old boathouse, ca. 1940s (Life Magazine photo)
Once the University of Washington won the U.S. intercollegiate rowing championship, the crew quarters swarmed with budding oarsmen. The turnout was so great that many youngsters had to be cut from the squad to reduce it to a size the coaching staff could cope with.
The cuts were an aspect of rowing that never failed to sadden George. “Cutting a squad is a heartbreaking thing, because the virtues of rowing have to be denied to so many fine young men,” he wrote. “It grieved me to wonder how many careers had been frustrated and weakened. lt seemed to me ironic that the outstanding success of Washington crew, which we had worked so hard to attain, was resulting in the denial of rowing’s benefits to many through the sheer number of applicants.”
George was closely involved on a very personal basis with the generations of young oarsmen who came under his benign influence. Every coach during George’s half century on the campus was wise enough to assemble each new squad to listen to the Pocock litany of praise for the spiritual and physical benefits of rowing. Delivered in his gentle, cultured voice, it was far more effective than any loud, impassioned pep talk.
It was a source of great satisfaction to him that many of the crewmen snatched moments from their usually crammed schedules to come to his shop for counsel. He knew that many of them were rowing their hearts out in the little time left from demanding academic schedules. If the annual cutting of crew hopefuls was heartbreaking to him, this informal friendship with those who made it was deeply heartwarming: “I so admired all the oarsmen, and since my shop was right at the boathouse, I got to know many of them well. I dare not name any of the hundreds of young men who came to the shop during my fifty years of service to Washington rowing, for fear I would leave some out. But, generalizing, I can say there were all kindred souls, sincerely interested in painstaking work; fashioning natural material into the rowing shells of great beauty.”
Such was the force of tradition in rowing that nothing but Spanish cedar had been considered. But I found the native red cedar to be marvelous material, ideal for the skin of racing shells; impervious to rot and light in weight.
George Pocock
In 1924, the boats were still built with much the same materials George had learned to work with as an apprentice at Eton: “We continued to use Spanish cedar for the skin of the boats, which we obtained in New York in the log, having it sawn into thick planks there, and shipped via steamer to Seattle. The shipping charge from New York to Seattle was $50 for a single log in plank form, and getting them from dockside to the boathouse cost another $50. That was a lot of money in 1924, and it worried me. I knew many schools had only very limited funds to support rowing, and I cried to keep the costs to them of racing shells as low as possible.”
Eventually, George found a better and less costly wood with which to sheath his boats: western red cedar, which he henceforth referred to as “the wood eternal.” George had demonstrated the virtues of Northwest cedar back in 1918, when the U.S. Navy Department conceded that the Boeing-built World War I flying boats planked with cedar were superior to the Eastern-built versions using white pine—and considerably less costly. Tradition, however, is firmly embedded in rowing and shellbuilding, and it was nearly a decade before George ventured to replace the Spanish cedar which had been the accepted material for sheathing the boats over many generations.
“Nineteen twenty-seven was the first year I began using our Pacific Northwest lumber—western red cedar—for planking the boats,” he wrote. “Such was the force of tradition in rowing that nothing but Spanish cedar had been considered. But I found the native red cedar to be marvelous material, ideal for the skin of racing shells; impervious to rot and light in weight. It swells and shrinks very little when seasoned three years, air-dried, as we do. Its cells are complete, each containing trapped air. It is the wood eternal. Some of the first shells we built with it are still in regular use forty-five years later . . . nearly twice the useful life of the Spanish cedar boats.” It was typical of George to be pleased that the use of this amazingly durable material “cut the cost of rowing equipment in half.” This would promote the sport he loved, and for him that was the important thing. “Built-in obsolescence” was not a part of George’s business philosophy.
The western red cedar shells were dubbed “banana boats” in rowing circles. The term was not derisive, for they proved to be faster as well as far more durable than the earlier ones, as George explained:
“The name banana came from the fact that the western red cedar boats had an unusual amount of camber, which curved them like a banana. This feature was not built into them. As in the past, they were built on an I-beam which was perfectly straight. The camber appears after they are built and when they are being used for their intended purpose, carrying a crew on water, and is caused by a strange characteristic of this wood. While it shrinks or swells very little across the grain, lengthwise it will swell or extend as much as an inch in the sixty-foot length of an eight-oared shell. During construction, the cedar skin or planking is attached to the framework in a very dry condition, therefore its shortest natural state. When completed and in use, the woodwork naturally takes in some moisture and the cedar wants to swell lengthwise, but the frame work will not let it. So compression builds in the skin and the ends of the shell come up, hence your ‘banana boat.’ We like it, because when you have that compression in the shell, it makes it very lively to row.”
“Our banana boats,” he recalled, “being very successful, were copied by other builders who were ignorant of the qualities and virtues of the western red cedar and constructed them of plywood or mahogany or Spanish cedar. These materials, not being able to swell or extend lengthwise, could not put compression in the boat as ours had. These copies were dead, no life, no spring on the catch of the oars. They might just as well have been constructed of metal!”
George was reluctant to talk of “fast shells.” Only the crews who manned them made them fast or slow. He expressed his opinion this way:
I cannot help saying right here, not having publicly or in advertisements boosted our boats, which gives me a right to say it: whenever a foreign boat wins a race or foreign oars are used, the makers crow about it from the rooftops as though the boat won the race and not the crew. We have always revered the crew. They and they alone are responsible. We try to give them a boat that will do them justice.
The late Gordon Newell was the author of several books on maritime history, including Pacific Tugboats and Mighty Mo, The U.S.S. Missouri: A Biography of the Last Battleship.
As 2023 comes to a close, we would like to take this opportunity to congratulate our authors whose work was recognized this year by many of the leading professional associations and organizations in their field. Please join us in celebrating these authors for their dynamic, engaged, and pathbreaking scholarship.
Winners
What the Emperor Built: Architecture and Empire in the Early Ming by Aurelia Campbell, Winner of the 2023 Bei Shan Tang Monograph Prize, recognizing outstanding and innovative sole-authored monographs on Chinese art history published in the English language, sponsored by the Association for Asian Studies.
This is an innovative work that tells living histories not just through people, but also through rivers, gardens, berry patches, and more. This dynamic and engaging book pursues an Indigenous-centered methodology that speaks to health and healing, ecology and environment, community and sovereignty, past, present, and future, and beyond.
Western History Association awards committee on A Drum in One Hand, A Sockeye in the Other: Stories of Indigenous Food Sovereignty from the Northwest Coast
[A] model of community engagement. . . The book’s unique layout reflects the cultural group’s worldview, values, and ethics, making the information accessible to readers in a way that is itself engaging.
American Folklore Society prize committee on Cherokee Earth Dwellers: Stories and Teachings of the Natural World
Upland Geopolitics: Postwar Laos and the Global Land Rush by Michael B. Dwyer, Honorable Mention for the 2022 CAPE Outstanding Book Award, sponsored by the Cultural and Political Ecology specialty group of the American Association of Geographers.
Christina Fernandez: Multiple Exposures edited by Rebecca Epstein and distributed for the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press, Winner of the Silver Medal in Best Art Books and the Bronze Medal in Best Cover Illustration or Photo in the 2023 International Latino Book Awards.
We are excited to share our Spring 2024 catalog, packed with great books to come in the new year. Inside you’ll find definitive books on Native history and culture; the first biography of one of Montana’s most celebrated writers, Norman Maclean; richly illustrated books on the natural world; essential histories; illuminating art books and exhibition catalogs from our publishing partners, including the Seattle Art Museum, National Nordic Museum, and the Autry Museum of the American West; and more.
Photograph by Mary Randlett, PH Coll 723. Courtesy of University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, Mary Randlett, photographer, UW 41874.
The catalog cover, taken from the forthcoming book Treaty Justice, features a photograph of Billy Frank Jr. (1931–2014), a leader for treaty rights and environmental stewardship, and author and longtime tribal advocate Charles Wilkinson (1941–2023) on traditional Nisqually land at the southerly reach of Puget Sound. An expert and compelling account of the Boldt Decision, which affirmed the fishing rights and tribal sovereignty of Native nations in Washington State, Treaty Justice will be published in January to coincide with the 50th anniversary of this landmark civil rights event.
We invite you to view the full catalog and explore all of our forthcoming books. Now is also a great time to subscribe to our newsletter or update your preferences so that you can receive email alerts when your favorite books are released.
In recognition of Native American Heritage Month, we’ve collected some of the many books that provide testament to the enduring, resilient nature of that history. The books below feature Indigenous authors, contributors, and collaborators, reflecting our longtime commitment to sharing Native American perspectives on their cultures. These essential books will help you discover the rich contributions and history of Indigenous people—from the cultural teachings of Coast Salish elders and stories from the Northwest Coast food sovereignty movement to a celebration of the Cherokee cosmos and parka-making conversations in Southwest Alaska.
“A rich visual feast that honors Pacific Northwest Indigenous life” (Library Journal), Jesintel brings the cultural teachings of nineteen Coast Salish elders to new generations through interviews and photographs. Jesintel—”to learn and grow together”—characterizes the spirit of this richly illustrated book, which illuminates the importance of ethical reciprocal relationships and the interconnectedness of places, land, water, and the spirit within all things.
Drawing from her academic and personal expertise, Charlotte Coté (Tseshaht/Nuu-chah-nulth) explores the politics of food sovereignty for Indigenous Peoples in the Pacific Northwest. Coté shares contemporary Nuu-chah-nulth practices of traditional food revitalization and offers evocative stories of her Tseshaht community’s and her own work to revitalize relationships to haʔum (traditional food) as a way to nurture health and wellness. As Indigenous peoples continue to face food insecurity due to ongoing inequality, environmental degradation, and the Westernization of traditional diets, Coté foregrounds healing and cultural sustenance via everyday enactments of food sovereignty.
Foregrounding Indigenous voices, experiences, and histories, Settler Cannabis offers a groundbreaking analysis of the environmental consequences of cannabis cultivation in California. Kaitlin Reed (Yurok/Hupa/Oneida) demonstrates how the “green rush” is only the most recent example of settler colonial resource extraction and wealth accumulation. Situating the cannabis industry within this broader legacy, the author traces patterns of resource rushing—first gold, then timber, then fish, and now cannabis—to reveal the ongoing impacts on Indigenous cultures, lands, waters, and bodies.
Ayetli gadogv—to “stand in the middle”—is at the heart of a Cherokee perspective of the natural world. From this stance, Cherokee Earth Dwellers offers a rich understanding of nature grounded in Cherokee creature names, oral traditional stories, and reflections of knowledge holders. During his lifetime, elder Hastings Shade created booklets with over six hundred Cherokee names for animals and plants. With this foundational collection at its center, and weaving together a chorus of voices, this book emerges from a deep and continuing collaboration between Christopher B. Teuton (Cherokee Nation), Hastings Shade, Larry Shade, and other Cherokee speakers, educators, and cultural traditionalists. From clouds to birds, oceans to quarks, the expansive Cherokee view of nature reveals a living, communicative world and humanity’s role within it.
Using weaving techniques such as coiling and plaiting as organizing themes, editors Elissa Washuta (Cowlitz) and Theresa Warburton ground this anthology of essays by twenty-seven contemporary Native writers in the formal art of basket weaving. The result is “a veritable feast of First Nations and Native American writers that readers may otherwise never have discovered” (World Literature Today). These ambitious, creative, and visionary works demonstrate the slippery, shape-changing possibilities of Native stories and continue to animate the study and practice of distinct Native literary traditions in North America.
This deeply personal account of the revitalization of the women’s coming-of-age ceremony for the Hoopa Valley Tribe uses a framework of Native feminisms to locate this revival within a broad context of decolonization. Rooted in Indigenous knowledge, Risling Baldy, a member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe, brings us the voices of people transformed by cultural revitalization and considers how this renaissance of women’s coming-of-age ceremonies confounds ethnographic depictions of Native women; challenges anthropological theories about menstruation, gender, and coming-of-age; and addresses gender inequality and gender violence within Native communities.
For this first dedicated study of Tlingit beadwork, Megan A. Smetzer worked with museum collection materials, photographs, archives, and interviews with artists and elders to reframe this often overlooked artform as a site of historical negotiations and contemporary inspirations. At a time when Indigenous cultural practices were actively being repressed, beading supported cultural continuity and gave Tlingit women the freedom to innovate aesthetically, assert their clan crests and identities, support tribal sovereignty, and pass on cultural knowledge. This thoughtful and accessible book demonstrates Tlingit women’s resilience, strength, and power and contributes to the expanding literature addressing women’s artistic expressions on the Northwest Coast.
Based on the exhibition of the same name, this richly illustrated catalog features the work of six artists from Indigenous Nations: Joe Feddersen (Arrow Lakes/Okanagan), Erica Lord (Athabascan/Iñupiat), Geo Neptune (Passamaquoddy), sisters Lily Hope and Ursala Hudson (Tlingit), and Maggie Thompson (Fond du Luc Ojibwe). Their craft speaks to the responsibility of ushering forward cultural traditions while shaping the future with innovative works of art. Through these works, the artists share the honors and burdens that they carry. The exhibition is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Musuem’s Renwick Gallery through March 31, 2024.
Weaving together strands of memoir, contemplation, and fiction, Ernestine Hayes (Tlingit) articulates an Indigenous worldview in which all things are connected, in which intergenerational trauma creates many hardships but transformation is still possible. Using the story of Raven and the Box of Daylight (and relating it to Sun Tzu’s equally timeless Art of War), Hayes expresses an ongoing frustration and anger at the obstacles and prejudices still facing Alaska Natives in their own land, while also recounting her own story of attending and completing college in her fifties and becoming a professor and a writer. Now a grandmother and thinking very much of the generations who will come after her, Hayes speaks for herself but also has powerful things to say about the resilience and complications of her Native community.
Parkas are part of a living tradition in southwest Alaska. Based on nearly two decades of conversations with Yup’ik sewing groups and visits to the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of Natural History, this volume documents the social importance of parkas, the intricacies of their construction, and their exceptional beauty. Featuring over 170 historical photographs and contemporary images, full bilingual versions of six parka stories, and a glossary in Yup’ik and English, this book is a celebration of the vitality of these culturally important garments.
We’re now approaching the end of University Press Week 2023 and the final day of the UP Week Blog Tour. Thanks to you and our university press colleagues for celebrating the ways that university presses give voice to the scholarship and ideas that shape conversations around the world with this year’s theme, #SpeakUP.
Prompted by today’s UP Week Blog Tour theme, “Where do university presses #SpeakUP?,” we are excited to feature one of the many organizations that help to amplify our authors’ work: Humanities Washington.
Humanities Washington works with authors and scholars to bring vital public programming and events to cities and towns across Washington State, in partnership with libraries, museums, and other cultural organizations.
“Humanities Washington helped me connect with communities all across the state that I would not have otherwise,” said Eric Wagner, author of After the Blast: The Ecological Recovery of Mount St. Helens. “Having spent the last five years trying to tell just one part of the story of Mount St. Helens, I loved hearing all the stories other folks had from the eruption. . . . I probably learned more about the mountain from the audience than they did from me.”
“The reach of Humanities Washington throughout Washington State and their network of libraries, community organizations, senior centers, and professional associations provides a robust platform for educating Washington State residents about our region’s critical environmental and cultural history,” said BJ Cummings, author of The River That Made Seattle: A Human and Natural History of the Duwamish.
Read more in our Q&A with Humanities Washington program manager Sarah Faulkner.
First, for those not already familiar, please briefly describe Humanities Washington and the work that you do.
Humanities Washington is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to open minds and bridge divides by creating spaces to explore different perspectives. To this end, we provide cultural programs to tens of thousands of Washingtonians each year. We run a variety of programs, including Prime Time Family Reading, a six-week reading and discussion program for families of young children; Think & Drink, which brings experts to local taprooms to discuss vital issues in a relaxed environment; the Poet Laureate program, which promotes poetry for all; and our Speakers Bureau, which sends forty experts across the state to give free, public presentations in partnership with museums, libraries, and other community venues. All our programs are dedicated to sparking conversation and critical thinking in every corner of Washington.
What is the role that scholars play in Humanities Washington programs?
Scholars are essential to Humanities Washington programs. They serve as panelists for our Think & Drink programs, thus bringing their expertise directly to the public; guide families through reading discussions in our Prime Time Family Reading Program; and serve as ambassadors for the humanities through our Speakers Bureau program.
As a part of the Speakers Bureau, our experts guide audiences through a one-hour interactive presentation that’s designed to teach them something new, help them consider a new perspective, and spark conversation. Scholars share new humanities research and give explanations of complicated topics in accessible yet nuanced language. They’re thought-provoking, engaging, and an immense boon to creating a better informed and engaged Washington. Our programs are especially appreciated in rural areas that may not have access to a university or college, allowing the community to interact with experts from across the state.
Every year, the Speakers Bureau program brings hundreds of free events to cities and towns across the state and many of these events feature UW Press authors. Can you share a highlight or two from the 2021–2023 season?
We’re constantly impressed by the fantastic work our speakers do across the state. UW Press author Eric Wagner did an astounding thirty-five presentations on the ecological recovery of Mount St. Helens. His presentation, entitled “After the Blast: Mount St Helens 40 Years Later,” bridged the gap between the sciences and the humanities to help audiences see the immense impact of human choices on the living world around us.
Wagner traveled to twenty-two different cities, seventeen counties, all ten Congressional Districts, and reached over thirteen hundred Washingtonians through his presentations. I had the pleasure of seeing him present to an audience of 102 people at the Harstine Island Community Club, an incredibly engaged group in rural Mason County. Eric’s warmth, humor, and immense knowledge helped every audience member—from ages ten into the nineties—learn something new and enjoy doing it.
Collectively, the 2021-2023 roster offered almost 400 presentations, over half of which were quickly and deftly adapted to be delivered via Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are so grateful to our presenters, who help us deliver what one Speakers Bureau host calls “their lifeline to ideas.”
The 2024–2025 Speakers Bureau roster was recently announced and includes four UW Press authors. What excites you about these authors and their topics? Can you share more about the presentations that are planned?
We are beyond excited about these authors and their topics! We strive to provide a wide variety of topics on our roster to serve the largest possible audience. We partner with Washington nonprofits to organize these presentations, and our hosts include libraries, museums, historical societies, high schools, carceral institutions, community centers, and more! Thus, we try to provide presentations on a variety of topics, including art, literature, philosophy, society, history, and more. The work of our four UW Press scholars gives a good idea of the variety we have to offer.
In his presentation “Stomp and Shout: The Untold Story of Northwest Rock and Roll,” author and historian Peter Blecha (author of Stomp and Shout: R&B and the Origins of Northwest Rock and Roll) takes us on a sweeping musical journey that covers not only the Greatest Hits of the Northwest but also the lesser known yet vitally important bands that laid the foundation for what Blecha calls “the Northwest Sound.”
Author and journalist David George Gordon returns to the Speakers Bureau with a presentation called “Heaven on the Half Shell: Washington State’s Oyster Odyssey.” In conjunction with the second edition of his coauthored book by the same name, Gordon leads Washingtonians through a natural and social history of the Pacific Northwest’s most beloved bivalve with his famous good humor and passion.
University of Washington professor Josephine Ensign (author of the Washington State Book Award Finalist Skid Road: On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in Seattle) asks audiences to be vulnerable and compassionate as she guides them through her presentation, “Homelessness and the Meaning of Home.” Drawing on both her scholarly research and her personal experience of homelessness, Ensign teaches the history of homelessness and explores the contemporary crisis throughout our state and country through a deeply personal lens.
Ingrid Walker, professor emerita of University of Washington Tacoma (and author of High: Drugs, Desire, and a Nation of Users) asks a bold question: “What If We’re Wrong about Drugs?” Tackling contemporary issues like the opioid crisis, drug (de)criminalization and stigmatization, medical drug use, and addiction, Walker asks if changing our cultural stories about drugs and their users can help us take a new approach to drugs.
And these are just four of the forty presentations we offer (you can find all forty here). We’re incredibly proud of the upcoming roster and the work they’ll do to spark meaningful connections and conversations among neighbors in our state. Whether folks attend to have fun, to debate, to challenge themselves, or to learn about a new culture or topic, we hope that all Speakers Bureau attendees will leave with a new perspective on the world around them.
If you’re interested in any of these presentations, please reach out to Humanities Washington at speakers@humanities.org to see how you can bring them to your city!
Thank you, Sarah, for taking the time to answer our questions!
Thank you, UW Press, for the amazing work that you do to open minds across the state! Happy UP Week!
Visit the UP Week Blog Tour page to learn more about how community organizations, booksellers, libraries, and scholarly societies work with university presses to amplify authors’ work in various communities around the world and join in the celebration of university presses on social media with the #UPWeek and #SpeakUP hashtags!
University of Washington Press Blog 