256 results for: Politics and Politicians
Photograph
Armed policemen during longshoremen's strike, Seattle, July 20, 1934
In the early 1930s, the International Longshoremen's Association, led by San Francisco-based Harry Bridges, tried to unionize all West Coast dockworkers to improve pay and working conditions. In 1934, after employers refused to recognize the union, West Coast longshoremen went out on strike for 98 days, seriously disrupting trade. At Seattle's Smith Cove, picketing strikers blocked access to the piers…
ID Number:PI24007
Date:1934
Photograph
Margaret Starkweather registering to vote, Seattle, September 26, 1964
On September 26, 1964, Margaret Starkweather had her son, Roscoe, bring her down to the Holly Park Wigwam store to register to vote for the upcoming November election. Mrs. Starkweather said "getting her signed up" was his birthday present to her; she would turn 105 years old shortly after the election. Asked for the secret to her longevity, Mrs. Starkweather…
ID Number:PI25072
Date:1964
Photograph
Inauguration of Governor Elisha Peyre Ferry, Olympia, November 11, 1889
Elisha Peyre Ferry (1825-1895) was the first governor of Washington State. Ferry was a Republican lawyer who had twice been Governor of Washington Territory, the only one to serve two terms. On Washington's admission as a state on November 11, 1889, he became its inaugural governor. In his first summer, he had to supervise the rebuilding of three major cities…
ID Number:SHS174
Date:1889
Photograph
Mayor Bertha K. Landes at her desk, Seattle, circa 1927
In 1926, Bertha Knight Landes was the first woman to be elected mayor of a major American city when she became mayor of Seattle. She vowed to clean up city government, running on the platform of "municipal housekeeping." She served only one term as mayor but remained a civic leader in such organizations as the Women's University Club, the Women's…
ID Number:SHS2344
Date:Circa 1927
Photograph
Mayor Bertha Landes breaking ground for the Civic Auditorium, Seattle, November 7, 1927
Seattle Mayor Bertha K. Landes broke ground for the city's new Civic Auditorium and Stadium in November 1927. The complex, at what is now Seattle Center, was completed the following year. Mayor Landes, who served from 1926 to 1928, was the first female mayor of a major American city. The Civic Auditorium later became the Seattle Center Opera House and…
ID Number:SHS8480
Date:1927
Photograph
Mayor Robert Harlan standing by a shack at Hooverville, October 27, 1931
During the Depression of the 1930s, over 600 unemployed people lived in Hooverville, just south of downtown Seattle. There were several other such settlements in the city, and many others around the nation. The average Hooverville resident was a white, unmarried male, about 45 years old. During the booming 1910s and 1920s, he had been a logger, fisherman, miner, or…
ID Number:SHS8661
Date:1931