Oregon Historical Quarterly Summer 2004

Tangled Nets: Treaty Rights and Tribal Identities at Celilo Falls, by Andrew H. Fisher
Since the days when the fur trade dominated the Pacific Northwest, Euro-American ideas of private property have affected Native Americans' relationships to natural resources. Historian Andrew Fisher explores the influence of legal and cultural concepts of fishing, property, and treaty rights on individual and group identity among Indians of the Columbia River. He argues that “even as the courts upheld treaty rights and encouraged tribal unity, they also set up conflicts between the federally recognized tribes and the off-reservation communities near the fisheries.” Using records from the Tribes, Congress, the Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and other institutions, Fisher examines the relationship between tribal and individual identities in relation to fishing rights at Celilo Falls and concludes that “the redefinition of fishing rights has been a gradual and difficult process in which the River People played a significant role.”

Chief Lelooska: The Evolution of an Artist, by Chris Friday
Don Smith began carving curio items for sale in his family shop as a boy and was given the name Lelooska by Nez Perce elders after, at the age of thirteen, he carved an exceptional doll representation of Chief Joseph. Chris Friday traces Lelooska’s artistic development as a carver in the tradition of Northwest Coast Indian Art. Largely based on oral history interviews, the article offers an eloquent description not only of one man’s personal experience but also of the ways in which Northwest Coast Indian Art and cultural tradition were conveyed to people living in or visiting the region during the twentieth century.

Oregon, the Beautiful, by Ives Goddard and Thomas Love  (download the article pdf)
Linguist Ives Goddard and anthropologist Thomas Love combined efforts in the latest attempt to determine the meaning of the name Oregon. They argue that “The evidence we have uncovered for the origin of Oregon in the Algonquian languages of New England supplies the missing link between [Robert] Rogers and a plausible linguistic source.” Using seventeenth- and eighteenth-century maps, Rogers’s journals, and detailed study of Algonquian languages, the scholars make an argument for the Northeastern origins of the name of this far western state.

The Right Side of the 1960s: The Origins of the John Birch Society in the Pacific Northwest, by Eckard V. Toy, Jr.
Cold War-era fears of Communism led Robert H.W. Welch, Jr., to form the John Birch Society in December 1958, and he began recruiting members in the Pacific Northwest in September 1959. “Nearly half a century after its birth, scholars still know little about the origins and activities of the John Birch Society,” in large part because of the secretive nature of the organization. In his work to fill in the historical record, Eckard Toy reviewed archival material, newspaper articles, and books written by Welch. He determines that “the John Birch Society linked historic regional themes of anti-radicalism and social conservatism, but the organization’s ideological center reflected the primary influence of the Cold War.”

Oregon My Oregon, by Stephen Dow Beckham
A new permanent exhibit opening in July, Oregon My Oregon displays part of the Oregon Historical Society’s extensive collections of “artifacts and stories that document the human experience in the Pacific Northwest.” The exhibit’s curator and writer, Stephen Dow Beckham, explains the challenges of placing the state’s history in a larger context and demonstrating Oregon’s “pluralism of cultures and society” while maintaining “a strong chronology and seek[ing] to develop a sense of history.”

Oregon Voices
The Southern Route Revisited, by Ross A. Smith
Ross Smith draws upon the recently rediscovered reminiscences of Levi Scott, one of the leaders of the first emigration over the Southern Route or Applegate Trail, to consider the problems encountered during the attempt to open a new overland route to the Oregon Country. The new route was longer than the standard northern route and passed over difficult terrain, delaying the emigrants as they struggled to get their wagons and possessions to the Willamette Valley settlements in 1846.

Research Files
Documenting Utopia in Oregon: The Challenges of Tracking the Quest for Perfection, by James J. Kopp
“The task of documenting utopia in Oregon is in itself a utopian ordeal,” writes James Kopp. His exploration of this task is useful not only for those interested in Oregon’s historic utopian communities but also for any historian faced with the challenge of understanding the minimal remains of the past. Kopp traces his own attempts to locate material related to the nineteenth-century Aurora Colony to demonstrate subtle opportunities for historic interpretation.

Spotlight on Affiliates
Union County, Oregon, History Project

Jack Nisbet, Visible Bones: Journeys across Time in the Columbia River Country, reviewed by William D. Layman

Peter Boag, Same-Sex Affairs: Constructing and Controlling Homosexuality in the Pacific Northwest, reviewed by Lawrence M. Lipin

David L. Bigler, Fort Limhi: The Mormon Adventure in Oregon Territory, 1855–1858, reviewed by Thomas G. Alexander

Larry Cebula, Plateau Indians and the Quest for Spiritual Power, 1700–1850, reviewed by Andrew H. Fisher

Lawrence M. Woods, Asa Shinn Mercer: Western Promoter and Newspaperman, 1839–1917, reviewed by Floyd J. McKay

Dennis Baird, Diane Mallickan, and W.R. Swagerty, editors, The Nez Perce Nation Divided: Firsthand Accounts of Events Leading to the 1863 Treaty, reviewed by G. Thomas Edwards

 

Richard W. Etulain and Ferenc M. Szasz, editors, The American West in 2000: Essays in Honor of Gerald D. Nash, reviewed by Richard S. Kirkendall

Frank N. Schubert, Voices of the Buffalo Soldier, reviewed by Monroe Billington

Mick Gidley, editor, Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian Project in the Field, reviewed by Jerry R. Galm

Susan H. Armitage, editor, with Patricia Hart and Karen Weathermon, Women’s Oral History: The Frontiers Reader, reviewed by Laura McCreery

Ken Egan, Jr., Hope and Dread in Montana Literature, reviewed by Rick Newby

Kathryn Morse, The Nature of Gold: An Environmental History of the Klondike Gold Rush, reviewed by Duane Smith

Paul Schullery and Lee Whittlesey, Myth and History in the Creation of Yellowstone National Park, reviewed by Richard A. Bartlett