Dispatches from Home - Local History Books

Hi all! 
I’ve been working from home per the shelter in place order since… last week? Time really seems to be blurring as my house is really quiet besides when my cat decides to sing to me at 3 am for no reason.
I miss being at the museum and working with my coworkers, walking around Old Town on my breaks, and talking with visitors about the exhibits. I also miss the events we host, inviting people into the museum to learn, talk, and form friendships.
However, for the good of our community, we’ve all been asked to stay home and find other ways to occupy our time. Museum work is never done, so we’re all keeping busy behind the scenes. Brittany has been posting Baskets of the Day on our Instagram, Marketing and Outreach Coordinator Dana is working on Artifacts of the Day, Registrar Alex is studying up on professional standards for storage collection, and I'm researching for upcoming exhibits.

Part of what I’ve been doing, is reading up on local history. Luckily, there is definitely no shortage of books on our region’s history! Here’s what I’ve been reading:

When Money Grew on Trees: A.B. Hammond and the Age of the Timber Baron (Greg Gordon, University of Oklahoma Press, 404 pages, 482 if you include the bibliography and index)
I admit I started reading this before all the closures, but the closure time gave me a good boost in finishing it.  I first heard about it when talking with Jim at the Historical Society, who read me part of the first page – it told a story of Hammond’s funeral, where rumor says that while his casket was being carried into the funeral, he sat up outraged at the pallbearers being paid- that two of them should be fired and the others have their wages cut. Talk about a hook!
The book can look daunting and sometimes reading parts of it was, but it really revved back up as the author began discussing Hammond and his being at odds with organized labor, how Humboldt County’s organized labor situation was a bit different from most other places, and the start contrasts between Hammond and other lumber owners (like William Carson, the Falk family, etc). Chapter 15 on how the industry changed was notable, as most books talking about logging in the redwoods start out with the story of the redwood tree. Gordon introduces this and the evolution of the industry way late in the book (which was fine by me as I wasn’t really reading the book for the purpose of understanding that aspect) but it worked really, really well and moved perfectly into the discussion of labor in the following chapter.

Driven Out:  The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans (Jean Pfaelzer, University of California Press, 351 pages, 400 with notes and index)
I’m about 40 some pages into this and it’s already a darn incredible book. The author has done a really great job in explaining how ideas around slave and immigrant labor transferred from African Americans to the Chinese, how popular and government responses to Mexican and South American immigrants as well as local Native people set up the structure for legal and legally encouraged discrimination and violence, and gives examples with details of different events where Chinese communities were driven away from their livelihoods and residences in California and the West. I’m really looking forward to reading the rest of the book. It does get graphic at times, but that was the nature of California in the Gold Rush era. 

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Here are a few other books worth checking out in quarantine (you may be able to get them from Eureka Books if they are still open for deliveries. The Historical Society also has many of these books in their book store so contact them about possibilities for shipping. Some of these may also be available digitally through the library on Libby, Overdrive, etc). I have read many of these, but some have been recommended to me, some I have seen and heard good things about, etc.

• The textbook trifecta of Humboldt County’s history (in my opinion)
  • Two Peoples, One Place – Ray Raphael and Freeman House
  • Both Sides of the Bluff – Jerry Rohde 
  • Place Names of Humboldt County – Dennis W. and Gloria H. Turner
• Logging History
  • Falk’s Claim – Jon Humboldt Gates
  • Falk: Company Town of the American West – Julie Clark. Mainly images, but also lots of good information in the captions
• Location- Based History:
  • Rio Dell – (Wildwood) As I saw it in the early Twenties by Julio Rovai – out of print and hard to find but this one, along with the sequel are fascinating, rambling stories of life in Rio Dell and its neighboring Wildwood during the Prohibition era.
• Redwoods History
  • Coast Redwood: A Natural and Cultural History – edited by John Evarts and Marjorie Popper, written by Michael Barbour, Sandy Lydon, Mark Borchert, Marjorie Popper, Valerie Whitworth, and John Evarts
  • The Fight to Save the Redwoods: A History of Environmental Reform, 1917-1978 by Susan R. Schrepfer. Very high level academic-y but it is probably the most thorough resource out there to understand how the Redwood National and State Parks came to be
  • Who Saved the Redwoods: The Unsung Heroine of the 1920s Who Fought for Our Redwood Forests- women who kickstarted and fueled the early movements to save the redwood forests in California. Includes many local names as some of the hardest hitting women in the fight lived in Humboldt County.
  • The Wild Trees by Richard Preston– a bit popularized, but tells the story of the search for the tallest trees in the world
  • Humboldt Redwoods State Park The Complete Guide by Jerry and Gisela Rohde (out of print now, unfortunately, but a great resource if you can find it)
  • The Last Redwoods and the Parkland of Prairie Creek by Francois Leydet and the Sierra Club- published post 1968 park establishment while there was a movement to expand the park. Incredible photos! The Sierra Club was a big proponent in the expansion of the park to many people’s surprise as we hear more about Save the Redwoods League when it comes to redwoods.
  • A Good Forest for Dying by Patrick Beach– also a bit popularized but really well-written story about a young man who died during the fight for Headwaters Forest, along with the larger forces that led up to David Chain’s death. It does a good job of contextualizing why the fight for Headwaters was as powerful as it was.
• Native History – this isn’t my forte, but I will include a few books that I’ve read and heard good recommendations from (what’s that website with Native folks reviewing books?
  • We are Dancing for You by Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy. Very academic in many parts, but very thorough in discussing ties between feminism, native cultures, ceremonies, revitalization of cultures, and the enduring spirit of cultural revitalization.
  • In the Land of the Grasshopper Song by Mary Ellicott Arnold and Mabel Reed – a story of two “Matrons” sent to live and work with tribes on the Klamath River as part of a government-supported program to promote assimilation in local tribes.
  • Ka'm-T'em: a collection of essays from local native scholars. A relatively new publication, I think it came out last year. I haven’t read it but recognize many of the names associated with it as highly respected scholars and local native people.
• Labor History
  • Organize! The Great Lumber Strike of Humboldt County, 1935 by Frank Onstine and Rachel Harris – I haven’t gotten around to reading this yet, but after reading the Hammond book that discussed organized labor issues and the role of organized labor in anti-Chinese movements, I’d like to look into what the state of organized labor was in the county leading up to the 1935 strike.
• Not books but…
  • The Humboldt Historian! If you’re a student or have access to EBSCO, all Humboldt Historian articles are accessible digitally! If you’re a member, you can also access many old issues digitally through the Historical Society’s website.

(Note: I wasn't paid to recommend any of these books! I purchased most if not all of them at local second hand stores or through eBay's used book section. If you use Amazon, pick us out on Amazon Smile when you order and we get some money from the sale with no extra cost to you!

I hope I inspired some of you to dive into some reading on local history. What are some of your favorite local history related books or topics?