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Dispatches from Home: Baskets, Baskets, Baskets!

5/3/2020

1 Comment

 
A few years ago, before I started working at the museum, I was wandering around Old Town and I stopped by to visit the Clarke Museum. I checked out the Main Hall and went into Nealis Hall, where I was faced with literally hundreds of baskets of all shapes, sizes, and colors. I walked through the exhibits but when I walked out, I felt like how one feels when they are walking through a forest that they aren't familiar with and someone asks them what kind of plants they saw. I once heard a professor somewhere over at HSU refer to a similar feeling as experiencing the "green blur" while driving down the road.

I knew I saw baskets, but the sheer numbers made it hard to comprehend what I had seen. It wasn't until I started working at the Museum and started learning more about the collections that I began to see the things that made not only different types of baskets different from one another, but recognizing individual baskets. I've come to a much greater appreciation and understanding of the baskets through learning more about them and their regional importance. Of course, there's always more to learn about them, their makers, and the context of their creation and use.

So here's a handy basic identification guide for the next time you come in the museum or visit another one of our local museums that has basketry on display. Keep in mind these are general guidelines- weavers definitely do new things with time, inspiration, and the influence of external forces so there are baskets out there that don't fit into the general identification criteria.

Baby Baskets

​Baby baskets are probably one of the most recognizable baskets in the collection due to their open weave structure (which also floats in water) , their slipper shape, and lifeline. Children would be tied into the baskets with fabric or furs, and baskets also frequently include an openweave dish that shades the child from the sun. they can be worn in a backpack like fashion for transportation. The lifeline is strip of leather or twine with beads, shells, obsidian, or other materials that goes above the baby to represent who the baby is, protect them, and offer some entertainment for the child while they are in the basket.  The basket even includes an option for a disposable diaper- moss goes in the pointed part of the “slipper” for use as a diaper.
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Cooking Baskets

These typically medium sized baskets feature a raised band that goes around the center of the basket and designs that are typically in tan or light brown rather than red or black. They are made with spruce root, which expands when it comes in contact with water, making the baskets virtually waterproof.

Eating Bowls

​These bowls resemble the size of modern ceramic bowls, and also feature the strengthening center band from cooking baskets.
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Cooking basket on left, eating bowl on right. This cooking basket may have been made for the trade, as it lacks a strengthening band.

Storage Baskets

These can range in size, much like how plastic tubs used for storage today range in size. The largest storage baskets may be 3 feet tall and 2-3 feet wide to hold acorns for storage or large items, while smaller ones may be around a a foot wide and a foot tall. Patterns and colors vary, but tend to be a bit more plain.
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Hopper Baskets

Hopper baskets are used in processing acorns. They have a reinforced hole in the bottom, steep incline, a rock is placed underneath it. While they may appear to be broken baskets that are repurposed, they are made specifically for this purpose. 
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Flour Trays

Flour trays are large and circular, and are used for leeching bitter tannins out of ground acorns. They can closely resemble gambling trays, and oftentimes it's hard to tell the difference between the two. Made for the trade flour trays are often incredibly detailed in their design work.
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Gambling Trays

Gambling trays can come in different sizes and, as previously mentioned, closely resemble flour trays. They are circular and detailed in their design work.
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Tobacco Baskets​

​Tobacco baskets can be identified quickly- they are usually egg or teardrop shape with a lid that ties on usually with leather straps. Designs can vary greatly. They are usually one of two sizes, small or large. Traditionally, small baskets were for carrying tobacco on the go and larger ones were for tobacco storage at home. The tobacco cultivated in this region is not the same as tobacco cultivated on the East Coast, it is a local variety.
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Trinket Baskets

The term trinket basket covers a wide swath of sizes and designs of baskets. Structurally, they generally lack the strengthening band that appears on eating bowls and cooking baskets. The designs are usually more elaborate, can include innovative elements, and are sometimes not even circular but oval. They oftentimes include black work made from maidenhair fern, bear grass dyed with alder bark, or porcupine quills dyed with wolf moss. Some include open weave elements, lids or handles, especially on post-contact baskets.
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Caps

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​Basket Caps are frequently mistaken for overturned bowls- however they lack the strengthening band at the center of the basket but oftentimes have one near the lower rim. Design work is featured on the top, middle section, and lower sections of caps (particularly for fancy caps) while some caps are plain (like work caps). Fancy caps include detailed design work, and sometimes feature dentalium shells, beads, or woodpecker scalps. Some weavers interviewed in the 1980s said that porcupine quills dyed yellow with wolf moss were used for weddings, but that might not hold true for all weavers, families, or villages. Some work caps in the Clarke collection were made with spruce root that would swell when it came into contact with water, allowing the cap to be used to hold water.
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Miniature Baskets

​Miniature baskets are simply identified by their size- small! They are oftentimes mini versions of larger baskets. They take a lot of skill and dexterity to make.
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Carrying Baskets

​Carrying baskets can be identified a few ways. They are open weave- made of sticks and open- you can see through them. They can be circular and tall or circular and short with handles,  some are cone shaped and include a leather strap worn on the forehead. They are used in the collection of acorns, carrying supplies like firewood, and transporting other items.
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Wall Mats

​Wall mats are decorative weavings usually hung on the wall. They provide weavers an opportunity to try new designs and an opportunity for new weavers to practice skills. The outer rims of the mats are usually arching sticks woven into one another.
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Medallions

Medallions are small, circular woven pieces that appear typically on necklaces, but can also appear on hair barrettes and other personal adornments. 
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Post-Contact Basketry Work

Basketry made post contact continues to use traditional designs, innovative weaving patterns, and baskets woven for the trade. This kind of work includes baskets made in the Victorian period that catered to Victorian-era purchasing habits and sentiments (Collecting Native-made items for curio cabinets). Weavers were also inspired by the changing world around them , incorporating post-contact materials into their weaving work. 
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Dispatches from Home: Let's Take a Trip to the World's Fair

5/1/2020

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It crosses my mind about once a week how it would be absolutely great to go on a road trip. Gas is cheap, the weather is getting nicer - and then I remember that there's a pandemic and we all need to stay home to get this thing over with. So this week, I went through the archives and looked for some things relating to the World's Fair and Humboldt County's presence in three of them. Humboldt County made a showing in these fairs to help promote tourism and travel to the region as travel became easier, safer, and faster.
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​The World’s Fair, now oftentimes referred to as World Expo, is commonly said to have started in 1851, when the United Kingdom hosted “The Great Exhibition” which showed off the manufacturing prowess of the United Kingdom at the time. People from across the country and around the world came to this and future expositions to learn about new advancements, different cultures (although oftentimes the cultural exhibits were racially biased and skewed), and new places. Humboldt County shows up in at least three Expositions: The 1893 Chicago World’s Fair (also known as the Columbian Exposition), the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, and the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939.

The 1893 Chicago World's Fair

​The fair opened May 1, 1893 and closed October 30, 1893 and took place at Jackson Park on the shores of Lake Michigan. Each state had its own building that housed exhibits- California’s was a 3 story Mission-style building that was the second largest in the fair after Illinois. The State sent 156 train car loads to Chicago to fill the display. Like all of the buildings built for this exposition and many buildings in other expositions, the buildings were made to be temporary. For the Humboldt County exhibit, the organizers got $5500 from the Board of Supervisors and local businesses, which totals to about $155,000 in today’s money. County residents Frank A Wick and John Dolbeer of Steam Donkey fame, nominated fellow resident Martha Herrick to lead the exhibit setup.
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​Herrick was born December 11, 1841 in South Bend, Indiana. Family history traces her lineage back to a Brigadier-General who helped George Washington sign treaties with local tribes. Martha went to St. Mary’s College. She arrived in California in 18589 via Panama to visit a sick brother and married Rufus F. Herrick in San Jose the following year. Her husband worked with local native people. According to Leigh Irvine, who wrote a biography on Herrick along with dozens of other notable Humboldt County Citizens in 1915, Mrs. Herrick and her husband “together... did much for the red men, treating them with kindness and consideration, protecting their rights and at all times according them justice and fair treatment” and were given the “most of the wonderful collection of Indian relics”. 

​Mrs. Herrick was well known for her knowledge on local tribes and according to Irvine,
​“ received gold and silver medals from the Anthropological Societies of the United States and England for her knowledge of the lost arts of the Indians. She is the author of a treatise on the habits and customs of the Indians of Humboldt county (extracts from which were published in the Ethnological Bureau of Smithsonian Institution), which is recognized as an authority on Indian sanitation. Another work along this line is now being compiled by her, its publication being eagerly awaited by those interested in Indian lore, Mrs. Herrick being recognized as the best authority on the history of the Indians in the Humboldt district, as well as on the general county history.”
​With those kinds of accolades, it’s no surprise that Dolbeer and Wick picked out Herrick to run the Humboldt County exhibit, as items from local Native people were popular display pieces at the time due to the prevailing assumption that local native cultures were on the cusp of disappearing completely across the country. Humboldt County of course was a hard place to travel to and these expositions provided a glimpse (granted a biased one towards the settler perspective) into the culture and lifestyles of the area.
​Herrick took up the job and with a full time assistant and part time assistant, constructed an exhibit in a 1300 foot space representing Humboldt County. Herrick wasn’t the only Humboldt County resident representing at the fair – A.W. Ericson was the fair’s official photographer.
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A photo of the Humboldt County Exhibit courtesy of the Humboldt Room/Special Collections at Humboldt State University
​The exhibit brought the Humboldt county ‘wilderness’ to the Chicago fair, filling the space with taxidermied animals, ferns and other living local plants, rocks, native artifacts and displays of foods from the area, including “vegetables of unusual size”. Herrick was also able to secure one of Seth Kinman’s presidential Elk Antler chairs, whalebone chair, and Kinman’s famous mule skull fiddle. Herrick received an award for her exhibit and remained in Chicago through the duration of the fair leading tours and giving lectures.
​At the end of the fair, the money raised in the county had run out before Herrick had a chance to get her return ticket home, so she had to sell some of her collections she had brought with her to raise enough money. Some of the baskets sold because the base of the collection at the Field Museum. Herrick attempted to be reimbursed by the county for the money she had to spend to get back to Humboldt County, but the Supervisors denied her the money.

The 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition

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​In 1915, the World's Fair was hosted in San Francisco, under the title of the Panama Pacific International Exposition. The fair was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal and an opportunity for San Francisco to share their recovery from the devastating 1906 earthquake. 
​Humboldt County participated in a few different ways-
  • There was a “Humboldt County Day” celebrating Humboldt County residents who descended on the fair en masse.
  • Humboldt County also had an exhibit which included the redwood log that later became the Stump House and the Lentell Map which is now on display at the Clarke.
  • A local Yurok  woman trained as a nurse in San Francisco led the parade the opening day of the Exposition. Her name was Bertha Thompson and the article discussing her, penned by Emma Freeman, made the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle.
​The Humboldt County display contained images from Emma Freeman’s California Indian portrait series (which can be most easily found in Peter Palmquist’s With Natures Children), items representing Humboldt County’s incredibly diverse and plentiful agricultural industry, and images of the redwood forests. Souvenir books and pamphlets were also produced for these fairs lauding the natural, cultural, and industrial features of the area.
The following photos are glimpses into some of the booklets of images sold at the Exposition- cameras were not common features of the tourist outfit yet, so people purchased books, programs, and postcards to share views of the exposition with their friends and families back home. Click on the photos to view larger versions!

The Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939

​The 1939 fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition took place in San Francisco on Treasure Island, which was dramatically altered to host the event. This exposition celebrated the completion of the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco-Oakland Bridge. A notable aspect of this exposition was that, according to one news story,  a 364 foot tall redwood tree, noted as the world’s tallest tree, was brought to be put on exhibit in the Redwood Empire building, which housed the Humboldt County exhibit.
Booklets from this event highlight that access to the "Redwood Empire" was easier than ever with the addition of the traffic-free Golden Gate Bridge.
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A promotional video for the World's Fair
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Dispatches from Home-Down the Road...

4/27/2020

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Hi all!
This week, there will be a bit of a break in the blogging action while I work on researching a few more stories for the blog. Here's what is in store down the road.

The Trinity Hospital

We alluded to this in a recent article- stay tuned for more information on the Trinity Hospital and Mad River Hospital.
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Image of the modern-day Trinity Annex at Humboldt State, Courtesy of North Coast Journal

​Types of Baskets and Their Uses

The first time I ever walked into Nealis Hall before I started working here, I had never seen a locally-made basket. I was a bit overwhelmed by all the types and felt something like "basket blindness" as they all blended together in my mind. Learn the hallmarks of different baskets and their uses in this blog post.
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Basket by Carrie Turner, Clarke Historical Museum Collections

Balloon Flight

It's starting to feel a little like summer (on the sunny days, anyway). Watching ballooon-ers was a favorite past time of turn of the century Humboldt County residents- but it wasn't the safest spectator sport.
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Balloonists prepare for flight on the Arcata Plaza

Meet the Weaver: Carrie Turner​

In February of 1982, Coleen Kelley and Craig Irvin interviewed weaver Carrie Turner at Wautek (Johnson's) California. Sections of this interview were used in the publication "Baskets and Weavers" sold at the Clarke Museum. Get a peek into the rest of the interview and some of Carrie's baskets in the Clarke collections in this blog post.
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Humboldt County and the World's Fair

Probably one of my favorite topics- Humboldt County at the World's Fair and other grand exhibitions including the Panama Pacific International Exposition. Can you guess what popular museum artifact appeared in the 1915 Exposition in San Francisco? You'll find out in this story.
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Zipping Along - Sport Races in Humboldt County

There's a lot of open space in rugged Humboldt County- perfect for people who are looking for daring, adventurous hiking or running. Hear the story of Elta Cartwright, a runner who when to the Olympics, the race to Kneeland, and ​the Redwood Empire Indian Marathon, that was run from San Francisco to Grant's Pass, Oregon, a distance of 482 miles, over the Redwood Highway.
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Elta Cartwright and "Flying Arrow" meet during the Redwood Empire Indian Marathon in 1928, the second and last year the race was run.

Meet the Weaver: Vera Ryerson

Part 2 in a series of interviews held by Coleen Kelley and Craig Irvine, this one was conducted with weaver Vera Ryerson in August of 1982. While we don't have any of Vera's baskets, we'll feature images of some of the other baskets in our collections.
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Projectile Points

The Clarke has a large collection of projectile points in storage. Check out some high resolution photos of the points courtesy of CalTrans, and learn a bit more about how the points help us understand the changing lifestyles of early people in the area later known as Humboldt County.
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Anything specific you'd like to learn more about? Let us know in the comments or by emailing us at admin@clarkemuseum.org!

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Dispatches from Home: Staying Connected

4/13/2020

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By the end of this event, I'm sure many of us will have a litany of new digital skills  - video chatting, using Zoom, Facebook Live, email, messenger apps, the whole shebang. Museums and other cultural institutions are right there with you learning how to use these tools as well!
​One of the things I’ve been looking at was how different museums are doing virtual tours of their exhibits during the closures from the virus. Everyone has a little bit of a different approach, from using Facebook live to Zoom and having a cohost to filming, processing, and posting. Some of the videos are just visitors wandering around and pointing out things they see and the title text on interpretive signs (in pre-closure days). I’ve been mulling over the idea of doing something like that for our Museum, as it brings the collections to our community, but also has the possibility of bringing collections  to the world. I’ve virtually toured the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office in Washington DC today and the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, CA near my home town, the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, the National Museum of Funeral History in Texas, and an art museum that had paintings of landscapes with modern additions like bridges and cars (I’m not a specialist in art, as you can tell). They all had different strengths and weaknesses, and everyone highlighted things differently. Some did a continual stream, others picked out specific items, it was all over the board.
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​This going digital aspect of how Museums are addressing the Corona outbreak is only now starting out as we’re realizing that we’ll be in this for a while, but it is already looking like it’ll be a powerful movement. Just like how the Museum Duck War of 2019 and Cowboy Tim are bringing museums to the forefront of viral Twitter feeds and national news, I think these videos will put museums on people’s radar and pique interest to keep in touch and visit in person once the restrictions lift.
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A new version of the Duck War in these times  is the hashtag #museumsfromhome, which our own Nealis Hall Curator Brittany is using in tagging her ongoing #basketoftheday and Marketing Coordinator Dana is using in #artifactoftheday. you can use these hashtags to see what we’re doing and what other museums are doing throughout the closures.
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So, we look forward to seeing you digitally for the time being. If you appreciate the work we’re doing, the easiest thing you can do is like and share it with your friends. You can sign up for our newsletter through our website to get updates on new content, updates on the closure, and more. You can send a few dollars our way through PayPal on our website. You can also become a member- our lowest membership level is $25 for students and seniors, $55 is our household membership, and $100 gets you admission to hundreds of museums across the US (once travel and visiting restrictions are lifted of course). We even have a membership option where you can donate monthly rather than a lump sum, making membership more affordable. 
As a museum professional and a person who likes visiting museums anyway, I want to encourage you: if you enjoy the content that any number of museums are offering right now, please send a few bucks their way or become a member! Some museums are extending memberships purchased now or prior to the epidemic to make up for lost time that the museum is closed. ​​
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We’re all closed but still working as hard as we can to educate from a distance with no income. We are doing all we can to prevent staff layoffs and continue sharing information and stories with the public. At the Clarke, we’re here for Humboldt County’s history and we’re here for you.
We do what we do for you, and we do what we do because of you. Thank you for your continuing support!
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Dispatches from Home - An Abbreviated history of Hospitals in Humboldt County

4/8/2020

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I wrote this post up a while back and thought I had posted it. Guess not! Well the timing couldn't be better. Let's talk about the history of Hospitals in Humboldt County. 
Someone could (and should) write a book on this topic, as hospitals in the county, and the medical field in general in Humboldt County, has a really colorful history. You've got household hospitals, traveling doctors, brotherly feuds, nuns, Unions and Union-busting employers, pandemics, early insurance (more interesting than it sounds), evolving medical practices, treatments, and more. Of course, like most aspects of our area's history, it was colored by the fact that we're a rural, hard to get to area.
Here's a taste of that history.

As Humboldt County’s population continued growing with the industrial boom of turn of the century United States, growing towns needed medical care for a variety of illnesses and unpredictable events that came their way, particularly injuries in the variety of industries here.
It may be surprising, when comparing the hospitals of yesteryear to the hospital of now, that there were, at one point in time, four hospitals operating in the Eureka-Arcata area in the first and second decades of the 20th century. The population of the county in 1900 was around 27,000 individuals, with the number rising to 37,000 by 1920. There were loggers, miners, families, industrialists, and Humboldt county was a bustling place to live. It was also a very dangerous place to live, partially due to it still being a frontier area and the lack of workplace safety regulations.

​Northern California Hospital

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Noah Falk, Charles and Curtis' father, is the guy with the impressive white beard on the right side of the photo.
Even though the area was growing, in a place like Humboldt county, you can never get too far without finding a name you recognize. Charles and Curtis Falk of the Falk family known for their lumber operation and a variety of other endeavors, became local doctors who jointly opened a hospital in 1906 called the Northern California Hospital, located at the corner of Trinity and F Streets. They took pride in their hospital stating that it “incorporated all the modern ideas and scientific principles, such as ventilation, sanitation, light and heating” and was open for use by the public and “reputable physicians”. Additionally, it was a training hospital for nurses.  Charles, the eldest, served as the hospitals president and lead surgeon, which Curtis, the youngest, was the hospital’s secretary and assistant surgeon. After five years in this arrangement, however, trouble was brewing between the brothers.
The trouble came to a boiling point while Charles was hosting a surgery with spectators and Curtis claimed that Charles was using the opportunity to brag about his work. Charles replied that Curtis should buy the hospital and he could run things his way- Charles would even come up with a purchase price for his brother. All this happened while there was a patient on the table anesthetized for surgery. I'm sure an anesthesiologist (if there was one) was sweating nearby.
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A few weeks later, Charles approached Curtis with a purchase price for his share of the hospital, and Curtis claimed that his brother had settled on that number because he knew it was too high and Curtis would turn it down. Next thing you know, Curtis takes Charles down by grabbing him by the throat and throwing him to the ground and knocks Charles out, sending him to the hospital. Curtis then severs ties with his brother’s hospital.
​A few years later, in 1918, Curtis caught typhoid and his brother, Charles, took care of him in the hospital. Once Curtis had recovered, the two brothers then worked on patients who had caught the famous Spanish Flu, an epidemic that wreaked havoc on Eureka. Charles’ hospital stayed open during the outbreak, and only closed when both Charles and Curtis and the matron and assistant for the hospital signed up to join the US Army Medical Corps in November of 1918 and were sent to France
When the brothers returned after their service, they operated independent practices and did not reopen the Northern California Hospital, which ended up changing hands in 1920.

Union Labor Hospital

​Around the same time that Northern California Hospital had taken root, the Union Labor Hospital opened in 1906, which was the first pre-paid health plan in the United States. There was a movement around this time to unionize loggers and other timber workers by the IWW (International Workers of the World, whose members were oftentimes known as Wobblys). 9 unions came together to open the Union Labor Hospital, initially at 5th and B. The organization was socialist oriented, and part of their movement was to open a hospital for the benefit of workers, initially only open to the 9 unions that founded the hospital but later included all unions. It was a hospital with 50 beds and initially supplied its own hospitals until later decades when it was open to the community- any doctor could bring their patients to the hospital to care for them. Payment was done through a ticket system. An individual would purchase a $10 ticket (which is about $280 in today’s market) that would offer complete coverage for the holder against sickness and accidents at work. Initially, these were only available to men, but eventually women and children could also purchase tickets and be cared for at the hospital. Additionally, the hospital was a nursing school that educated three generations of nurses during its operational days with classes supplemented with in hospital work. Most of these nurses remained at the hospital, ensuring a steady staff of available nurses to join the Hospital with the graduation of each class. The patients they cared for were mostly those affected by workplace accidents and excessive drinking.
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A General Hospital certificate for medical treatment. Union Labor issued these as well.
Anti-Union sentiment battered the hospital in its early days- and barely a year after the hospital opened, a huge Union labor strike at a local mill led to the deaths of many of the strikers- but it stayed open and continued to serve patients, even in years when Union support waivered. Following the 1907 strike, employers of union workers required fees of $1 per month, which was used to pay into a fund for injured workers and allowed the worker to be treated at hospitals pre-chosen by the company, of which the Union Labor Hospital was excluded. A legal battle ensued, and temporarily the Union Labor Hospital was able to get an injunction to stop companies from charging workers the $1 per month fee, but it was later overturned in 1910. There were many workers, however, who paid the $1 fee required by their employer while also paying the $10 per year ticket for service at Union Labor Hospital and were cared for there rather than at the company- directed hospitals.
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When Union support subsided, the hospital teamed up with additional unions to support the hospital and encourage people to be treated there. The board of the hospital opened up to include a union representative from each American Federation of Labor union, which had absorbed smaller local unions like the International Brotherhood of Woodsmen and Sawmill workers.
It was noted as a high quality hospital with knowledgeable staff and clean rooms and was very popular locally. When it sought to build a home for nurses adjacent to the hospital, patients donated $20,000 to the cause.
The hospital, which changed its name to General Hospital sometime around 1954, continued to serve patients through the year 2000, when it was purchased by another operator.

St. Francis Hospital

Across the street from the Humboldt County Historical Society is a unique looking Victorian home- its entryway facing the corner of the city block it sits on. This was the former Ricks house, considered one of the greatest examples of Eastlake architecture in Eureka. The Ricks were a wealthy family, Thomas Ricks was a business and land owner and Eva Ricks was an extensive landowner in her own right. The home was leased to the board of St. Francis Hospital in 1907, and some documents noted as the first privately owned hospital in the County, although it seems that Northern California Hospital may actually have that title. The hospital treated workers from the mills, docks, and factories and operated for three years, during which it conducted an “unprecedented kidney operation” and was widely regarded as a top hospital in the area. Due to poorly managed finances, it merged with Sequoia Hospital, which operated until 1925 when it was closed and the building leased to the Young Women’s Christian Association.
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The Crossroads

In 1918, when Curtis and Charles Falk were fighting the Spanish Influenza alongside numerous doctors and nurses, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange were chipping in to the cause by opening their Nazareth Academy to house the sick. Even though the sisters did not have medical training, they visited the sick in their homes and did what they could to help.
Once the Influenza epidemic drew to a close along with the Northern California Hospital as the Falks took off for France, Mother Bernard persuaded the city of Eureka to reopen the Northern California hospital. It was purchased for $20,000, which was paid through trading property. The Sisters were sent to medical training in San Francisco and to the Mayo Clinic for their medical training and returned to a reopened Northern California Hospital, whose name had been changed to St. Josephs. The hospital was to also be a training hospital and this location served the community until the Sisters built a new hospital on Dolbeer in 1954.
In 2000, after a little under a century in operation, General Hospital was also purchased by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange.
Here's a handy-dandy-low-budget (i.e DIY by me) graphic showing the consolidation of hospitals and healthcare in Eureka/Arcata. Orange boxes note hospitals owned and operated by St. Josephs. You'll notice a hospital at the bottom of the graphic that I haven't mentioned... Stay posted for the story of the Trinity Hospital and Mad River Hospital.
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Dispatches from Home - A Taste of Humboldt

3/31/2020

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Day ??? of Shelter in place and soon I’ll have polished off a 30 pack of tortillas and pound of salsa. I’m looking through my cupboards to see if there is anything, anything different I can make with random odds and ends that I have. Ooh, mac and cheese. That’ll do.
Back in the before times (before shelter in place that is), I picked up a cookbook of recipes from different immigrant groups that have come to Humboldt County over time. The book was published in 1987 and I think is out of print now. It was produced by YES at Humboldt State to raise money for scholarships. It’s actually a great historical resource, giving a short discussion of different immigrant groups that came to the county, when they came here, and what trades they participated in, and where they settled, thanks to help from a number of big names in the local history world - Lynwood Carranco, Martha Roscoe, Peter Palmquist, and Jack Norton to name a few.  It also has all kinds of tasty recipes that people brought with them in their travels to the county, and some that were modified when they got here. There are local Native American, Welsh, Laotian, Danish, Italian, English, Swiss, Mien, Indian, Finnish, Norwegian, Greek, Mexican, even the Midwest attributions in the book, from people located all around the county (that’s not an exhaustive list of the different ethnic backgrounds of the foods in the book by the way, it goes on and on). ​
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My Aebleskiver pan that I found at a yard sale in San Diego.
In the book, there are some recipes I recognize from my own family. Aebleskivers come to mind. I’m not exactly sure how a Danish recipe ended up in our German and Luxembourgian family (I think I’m 4th or 5th generation American), maybe it was from my grandparent’s frequent visits to Solvang where the fried dough and related accoutrements are sold.  There are also some other ones I’d like to break out at a post-pandemic party (Pink Elephant Party Punch with Grenadine, lemonade, orange juice and a bit of vodka- maybe hold the vodka - recipe from Sylvia Molloy of Bayside), and all kinds of bread. Breadmaking seems to be making a comeback with people at home looking for things to do- and this book is not short on bread recipes. Yugoslavian ones, Portuguese ones, ones with unknown origins...

Oh my and it has cookie recipes.

Cookies are some of my go-to recipes when I’m having a tough day or know someone else who is. There’s an oatmeal cookie one that sounds tasty, oh, and a peanut butter cookie one that also sounds tasty…
For you enjoyment, here’s those two recipes:

Old fashioned Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup raisins
½ cup hot water
¾ cup butter
½ cup sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
2 ½ cups flour
½ tsp ground cloves
1 tsp baking soda
3 cups rolled oats
1 ½ tsp salt
1 ½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
Soak raisins in hot water for five minutes; drain, reserving liquid. Combine butter, sugars, and eggs; beat until fluffy. Set aside. sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and spice. Blend into sugar mixture. mix in ¼ cup raisin liquid, adding water if necessary. Add oats and raisins, drop onto greased cookie sheets by teaspoonfuls. 
Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Makes 4 dozen cookies.
This cookie recipe has been passed down through three generations of my family. My grandmother made them for my father when he was a child, and they continue to be his favorite cookie. Now I make the cookies for Dad and enjoy them as much as he does. They are the best oatmeal cookies I have ever tasted.
Michelle Farden, Arcata

Grandma Poe’s Peanut Butter Cookies (this one had a star next to it and a rusted paperclip mark from its previous owner- probably a favorite recipe)
½ cup each of the following: Peanut Butter, shortening, white sugar, and brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1 large egg
1 ½ cups flour

Cream butter, shortening, and sugars. add baking soda and salt. add egg, and beat well. Add flour. Roll in small balls and put on a greased cookie sheet. press both ways with a fork.
bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Makes 3 dozen.
Grace and Ed Poe from Trinidad were my adopted grandparents. They often came to stay overnight with us in Arcata. We loved to see them come. Grandma always brought something good to eat. My favorite were these cookies.
Paula Flannery, Bayside

The book also includes little stories from some of the recipe contributors, like the ones listed in the last two recipes. Another story was one from Carol S. Kausen of Fortuna who says that she found the recipe for her holiday “Delightful “No Bake” Dessert” from a friend of a friend who was a caretaker on one of the Russ family ranches. She was really impressed with the recipe and made it a part of her holiday traditions for the next 50 years.
A word of caution however, look how many it serves before you break into making a recipe from this book- some serve a small dinner party while others serve 25 or more!
In all, if you’re looking for a book that gives you a rundown of the early immigration history to Humboldt County and some recipes for your shelter in place party of 1 (or your household), this is the book for you!
 If you’re looking for me this weekend, I’ll be in the kitchen baking up a storm. Too bad I’ll have to keep the cookies to myself…
Stay safe, stay healthy, and stay home!
-Katie
3 Comments

Dispatches from Home - Disaster Journaling

3/30/2020

2 Comments

 
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Kitty enjoys helping me with quilt projects- in this case by keeping my lap warm while I do some hand stitching
So now we’re at… week 2 of working from home, probably somewhere like week three for  being closed to the public? Check with local health authorities and those folks as they know best, but from the information I’ve picked up, we’ll be in this boat for a little bit. I’m sure many of you are looking for something to do, some way to look forward to a future where we can all go outside and enjoy the company of others without fear. I know I am. I miss seeing friends and family, not to mention thrift shopping, the Redwood Empire Quilters Guild, going to a movie… But I get why we have to do what we have to do, so I’ll keep myself busy with work, sewing, baking, and reading. Ah, and of course hanging out with my absolutely archaic cat, Kitty (she’s 21 and I think is powered by sunlight).
I’m part of a Facebook Group called Archivist Think Tank (along with a few other history-related groups) and someone mentioned the idea of encouraging people to write about their experiences during this time in journals, and later donate those journals (or copies) to their local history organizations for future researchers trying to understand the pandemic’s affect on the community. (Not to mention that journaling is a great way to relax and decompress after a difficult day or event).
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We, in the larger history organization sense of the word, have journals, newspapers, letters and more from another life changing event -the 1918 epidemic. The journals and lettersgive us an inside look at the event from the view of people who lived through it, and a view into how the epidemic affected individuals and communities, while the papers give us a larger picture idea of what was going on. These resources have been used locally to write up articles on local responses to the 1918 epidemic, and these articles can be found over at the Historical Society. You can also read excerpts from a diary by someone who lived through the epidemic on their website, linked here. Their Facebook page has been very active through these events in sharing the steps local residents took to protect themselves and their community in 1918, some of which are similar to today. Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing how archivists will be preserving all the art and culture that has been shared through digital means like Facebook Live videos during the pandemic, but that is a thing for another day. Now is the time to start creating that paper record of COVID-19 for future researchers. I wonder how many people are clipping newspaper articles, writing down their thoughts, and documenting how the world is changing around us as this event continues on. ​
​I grew up in San Diego (North County, the Vista-Oceanside area for those who are familiar with the area) and I remember getting ahold of the newspaper each day during the 2008 fires and hacking out photos and articles on the event. I didn’t include notes, just taped the articles into a scrapbook that is still at my parent’s house. I remember a picture taken during a flyover of a burned area - two cul-de-sacs in a cookie cutter neighborhood side by side, one circle had all its houses intact except one, and the other all of the homes except one had burned. I believe it was on the front page of the paper that particular day.
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One of the melted car window photos my dad took during the fires
My dad worked for the power company, so he was part of the first group that went into the burned areas after the fires passed to rebuild the electrical infrastructure that had been decimated. He carried around a disposable camera with him to show us some of the crazy things he saw. I vividly remember him sharing a picture with us of a burned over car where the window was melted down the side of the car and in a puddle on the ash-black ground. Another image was of a power pole, where only the cross-arm (where the power lines cross the power pole) and the transformer was left- the fire had burned so fast the bottom of the pole went up but not the cross-arm. I know people to this day that have artifacts recovered from those events, a melted piece of metal that was formerly an engine block, shined up and hanging on a wall. A burned page from a magazine, with an address miles away from where it was found, carried by the wind. During that event, I sewed a lot. Nothing very fancy because I was just using random fabric that I found and I was only 12 or so, but I still have some of those things in a box that remains at my parents house called my fire box. That is the one thing they need to grab from my room if the house is on the fire path. It lives near the door to my room so it’s accessible.

These things - events, experiences, items- stay with us and we carry them with us for the rest of our lives, physically and mentally. I didn’t lose my house in that fire or the ones that have happened in more recent years, but I know people who did and they will tell you the same thing.
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Initially, I wasn’t sure how long this pandemic was going to last, but eventually I began to own the fact that this will be our new normal for a bit, so I’m keeping a journal of sorts.
My journal is a little different than paper and pen story telling - I’m making a quilt block a day and jotting down thoughts on the quilt block, along with what was going on while I made it. Some I made while livestreaming on my Facebook. Some turned out wonky which may have been due to quilter error to be honest. The book I’m working from is of quilt blocks turned into pot holders, but I figure it’s a good chance to use up some fabric that I might not use otherwise, learn some new blocks, and keep myself busy during shelter in place. The book is structured in a way where you make a potholder a week for a whole year, so since I started this 6 days ago, I now have 46 days worth of blocks left. If all these blocks get made, it’ll make a quilt (roughly) 80 inches by 60 inches. With borders and all, that thing will be HUGE - but toasty warm and sure to keep me cozy in the fall when we may very well have to go into quarantine again with a resurgence of the virus (which happened in 1918 and very well might happen again). I’ll have to find another book of potholders a week if that’s the case, and stock up on fabric!
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My first 6 quilt blocks
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My 1955 Featherweight sewing machine
I realize now that the comfort I’ve taken in making these blocks and sharing them through social media and with my mom’s group of quilters (many of whom weathered the 2008 fires at our house when they were evacuated and needed a place to go) is just bringing me full circle. Quilting has helped me before, and it continues to help me now. Part of that is the experience of making things, part is the feeling of holding fabric, and part is the community that comes from the act of making something.
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So break out some paper and jot down your thoughts in this crazy time, make some art, do some baking (I’d like to see a recipe book somehow come out of this) and we will hear from you as we trek through it together and on the other side when we can all get out in the streets and dance together- and get burritos from Los Giles at the Friday Night Market. YUM.
Until then, stay safe, stay healthy, and stay home!
-Katie

2 Comments

Dispatches from Home - Local History Books

3/26/2020

2 Comments

 
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:
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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.
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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. 

​
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.
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(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?
2 Comments

Update to the Hover Collection Display

2/29/2020

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From Curator/Registrar Brittany Britton:
The Hover Collection came into the Clarke Museum in 1983 and another portion in 1996. It is a landmark collection of mainly baskets by Karuk weavers, but also representing other Yurok and Wiyot weavers. The collection has been on display since, and has had various exhibits curated from the 275+ item collection including basketry, regalia, utilitarian items and more. 

The Hover Collection case itself was in need of updating from being covered floor to wall in carpeting from the late 1980's. A major update of signage was needed for readability as well as newer detailed information related to the collection from Ron Johnson's 2015 Hover Collection Catalog. 
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A mock up of what the Hover case would look like after carpet removal and painting.
Remodeling the case took removing the collection, shelving and layers of fabric and carpet inside the case. From there it took a few passes of sanding and scraping to get to where we could prime and paint the walls. 

​The update features new signage reflecting the history of the collection starting with Emma Pearch, a Karuk weaver, collecting baskets and moving through the family of weavers and collectors until Lee Hover donated the collection in 1983. 

Come down and see the collection with an updated lens! If you favorite is not on the shelf, never fret - baskets from the 275+ item collection are rotated twice a year so the collection can rest from light exposure. 

​
2 Comments

135 Years Ago Today...

2/6/2020

4 Comments

 
135 years ago today, the Chinese population of Eureka was expelled following increased tensions and a flashpoint- the accidental shooting of Councilman Kendall. ​
In the days leading up to the expulsion, local papers note that there was an increase in gunfire in and around Chinatown between Chinese residents. The papers neglect to go into why the gunfights occurred, and instead wave them off as foolishness on the side of the Chinese. In one of these gunfights, two bystanders were hit- Councilman Kendall and a young boy. Kendall was killed while the young boy was hit in the foot by a stray bullet and survived. Within an hour, word had gotten out about Kendall’s death and hundreds of people had assembled in the area. A meeting was called at nearby Centennial Hall to determine what should be done. A committee, known as the Committee of Fifteen comprised of leading men in the city was formed to speak with the leaders of Chinatown and tell them that the Chinese had 24 hours to pack up their things and be out of Eureka.
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A Sanborn map from May 1886, showing vacant Chinatown and nearby Centennial Hall. Library of Congress.
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Charlie Moon, frequently named as the only remaining Chinese man in Humboldt County following the Chinese Expulsion, is show on the far right of this image.
​Following the Eureka expulsion, the Committee of Fifteen encouraged other towns in the county to expel their Chinese residents. The expulsion from Eureka was praised as so thorough that not a single Chinese resident remained in the county- a myth that was widely shared for decades after the event. Local papers listed the names and businesses of the organizers for the Eureka Expulsion, encouraging readers to support their businesses and endeavors in thanks for their service on the Committee of Fifteen.
This is usually the story that is told about the event- but it doesn't end there. 
There were local individuals who supported the Chinese community, however, this was a widely unpopular stance that was not largely supported in the local press at the time. Reverend Huntington was one person who appears in the record as a supporter of the local Chinese community, offering classes to students and helping to save one of his students from being hanged by an angry mob thinking that the student, Charley, was trying to hide during the 1885 Expulsion.  Another man, mentioned only as Rich the Minister of the Methodist Church, also spoke out against exclusion at the meeting immediately after Kendall was shot.
Huntington recorded in his journal (which can be read at the Humboldt County Historical Society) that someone at the Centennial Hall meeting following Kendall’s death proposed massacring everyone in China Town, which was declined. The next proposition was to loot and burn China Town, forcing its residents into the forest around the town and leaving them to the elements.
Sheriff Brown spoke at the meeting following these propositions, saying “Before anything there was done, I want you to understand that I am Sheriff of Humboldt County, sworn to uphold the law and I will do so to the end. That if anybody starts anything violating the law, they’ve got to reckon with me and my deputies”. He also called out the National Guard to protect the prison where 20 Chinese men accused of having been part of the gun fight that killed Kendall were being kept. This was the first time the National Guard was called out locally since Eureka was founded.
Earlier in the year, one story notes on January 13, 1885, there was a news story in the Times-Telephone concerning the Chinese, but with a different slant. It indicated some of the Chinese wanted to settle down, contrary to the narrative that all Chinese came to work, earn money, and go back to China. The news item read “Judge Maguire has decided that Chinese children are entitled to admission into the public schools of the State. The Judge says there is no law in California to prohibit Chinese children from attending the public schools and that if there was, it would be clearly unconstitutional, as being in direct conflict with the Constitution of the United States...” the newspaper added: “this will further relieve our school trustees from the annoyance of answering further questions concerning the little Chinese girl that attends the primary school on Fourth Street, and we know they will be glad the matter is settled.” More research is needed to get the entirety of this story and connect it to similar events in other places.
In other places in the country, Chinese populations and individuals took cases to local, state, and federal courts. After the Eureka expulsion, many of Eureka’s Chinese residents in San Francisco called a meeting to demand reparations for not only property left behind (and later taken by Eurekans), but as victims of what could have become a massacre. Consul Bee, the Chinese consul in San Francisco argued that “all of the Chinese expelled are not criminals. Many of them are peaceable merchants, whose business has been broken up by their expulsion.” The consul built a case against the city’s actions and  rightfully claimed that the outcome of his case Wing Hing v. Eureka, would set a precedent in future expulsion events- however the results were not in their favor. The case was dismissed under unclear circumstances, and other communities took note that expulsions could be repeated legally across the country without repercussions. (the entirety of the court case documents submitted by the Chinese in this case, titled Wing Hing v. Eureka, is available digitally from Humboldt State University's Special Collections.)
Between 1882 and 1905, Chinese individuals nationally filed more than 10,000 federal lawsuits, with 20 of them being sent on to the Supreme Court, including Yick Wo v. Hopkins in San Francisco, which required permits for the operation of laundries- all 80 white applicants were permitted and none of the 200 Chinese applicants were permitted. United States v. Wong Kim Ark was another case which cemented a key point in US immigration- Wong Kim Ark was born in the United States to two Chinese parents who, due to their being Chinese at a time when Chinese individuals could not become naturalized Citizens, unlike immigrants from other areas.  Ark left to visit family in China and was denied reentry, so he took his case to the courts, which established an important precedent for the 14th amendment, which in part grants US citizenship to those born in the United States, even if their parents are not legal citizens. A big part of why this ruling was not challenged was because it would greatly complicate citizenship for a large portion of the population, including those with parents born in Europe.
More research is needed to continue expanding the narrative on the early Chinese community in Humboldt County, and I hope that our current exhibit, this blog post, and a forthcoming article in the Humboldt Historian help to encourage that research and inspire others to look more deeply into the story. 
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