• • 1   WW II
  • 2   Cold War
  • 3   Postwar Politics
  • 4   Role of Women
  • 5   1950s Change
• •  6   Intellectual
  •  7   Civil Rights
  •  8   Division
  •  9   Counterculture
  • 10  Nixon Era
• • 11   Era of Limits
  • 12   Reagan Revolution
  • 13   Culture Wars
  • 14   Environment
  • 15   Retrospective

Week One:  World War II

Maps & Cityscapes this week features a wartime housing project in Tacoma, which was named after the coastal Salish people. We'll take a look at historical maps to look for evidence of local tribes through time.

WWII poster resources are included below, and a feature article about Jeannette Rankin's historic vote against the war. Additional Resources are provided in each section.

Tacoma's Salishan Housing Project

Please go to the HistoryLink.org link provided below, to review their illustrated essay on the 1943 Tacoma housing project. The project was named Salishan, and was built to house thousands of workers arriving in Tacoma for military and shipyard jobs in the war effort.

Tacoma Neighborhoods: Salishan Housing Project - Tacoma Housing Authority

Then, let's take a look at the following map series, to help us tease out the story of the local Salishan speakers at this time...by going back in time.

First, please examine the USGS map showing the language groups in our study area. Can you locate the Tacoma area? Is it in Salishan speakers' territory?

From there, let¹s take a look at four historical map sections highlighting the area west of the Cascades and north of the Columbia River from 1854 (treaty time) and 1858 (a compilation of information from the railroad surveys, same area of focus), to the 1876 map showing tribal territories, and finally the 1888 map of Washington Territory (just before statehood).

Can you locate the Tacoma area on these maps? [NOTE: if you could begin with the later maps, and note the location of Tacoma in relation to Steilacoom and Ft. Nisqually, you'll notice some landmarks to help you locate the place on the earlier maps, since "old" Tacoma wasn't founded until 1868.] What tribes do you find in this location? Are they represented through time? What changes do you observe?
Bonus WebQuest: Google current map of Tacoma, and compare with what you¹ve seen here.

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WWII Posters

Resources:
Every Citizen a Soldier: World War II Posters on the American Home Front, History Now from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
http://www.historynow.org/12_2007/historian.html
And:
The World War II Home Front
http://www.historynow.org/12_2007/historian3.html
Articles, resources, and links to lesson plans for K-12.

On the Home Front, Gallery of WW, the Library of Congress - American Memory
http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/homefront/resources.html
Catalogue of posters from WWII, and some WWI as well.

Produce for Victory: Posters on the American Home Front (1941-45), National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
http://Americanhistory.Si.Edu/Victory/index.htm#Contents

A Summons to Comradeship" World War I and II Posters and Postcards, University of Minnesota Libraries
http://digital.lib.umn.edu/warposters/warpost.html

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Jeannette Rankin's lone vote

Provided below are links to a recent article about Jeannette Rankin's historic vote, and then to a PDF file of the December 11 Missoulian newspaper editorial and her letter to the editor.

Rankin stood firmly alone on Dec. 8, 1941, By KIM BRIGGEMAN of the Missoulian
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2007/12/09/news/local/news03.txt

Missoulian editorial, and Jeannette Rankin's letter to the editor, Thursday, December 11, 1941
http://www.missoulian.com/123/rankin.pdf