Oregon
Oregon
It doesn't get any more Pacific Northwest than Oregon, and the state has some good genealogical, cultural, and historical resources in a variety of online archives that celebrate its Pacific-Northwestiness.
The Oregon State Archives offer up a number of databases:
For family history work, the Oregon Historical Records Index includes easy surname searching on family history information from death records, censuses, land claims, tax records, and something called "delayed births" (which I've never seen before), and a lot more.
For even earlier records, Early Oregonians is an ambition attempt to document pretty much everyone who lived in Oregon prior to 1860.
Oregon Trademark Labels offers low resolution images of trademarked businesses in the state from the late 1800s and early 1900s, with high-res copies for sale.
The archives sponsors numerous online Exhibits on historical themes:
But wait! There's more!
Scenic Oregon Images and Landscape Photos -- even more photos, county by county. You can use the site search, then click the "image" tab in the results to zero in on photos.
Web Exhibits from the Blue Book, Oregon's annual publication on stuff of interest. Exhibits include:
- Oregon beaches
- Woman suffrage
- Blue Book centennial
- Century farms & ranches
- Depression Era public works
- Lewis and Clark Exposition
- Oregon at work
- Oregon counties tour
- Capitol tour
Over at Oregon State University you'll find more digital archives. The Oregon Multicultural Archives Digital Resources is multi-faceted, ranging from Chinese Disinterment (yes, it's what you think it is) to Braceros as farm labor. OSU has even more at the Special Collections & Archives, with a particularly impressive Natural History collection.
More historical archives and research materials can be found at these excellent resources:
- Crafting the Oregon Constitution: Framework for a New State
- Life on the Home Front: Oregon Responds to World War II
- Oregon at War: World War I and the Oregon ExperienceA 1940 Journey Across Oregon
- A 1940 Oregon Coast Tour
- Echoes of Oregon (documents from the state's territorial period).
- Historical Travel Photographs
- Pearl Harbor Remembered: Oregonians and the Attack on Pearl Harbor
- Highlights of the Archives
- Oregon Archives Month
- Historic Photograph Collections A cooperative project of the Oregon State Archives, Salem Public Library, and Marion County Historical Society.
