This site presents a digital history of one of Seattle’s earliest, most diverse, and most historically significant thoroughfares, Yesler Way. It was researched and written by University of Washington undergraduates in Winter 2018 as their final project in HSTAA 208 "The City." Drawing on rich local archives and urban history scholarship, these block-by-block urban histories connect the local to the national and global by showing how the story of one block reflects broader transformations in demographics, politics, economics, environment, and culture.
For more about the sources these students used to produce their exhibits, see the Class Resources Page created for HSTAA 208 by the UW Libraries. Many thanks go to that site's author, UW History Librarian Theresa Mudrock, as well as to Pacific Northwest Archivist Anne Jenner and the staff at UW Special Collections for their support of this project and its researchers.
HSTAA 208 is taught by Professor Margaret O'Mara of the UW Department of History. She will next offer the class in Winter 2019. For more about Professor O'Mara and her work in this class, see her personal web page as well as this interview.
Questions? Contact Prof. O'Mara here.
A note to website visitors: the sites featured here are those that authors chose to make publicly available or accessible to the UW community (those in the latter category will require a UWNet ID to view). If you do not see a particular block featured in these pages, it means that the author preferred to keep their project private. To learn more about all of the Yesler Way neighborhoods, please consult the Learn More tab above.