Too bad Snohomish can't understand the interest in History. -- jws ---------------------------------- In pursuit of local history http://www.seattletimes.com/news/lifestyles/html98/hist_101298.html by Cynthia Rose <cros-new@seatimes.com> Seattle Times staff reporter Posted at 03:55 a.m. PDT; Monday, October 12, 1998 Any approach to history can fire the imagination, filling a mind with images of lost places and personalities. To the creative mentality, this can be a special spur. Imagining someone's very different reality, yet considering what it has given you: This is the task author Devon Whyte assigned himself. Whyte, a native of Antigua, moved to Seattle from Atlanta. One reason for that move was his writing. "Atlanta is a Southern city with a very specific culture. You either commit to that or you don't. Seattle seemed to me to have a flexible style." Once Whyte got his bearings as a Northwesterner, he enjoyed exploring Seattle and its customs. His first summer here, during Seafair's Torchlight Parade, Whyte glimpsed a float titled "Black Pioneers." It was a vision of the past he had never considered. But once he did, he became intrigued. The seed planted by those Seafair wheels and costumes would become, for Whyte, his novel "The Purple Princess." The book began with his questions about migration. What had driven African Americans to venture west? What had they hoped to find? And: How does their past continue to affect us? "That one Seafair image made me ask those questions. Then I started doing research on my own." Whyte did this digging in public libraries, on his lunch hours and after work. "The people I sought were there, but not in the minds of the city chroniclers. You really had to dig to find a genuine sense of their presence. But when you do find them, they are exceptional people. People who sought to strike out as entrepreneurs." Whyte was most focused on the turn of the century. He became fascinated by people such as George Washington (a homesteader who went on to found the town of Centralia), and William and Sarah Grose (settlers who ran a hotel here in the 1880s). "I was truly interested in the pioneer venture. In terms of race relations alone, you can see how it was possible. There were not the roadblocks here that existed in the South. In a way, people tried to form a truly new place, less an escape than a whole new America. Whyte grows animated. "Seattle was just so new. In ways, people were unsure how to deal with one another. There was a greater degree of control over your circumstances." Although the history was Whyte's initial inspiration, "The Purple Princess" takes place in the 1970s. It tells the story of a female entrepreneur but reaches back to the era of her grandfather. "He traveled to Seattle from Jamaica, because I wanted to use that influence. Caribbean people weren't a huge group in Seattle. But they brought the city a tremendous energy." The best thing about history as a creative stimulus, says Whyte, is that it's there for the taking. "You can do this kind of research almost without assistance. If it was family stuff, of course, libraries aren't enough. But when it comes to the building of the city, of Seattle's infrastructure - you can easily find your feet." He smiles. "Still, you must remember who is doing all that writing. What I was interested in was digesting that, then setting it in motion somewhat differently." Unreeling hidden histories Filmmaker Stephen Sadis takes Whyte's advice literally. Since 1991, the Bellevue native has been turning local history into documentaries. The first, which appeared in 1992, was "The Miracle Strip," the story of Renton's now-gone Longacres racetrack. It was followed by "Real Baseball: The Everett Giants Story." Then, in 1996, Sadis made "The Seattle-Tacoma Interurban Railway." The films have been broadcast both locally and nationally, and continue to sell well on video. These days, Sadis' Perpetual Motion Pictures company occupies a Second Avenue office that resembles a set. The low-lit room exudes a 1930s ambiance, with framed vintage stills in the shadow of Art-Deco arches. But, says the young exec, his enterprise was started by accident. "I never thought I was really interested in `history.' Then I saw Ken Burns' `The Civil War' on TV. I was living in Los Angeles, working as a cameraman. Ken Burns' style really turned my views around." At almost the same time, Sadis learned Longacres was doomed. Having worked there as a teen, he knew and loved the racetrack. "So I came home just to document it. Of course, I didn't know how to go about it." With two years to go before the track's demise, Sadis started hunting down interview subjects: old employees, owners' relatives, even gamblers and former jockeys. At the same time, he devoured newspaper microfilm. "I read the local papers from 1906 through the '40s. They gave me mileposts for that slice of Seattle history." Sadis' biggest struggle came with visualizing the story. And, in the end, he broke down and wrote Ken Burns directly. "I asked for a script of his, and he actually sent one! I'd never seen a documentary script, so that was great." He then enlisted a writer friend, David Buerge, and together they gave structure to a wealth of material: interviews, paraphernalia, old footage, photographs. Since "The Miracle Strip," Sadis has never looked back. His current feature is "The Seattle Rainiers," an hourlong documentary on the 1930s baseball team. Raised to championship stature by Emil Sick, then the owner of Rainier Brewery, the team had "a huge impact on the city," says Sadis. As with every Perpetual project, research parallels Sadis' fund raising. Even as he solicits memories, home footage and photos, he writes grants, courts sponsors and talks to distributors. But inevitably, his histories are incomplete. "You get some great tales which never make it into the film, simply because there are no visuals to support them. Plus there are complex things you can't do justice to, because that's not the nature of your medium." This is the crisis that faces all historians. What format can represent separate views of the past, views that are often at war with one another? Is it best done in books, by links across the Internet or in the variety of oral histories? Filming 100 Nisei for the Densho Project, Tom Ikeda says he learned a sobering lesson. "More than anything else, our talks revealed a group of individuals. Even though they shared the experience of internment, that Japanese-American group is far from homogenous." Thus, Ikeda argues, how their stories are told is critical. "You have to worry about the architecture of your history, about its interface, the structure of your information. Are you attempting to say something is `definitive'? Or can you show how many viewpoints coexist?" The interactive dream Rewind to June 24, 1998, and the chambers of the Seattle City Council. Here, at a hearing of the Culture, Arts and Parks Committee, the topic is a project called HistoryLink. HistoryLink is yet another history project, which takes the form of a "Web site and online diary." It has been developed by History Ink, a nonprofit corporation of concerned historians and the brainchild of author and researcher Walt Crowley. Assisting Crowley was a longtime friend, the archivist and writer Paul Dorpat. At today's hearing, Crowley sports a smart bow tie and Dorpat looks dapper in a black sweater. While council aides unfurl a huge projection screen, the colleagues stack books beside it. They include Clarence Bagley's multivolume sets, "The History of Seattle" and "The History of King County" (1916 and 1929), Murray Morgan's "Skid Road: An Informal Portrait of Seattle" (1951), Roger Sale's double-volume "Seattle Past & Present" (1976) and a rare copy of journalist Thomas Prosch's never-published "A Chronological History of Seattle from 1850 to 1891." The Prosch document, owned by Dorpat, runs to 485 pages - all typewritten on paper 14 inches long. It is one of Seattle's rarest historical items; it has probably never been to City Hall before. As lights dim, the bindings of the volumes glow like a cache of Klondike gold. On the screen behind them appears a giant Web page, to which Crowley addresses explanations. This is an outsize demonstration of HistoryLink - or, more properly, of Thomas Prosch in cyberspace. Here, in a Quiktime photo show that leaps the years, the Hotel Seattle appears, burns, rises from the ashes, metamorphoses - then becomes a parking garage. As committee chair Nick Licata marvels, it moves from Seattle's birth to the present "in just a couple of clicks." But HistoryLink is aimed at offering substance. That's why its starting point is what Crowley calls "the canon": the impressive pile of books on the table. The idea is to "get those books into the box," form a clear and reliable Seattle chronology. But the project's ultimate aim is far larger: to be the umbrella for a new "people's history." Carried on Seattle's Public Access Network, HistoryLink would mobilize every type of contributor: scholars, students, local governments, churches, businesses, libraries, schools. The venture wants us to help change how Seattle sees itself. Before Crowley's pitch is even half over, the four council members present are praising the concept. The vision of a link between all city records sounds great. So does the idea of involving ethnic histories, labor historians and private citizens. Like the Densho Project, this is bold and ambitious. Plus, everything about it sounds high-tech: echt Seattle. Culture, Arts and Parks swiftly votes to give it $25,000, in available surplus cable franchise fees. A week later, talking in Crowley's own library, it turns out that HistoryLink grew out of old frustrations. "I've written 10 books on Seattle," says Crowley. "I know that answering the simplest question is a problem. You have to look things up in 10 books, in 10 different places. And, even once you find them, half of those still disagree." Dorpat nods in agreement. "Walt and I have talked for years about how best to address this. Then, the whole digital thing just swept right over us." Dorpat loves how the Internet lets history "spread out"; he relishes putting forth the riddles and contradictions. "But you still have to have the basic chronology. The history of any community is in its vertical resonance." When this pair discuss resources, their excitement is palpable. Seattle's Downtown Library wants to digitize its ephemera, maybe even its whole Northwest Newspaper Index. Crowley hopes to scan in the Puget Sound Archives' building survey - a 1937 Works Progress Administration project that photographed every structure then standing in King County. Historical societies and individuals all want to help. Says Crowley, "There's a huge amount happening via the Net, with no real center. So we see HistoryLink as a kind of default setting." Most important, says Crowley, everyone will learn. "Paul and I could sit down and try to write a similar thing. But that would only be based on what's available to us, and what we as a pair deemed to be important. The Web lets everyone make the editorial judgments. It's dynamic and, hopefully, it can also be corrective." Five months later, the project is under way. Its core staff - a dozen writers and consultants - is busy getting "the canon" online. More than $135,000 has been raised from private donors and from the Metropolitan King County Council, the Seattle Public Library Foundation, the City of Seattle, even the Daughters of the American Revolution. Collaborations are proceeding, too, with groups ranging from the Black Historians Guild to the Wing Luke Museum. At the downtown library, Susie Rennels cheers them on. "Every conceivable institution is trying to digitize, but we're all doing it pretty much in isolation. There is a real need for central organization." Around her, the library's counter is littered with pamphlets: "Native American Genealogies," "Learning the Internet For Free," "How to Care For Your Historic Photographs." Rennels positions her elbows carefully on the ledge. "People have a real desire," she says, "to share history. To achieve a very one-on-one, person-to-person involvement. That's one joy our mutual past does contain. Even when people come to Seattle from different places, they often bond over what happened here before them." She turns and gestures toward the busy room behind her, filled with computers, cards, indexes, books - and people. "After all," she smiles, "all it takes them is time." -- A selection of Devon Whyte's "The Purple Princess," chosen as one of 14 works in the 1998 Jack Straw Foundation Writer's Program, was recorded for broadcast on KUOW-FM this spring. For information, call Straw at 209-634-0919. -- Anyone with footage or special memories of the Seattle Rainiers is encouraged to contact Stephen Sadis at Perpetual Motion Pictures, 1615 Second Ave., Seattle, WA 98101, 206-448-7568. -- For information about donations and contributions to HistoryLink, contact sponsors at; History Ink 206-782-0230, fax 206-782-4088, 116 N.W. 58th St. or by e-mail at RUR2001@aol.com Seattle, WA 98107 or RUR2001@speakeasy.org demo site: http://www.historylink.org Projected launch date for the actual site is Nov. 11. ------------------------- E-mail Comments to Editor : Comments@seatimes.com The Seattle Times home page http://www.seattletimes.com/ Seattle Times: Table of Content http://www.seattletimes.com/news/ The Seattle Times: Search Archive http://www.seattletimes.com/extra/search.html The Seattle Times: Browse by date http://www.seattletimes.com/todaysnews/browse.html Permission requests and information http://www/seatimes.com/general/info.html Copyright (c) 1998 The Seattle Times Company http://www.seattletimes.com/news/general/copyright.html