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A Century of Seattle Vice (Part 1)

Like all sizeable American cities, Seattle since its earliest days has attracted its share of prostitution, gambling, illegal drug and liquor sales, and a variety of other behaviors and activities tha...

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Abortion Law: Marilyn Ward recalls the campaign to reform it in Washington.

Marilyn Ward (1929-2012), a volunteer lobbyist for a wide range of liberal social issues in the 1960s and 1970s, was an early member of the Citizens' Abortion Study Group, later renamed Washington Cit...

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Abortion Reform: Lee Minto, Director of Planned Parenthood from 1967 to 1993, recalls its history

Lee Minto (b. 1927), executive director of Planned Parenthood of Seattle-King County from 1967 until her retirement in 1993, played a key role in the campaign for Referendum 20, which legalized aborti...

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American Civil Liberties Union of Washington

Founded in New York in 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) soon reached into every state in the nation. Its first recorded case in Washington came in 1925, when ACLU members interceded on ...

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Anti-Chinese Activism -- Seattle

Chinese immigrants, largely men, began arriving in Seattle in the 1860s, and played a key role in the development of Washington Territory, providing labor for the region's mines and salmon canneries a...

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Arum, John B. (1961-2010)

John Arum was an environmental attorney and outdoorsman who gained prominence in his adopted state of Washington as an advocate for wilderness preservation and Native American tribal rights. He worked...

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Blue Laws -- Washington State

On November 8, 1966, Washington state voters adopted Initiative 229, repealing the so-called "Blue Law," which had been enacted in 1909. This action legalized the operations of thousands of businesses...

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Bob’s Chile Parlor (Seattle)

Bob’s Chile Parlor was a gambling den in downtown Seattle in the 1950s and 1960s — when city officials turned a blind eye to illegal vice and Seattle beat cops extorted payoffs from c...

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Boldt Decision: United States v. State of Washington

Though important legal cases are not usually known by the name of the judge who decides them, this one is. "The Boldt Decision," as it is commonly referred to, was one of the biggest court decisions i...

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Bone, Homer Truett (1883-1970)

Homer T. Bone, a Democratic senator representing Washington in the United States Congress (1932-1944) and later a Judge in the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (1944-1956), has been dubbed...

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Burke, Judge Thomas (1849-1925)

Thomas Burke, chief justice of the Washington State Supreme Court, arrived in Seattle in 1875 at the age of 25. A lawyer, he began practicing law, and within a couple of years was elected probate judg...

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Burton, Philip (1915-1995)

Philip Burton was a Seattle lawyer for more than 40 years, a voice for the disadvantaged, and a fighter for reforms to end discrimination in education, housing, and employment. His legal actions led t...

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Care for the "Unfriended Insane" in Washington Territory (1854-1889)

Care for the indigent poor, infirm, disabled, and mentally ill has been a controversial subject in Washington since long before statehood was achieved in 1889. Prior to 1854, most mentally ill pe...

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Cigarette Prohibition in Washington, 1893-1911

The first Washington state elected official to make national history in a crusade against cigarettes was not Attorney General Christine Gregoire, who brokered a settlement between the tobacco industry...

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Creating the Friday Harbor Water System (San Juan County)

Establishing a water system for the residents of Friday Harbor on San Juan Island was a topic of discussion as soon as the town was incorporated in 1909, but it took five years to complete a system. S...

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Culp, Gordon C. (1926-2006)

Gordon C. Culp came out of Auburn, Washington, during the Great Depression, and never forgot his roots or his old friends. He went on to become a counsel to United States Senator Henry M. Jackson (191...

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Daylight Saving in Washington

Daylight saving in Washington has a long and contentious history, shaped by conflict between urban and rural interests. Its history is marked by many local referendums and three hotly debated, statewi...

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Debate and Diplomacy in the Indigenous Fight for Fishing Rights

Nearly 50 years have passed since U.S. District Court Judge George Boldt handed down his historic ruling affirming Native American fishing rights. In this originl essay written for National History Da...

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Douglas, William O. (1898-1980)

William O. Douglas, who grew up in Yakima, was appointed to the United States Supreme Court at the age of 40 and served for more than 36 years, longer than any other justice in the Court's history. Bo...

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Dr. Samuel Goldenberg recalls the campaign to liberalize Washington's abortion laws

Dr. Samuel Goldenberg (1921-2011), a Seattle psychologist, organized the Citizens' Abortion Study Group after being unable to help two of his patients obtain legal abortions in 1967. The group, later ...

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Dwyer, William L. (1929-2002)

William Lee Dwyer was born in Tacoma, the only child of Charles and Ila Dwyer. His parents divorced when he was 5 years old and he and his mother moved to Seattle, where she worked as a stenographer t...

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Farmer, Steven George (1956-1995)

Steven Farmer, a Seattle airline steward often praised for his leading-man good looks, found himself unwittingly cast as villain and victim in a real-life legal, moral, and medical drama in 1988, when...

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Fletcher, Judge Betty Binns (1923-2012)

Judge Betty Binns Fletcher was appointed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals by President Jimmy Carter (b. 1924) in 1979 and carried a full caseload there for 33 years, working to within days of her...

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Forbus, Lady Willie (1892-1993)

One of the first women to practice law in Seattle and the first to represent the 44th District in the state senate, Lady Willie Forbus was a liberal Democrat, nicknamed the Steel Magnolia for her tena...

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