OMA Related Resources

Related Resources of Archival Collections About Ethnic Minorities in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest Region

Contents:

• Related Resources in Oregon
• Related Resources in the Pacific Northwest Region

RELATED RESOURCES IN OREGON

Oregon Census Data Pictured Back to the 1800s

Oregon Population Website ~ As of 2015 the population estimates for Oregon are over 4 million residents. Portland State University's Population Research Center has created a new site with data going back to the 1800s; it details race/ethnicity, age, gender, place of birth, etc. statistics.

Oregon Folklife Network (OFN)

The OFN is a collaboration of statewide agencies, grassroots organizations, and University resources dedicated to making "a meaningful difference in Oregon communities and Tribes by documenting, supporting, and celebrating our diverse cultural traditions and by empowering radition-bearers." (OFN Mission Statement)

Tamástslikt Cultural Institute

The Tamástslikt Cultural Institute is the interpretive center for the Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla Tribes. The facility helps document and preserve traditions and practices that distinguish the Confederated Tribes from any other peoples.

Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center

The Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center located in Portland, Oregon, preserves and exhibits historical documents that highlight Issei immigration and early life in Oregon, Nihonmachi (Japantown), and life after Executive Order 9066 including the Portland Assembly Center and contemporary Nikkei life.

End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center

The End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center has on their Oregon History Library webpage a section dedicated to Black Pioneers of the Pacific Northwest (scroll down to view). The section includes pages on a timeline of black history in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, slavery in Oregon Country and an explanation of the exclusion laws, and biographical sketches of black pioneers in the Northwest.

Oregon Historical Society

The Focus on Oregon History website from the Oregon Historical Society is designed to provide teachers, students, and the general public a sense of the diverse people and events that comprise the history of Oregon. Each Focus on Oregon History topic is accompanied by a collection of primary sources from the Oregon Historical Society’s Research Library. Topics includes: African American History in Oregon, Asian Pacific History in Oregon, and Reservation Life.

Kam Wah Chung

The Kam Wah Chung & Co. Museum, located in John Day, is a truly unique structure that represents the oldest known vestiges of Chinese civilization in the United States. Built in 1867, the Kam Wah Chung & Co. building shares the story of Chinese immigrants who contributed so significantly to the social and economic development of this country during its westward expansion. The Kam Wah Chung & Co. building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and received a National Historic Landmark designation in 2005.

Southern Oregon University

The First Nations Tribal Collection of the Southern Oregon Digital Archives consists of documents, books, and articles relating to the indigenous peoples of this bioregion. We have begun to collect and mount materials about many tribes in southwestern Oregon and northern California. Some of these nations include the Coos, Hupa, Karuk, Klamath, Modoc, Takelma, Shasta, Siuslaw, Cow Creek Band of Umpqua, Yahooskin, and Yurok nations. Most of the materials in this database are in the public domain.

University of Oregon

• The Lee Moorhouse Photograph collection comprises approximately 6,500 glass plate negatives created primarily in eastern Oregon between 1897 and 1920. The collection also includes a register kept by Moorhouse. The images document urban, rural, and Native American life in the Columbia Basin and Umatilla County, Oregon. About one third of the images concern Native American peoples, including the Cayuse, Walla Walla, Umatilla, Nez Perce, and Warm Springs tribes. This portion of the collection includes images of persons, ceremonies, events and landscapes in and around the Umatilla Indian Reservation, near Pendleton, Oregon. The photographs present a selective image of Native American life, but one that reflects the social and cultural changes that native peoples were going through at the time. The rest of the collection documents ranch life, wheat farming, logging, irrigation projects, salmon fishing, small town and community life, and the Pendleton Round-Up, of which there are over 600 images from 1910 to 1919.
• Picturing the Cayuse, Walla Walla, and Umatilla Tribes is a collaborative project among the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute (TCI) of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the University of Oregon (UO) Libraries, and Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE). The website presents about 250 of Major Lee Moorhouse’s pictures of the Cayuse, Walla Walla, and Umatilla tribes for tribal and non-tribal members.
• “Understanding the Immigrant Experience in Oregon: Research, Analysis and Recommendations from University of Oregon Scholars” was published in May 2008 by the University of Oregon's Labor Education and Research Center. The report is available in both English and Spanish.
• Southwest Oregon Research Project (SWORP) Collection : SWORP consists mainly of photocopies of widely scattered and overlooked original documents pertaining to the history of the Native peoples of greater Oregon. Many of these documents have been languishing in national repositories, particularly in Washington, D.C. SWORP aims to repatriate these materials to the Native American Tribes. Through the agency of Native Americans themselves, the archive and continuing project allows Native American and university scholars to continue to research and rewrite the histories of colonization that have been imposed upon Native peoples.

Salem Public Library

The Salem Online History – Salem’s Ethnic Histories website is dedicated to histories of Salem’s ethnic minorities, including African Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, the Kalapuya Indians, and Latinos. After each history there is a bibliography of secondary sources pertaining to each group.

Lewis & Clark College

• The Erskine Wood Family Collection contains several images from 1893 of the Nez Perce at Chief Joseph’s Camp at the Colville Reservation.
• The Karl Bodmer American Indian Images are hand-colored engravings based on Karl Bodmer’s watercolors. Bodmer was a Swiss painter who accompanied Prince Maximilian on an expedition across the American West in 1832. During this expedition, the party encountered many of the same Indians described by Lewis and Clark. Bodmer’s detailed sketches and watercolors are an important visual record of these cultures. The images in this collection appeared in a 50-copy limited edition set of Lewis and Clark’s journals edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites in 1904.

Lane Community College

The Oral History – The Sámano Family page from Lane Community College features a collection of oral histories of the Sámano family. The family has had long and close ties with the community college. The website was developed in conjunction with the 40^th anniversary of Lane Community College.

Pacific University

The Graduating Class of 1876, the First Japanese Students at Pacific University website include biographies of Pacific University’s first Japanese students.

Other Oregon Projects and Sites

• Oregon State Archives (n.d.). The 50th Anniversary Exhibits of the Oregon State Archives includes one on the Whitman Massacre. It includes text, drawings, photographs of transcripts, and links for further reference. This institution has the potential for providing additional digitized records on the Native American population of Oregon.
• Oregon State Library Photo Website (2007). While only a few of more than 40,000 photographs have been placed on the website, all have been scanned and most have been researched and cataloged. There are a minimum of several hundred photographs of Native Americans among them although none are yet on the site. This website has a rich potential.
• Museum at Warm Springs (2007), awards and reviews. This website announced that it has been awarded a National Park Service Grant to photograph pictographs on reservation land and that it had also been awarded a grant to photograph and create an archive as well as fund a digital repository at the museum. This site should be added once the archive is placed online.
• Oregon poet laureate Lawson Inada reflects on his memories of internment (NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, October 2008)
• Catlin Gabel School – Español VH: The Hispanic Presence in Oregon. The school’s Spanish V honors students developed this project in collaboration with Portland’s Miracle Theater Group.
• Salem Statesman Journal – Oregon’s Black Pioneers. This site features several African Americans who have been pioneers in various aspects of Oregon’s history.

RELATED RESOURCES IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST REGION

Columbia River Basin Ethnic History Archive

The Columbia River Basin Ethnic History Archive (CRBEHA) brings together selected highlights of the ethnic collections from leading repositories in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. In addition to the digital archive, CRBEHA provides tutorials on how to research and interpret library and museum resources, and encourages public dialogue about ethnic history sources and issues in its online discussion forum.

Washington State University

The Black Oral History Interviews were conducted by Quintard Taylor and his associates, Charles Ramsay and John Dawkins. They interviewed African American pioneers and their descendents throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, from 1972–1974.

University of Washington

The American Indians of the Pacific Northwest Collection provides an extensive digital collection of original photographs and documents about the Northwest Coast and Plateau Indian cultures, complemented by essays written by anthropologists, historians, and teachers about both particular tribes and cross-cultural topics. These cultures have occupied, and in some cases still live in parts of Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. Maps are available that show traditional territories or reservation boundaries. The collection is also available through the Library of Congress as part of the American Memories Series Project.

Online Archive of California

The Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives is a digital “thematic collection” within the CDL’s OAC documenting the experience of Japanese Americans in World War II internment camps. Curators, archivists, and librarians from ten participating OAC contributing institutions selected a broad range of primary sources to be digitized, including photographs, documents, manuscripts, paintings, drawings, letters, and oral histories. Over 10,000 digital images have been created complemented by 20,000 pages of electronic transcriptions of documents and oral histories. These materials are described and inventoried in 28 different online guides or "finding aids". The link provided above leads to images of Japanese Americans from Oregon.

Alaska

Alaska’s Digital Archives, University of Alaska at Fairbanks (n.d.) provides photographs and information about Alaska Natives’ history and culture. This page allows the viewer to link to images by type of activity (making a living, art, education, etc.), by geographical area, or by time periods. The links bring the viewer to thumbnail images along with the title, subject, and description of each photograph.

British Columbia

British Columbia Digital Library (2007). This is not a link to a digitized photograph repository, but instead is a page of links to collections of texts and other materials, some of which are related to Native Americans. Canada is consolidating and centralizing their libraries and archives resources in order to make it easier to for the public to search for and access Canada’s documentary heritage. See Library and Archives Canada for more information.

California

Kevin Miyazaki (n.d.). In the series “Camp Home,” Miyazaki documents the reuse of buildings from the Tule Lake internment camp, where his father’s family was sent during World War ll. He writes “The barracks used to house Japanese and Japanese American internees were dispersed throughout the neighboring landscape following the war. Adapted into homes and outbuildings by returning veterans under a homesteading movement, many still stand on land surrounding the original camp site. In photographing these buildings, I explore family history, both my own and that of the current building owners – this is physical space where our unique American histories come together. Because photography was forbidden by internees, very few photographs of homelife were made by the families themselves. So my pictures act as evidence, though many years later, of a domestication rarely recorded during the initial life of the structures.”

Idaho

University of Idaho Special Collections (2007). Digital Memories. This site features offers brief descriptions of historical artifacts from their collections. As they begin digitizing their collection, more photographs of Native Americans may become available.

Montana

University of Montana (2006). Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains.
This searchable database is a cooperative effort among several colleges (Montana State University campuses at Bozeman, Billings, and Havre as well as Little Big Horn College) and a museum (Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman). It is primarily photographs, but also includes stereographs, ledger drawings, and other sketches.

Washington

Seattle Museum of History and Industry (2002).
While this website currently has fewer than 100 digitized photographs of Native Americans, it does have transcriptions of oral histories from tribal members, which is unusual.

Suquamish Tribe/Historical Archives (1998).
This site contains only three photographs under “historical archives” and the page has not been updated for almost ten years, but the hope is that as the tribe’s finances improve because of casino earnings they will utilize a part of it to share their cultural heritage.

Washington State University (n.d.) Frank Fuller Avery Collection.
This collection of more than 800 photographs taken from 1901 to 1916 when Avery was assigned to the Coville Indian Agency. There are a number of photographs of Native American school children.

National Center for Atmospheric Research

Warren M. Washington Collection
This collection documents the career of renowned climatologist and OSU alumnus Warren M. Washington, as well as his work to advance opportunities for students and scientists of color in meteorology and environmental science.

Information compiled by Erika Castaño, Monique Lloyd, and Larry Landis