Department of History

Jeff Bezos surprised some Amazon critics and followers this week by throwing his weight behind a federal corporate tax hike to help pay for President Biden’s infrastructure plan. It was a position that seemed out of step with his company’s history and the rest of corporate America. Margaret O’Mara, professor of history at the UW, is quoted.

Amazon is the second largest private employer in the U.S. with nearly 800,000 workers. But none of its facilities are unionized and the push to unionize from workers in Alabama is over — for now. Margaret O’Mara, professor of history at the UW, is interviewed.

Amazon is the second largest private employer in the U.S. with nearly 800,000 workers. But none of its facilities are unionized and the push to unionize from workers in Alabama is over — for now. Margaret O’Mara, professor of history at the UW, is interviewed.

Amazon appeared to beat back the most significant labor drive in its history on Friday, when an initial tally showed that workers at its giant warehouse in Alabama had voted decisively against forming a union. Margaret O'Mara, professor of history at the UW, is quoted.

Amazon is gearing up to defend itself against a mushrooming battle over the company’s alleged anticompetitive business practices, in arenas spanning Congress, federal agencies and state government. Margaret O’Mara, professor of history at the UW, is quoted.

History professor Josh Reid explains the history of native dispossession in the Northwest.

Over 100 UW graduate and professional programs have been ranked by U.S. News & World Report to be among the top 35 in the nation.

This week at the UW, attend the Kollar Symposium in American Art History: Legacies and Futures, Music of Today: Indigo Mist, and more.

This week at the UW, attend a book talk for “Empire of Convicts: Indian Penal Labor in Colonial Southeast Asia" and listen to the Jewish Questions podcast.

A new podcast from the University of Washington’s Stroum Center for Jewish Studies explores issues of Jewish life, with anti-Semitism — at home and abroad, presently and in history — the topic of its first season.

On March 6, 1930, International Unemployment Day, the demonstrators outside the White House and in many U.S. cities were met with violence. UW history professor James Gregory is quoted.

A bust of York, the only Black member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, has appeared in Mount Tabor Park in Portland. In an interview from the program "Oregon Experience: Searching for York," UW history professor Quintard Taylor talks about York’s role in the expedition.

One and done. That’s been the story of late when it comes to the number of terms Seattle mayors serve. Seattle Met asked three experts, including UW history professor Margaret O’Mara, to offer their takes.

"Black History Month is a chance to recognize that Black history is American history. It’s an important time to reflect on the ways in which Black people, their stories and their impact have so often been elided and erased from our shared understanding of ourselves as a nation and a people," writes UW President Ana Mari Cauce.

UW theater student Jarrett Johnson is among an entire class of emerging theater artists — fresh from drama programs, hustling between part-time jobs and busy audition schedules, or about to make their big breaks — whose careers have been stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic. The UW's Odai Johnson, professor of theater history, and Stefka Mihaylova, assistant professor of theater theory and criticism, are quoted.