Department of History

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.

Dig a little, and Seattle’s scrubby past inevitably pops up. We might be all high-tech now, all digital wizards, but back there are the city’s ancestors. They could be rough. Really rough. John Findlay, professor emeritus of history at the UW, is referenced.

After months of deserted streets and shuttered storefronts, the businesses, institutions and individuals that depend on downtown Seattle are desperate to see it come back to life, but have little certainty whether or when it can regain its earlier vitality. Margaret O'Mara, professor of history at the UW, is quoted.

Science Friday producer Christie Taylor talks to legal scholar Veena Dubal, and Margaret O'Mara, professor of history at the UW, about a rise in union activity, and the way tech companies have impacted our lives — not just for their customers, but also for their workers.

Margaret O’Mara, professor of history at the UW, says too much screen time in the COVID-19 era may have led to the proliferation of conspiracy theories, especially among “QAnon yoga moms.” [This clip teases a later story in which O’Mara is not interviewed]

Anand Yang, professor of history, and Patricia Shehan Campbell, professor of music education and ethnomusicology, have both authored new books.

Google, Facebook and others promise more flexibility to work from home. But they’re charging ahead with plans for more offices. Margaret O'Mara, professor of history at the UW, is quoted.

Quintard Taylor, professor emeritus of history and the founder of Blackpast.org, discusses the life and legacy of Horace Clayton and his wife, Susie Revels.