Seattle from the Margins: Exclusion, Erasure, and the Making of a Pacific Coast City

The creation of Seattle and the displacement of those who built it

From the origins of the city in the mid-nineteenth century to the beginning of World War II, Seattle's urban workforce consisted overwhelmingly of migrant laborers who powered the seasonal, extractive economy of the Pacific Northwest. Though the city benefitted from this mobile labor force—consisting largely of Indigenous peoples and Asian migrants—municipal authorities, elites, and reformers continually depicted these worker...