Digital Document Libraries

These digital document libraries are conceived as a resource for teachers and students of Washington State History. They contain digital representations of a few primary source documents on the selected topics listed below. Although the geographic focus is Seattle, the topics reflect events at the state and national level.

Primary sources are documents created or received by a person or organization during the course of events or conduct of business. Primary sources are used by historians to write histories, which are interpretations of the past. Reading primary source documents provides a glimpse of what people were doing and thinking in the past.

Topic List

The Great Seattle Fire of 1889

The 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition

Hoovervilles in Seattle

Unemployment and the WPA in Seattle

NE 45th Street Viaduct

The Seattle Open Housing Campaign, 1959-1968

Century 21 World's Fair

City Councilman Sam Smith

Gay Rights in the 1970s

Women in the Fire Department

Seattle's Open Government Laws

World Trade Organization Protests in Seattle