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72 stories matching miseri
- The City's Sudden Morality Raid Targeted the Wrong Women
A Yakima letter-writer asks why licensed saloons kept their protection while women were fined $5 a month in police court.
- The Economic Anxiety of the 1888 Seattle Labor Market
A century and a half ago, Seattle’s labor leaders were already wrestling with the volatile intersection of rapid immigration, wage standards, and protectionist sentiment.
- The Tramp Economy of Early Seattle
A reporter encounters a 'bummer' among the weeds of Mission Bay, revealing the harsh, transient reality of laborers who roamed the Pacific Coast in the 1870s.
- The Ghost Towns of the Skagit Gold Rush
A winter trek through the North Cascades reveals a landscape of stunning beauty marred by the desperate, thieving misery of the failing gold camps.
- The Labor Panic of 1877
A Seattle editorial weighs in on the xenophobic rumors of coal mine labor imports, framing the struggle between capital and the working class.
- The Misery of the Miser’s Hoard
A destitute family in 1870s Seattle survives a devastating house fire only to unearth a fortune hidden beneath the ashes of their former home.
- The Horseshoe Curse: A 1880 Seattle Fable of Fortune
In the pages of the Seattle Intelligencer, a cautionary rhyme warns that even the smallest superstitions can wreak havoc on a settler’s homestead.
- The Great Exodus: Aberdeen’s Chinese Community Vanishes in the Night
A local editorial and a sympathetic 'Communicated' letter reveal the forced departure of Aberdeen’s Chinese residents, highlighting both the racial hostility that drove them out and the rare moral outcry against their mistreatment.
- Saloonkeepers Try to Clean Up Their Own Trade Before the Prohibitionists Do
Newport liquor men joined a new county lodge at Colville, pledging to purge minors, drunkards and dance halls from the business—and asking for “fair treatment” in return.
- The Picky Buyer of Seattle
A skeptical land-seeker turns down a perfect farm because of a church organ, illustrating the absurd lengths of a real estate hunt.
- The Man Who Wouldn't Die: A Seattle Gallows Horror
In a gruesome spectacle that shook the young Territory of Washington, Francis Epps survived his own hanging by mere inches, crying for mercy as the crowd watched him dangle in agony before being cut down.
- When General Booth Packed the Seattle Armory
William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, receives a civic welcome from Seattle’s mayor, clergy, and a capacity Armory crowd—then talks social reform, London’s slums, and a cure for drunkenness.
- The Governor Vetoes Debtor Relief—and Warns It Would Speed Foreclosures
Gov. McGraw kills a bill meant to shield struggling debtors, arguing it cannot apply to existing contracts and may trigger the mortgage sales it was supposed to prevent.
- Surveyors Find a Rich Country Behind a Brutal Trail
A government surveying party returns from Chehalis County with tales of an impassable road, a hotel meal that required a salmon spear, and soil and timber worth the misery.
- The Promised Land That Wasn't: A Settler's Warning from Assiniboia
An immigrant recently arrived in Spokane describes how colonization companies lured families to the Canadian Northwest with loans and free transportation, only to leave them in debt and misery.
- The Labor Agitator's 'Foreigner' Problem
In an 1885 letter to the editor, a frustrated Seattle employer challenges the hypocrisy of the local anti-Chinese movement by questioning the nativist bias against European immigrants.
- A Spokane Woman Makes the Case for the Ballot
Writing to the paper 'from a womanly standpoint,' Mrs. B. R. Gove argues that taxation without representation is tyranny — and that Washington's women deserve the vote.
- The Gold Rush That Wasn't: Copper River’s ‘Sickness’ and the Lie of the Trail
A prospector returns from the Copper River country with a chilling warning: the gold is gone, the camps are sick, and the 'passage' to new fields is a myth.
- A Freethinker Takes On the Pulpit in Olympia
At Liberal Hall, P. D. Moore answers a minister’s sermon on law with a call for a religion of nature, reason, and good conduct rather than wrath and dogma.
- The Butter Was Shipped 'Tagless, Label-less, Mark-less'—and Washington Farmers Paid for It
A Redmond farmer's letter to the editor says Puget Sound producers are being squeezed by commission men and by adulterated Eastern butter sold in Seattle as creamery.
- The Keeley Cure Comes to Olympia
Olympia's Keeley Institute promises release from drink, and the Tribune opens a discreet charity fund for patients who cannot pay.
- Debs Comes to Seattle, Fresh From Jail, and Tells the Crowd How He Got Six Months
A thousand workingmen meet the Pullman strike leader at the boat landing, march him through town, and pack the Seattle theater to hear him name the real conspirators.