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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1862 | 1 |
| 1877 | 1 |
| 1878 | 3 |
| 1883 | 1 |
| 1886 | 3 |
| 1887 | 1 |
| 1892 | 5 |
| 1893 | 2 |
| 1904 | 2 |
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22 stories matching cooli
- Tacoma Prepares for Anti-Chinese Agitation
Hostility toward Chinese merchants and laborers persists in Tacoma as organizers call for a mass meeting at the foot of Tenth Street.
- The End of the 'Coolie Trade'
A new federal law moves to criminalize the transportation of indentured Chinese laborers on American ships.
- The Smuggler Who Ran a School for Contraband
A smuggler caught near Sumas taught Chinese immigrants American geography to help them evade border officers.
- The Kent Races: Peanuts, Lemonade, and Suspicion
While the crowds at the Kent track grew, the betting remained sluggish amid rumors of a fixed race.
- The Labor Unrest on the Narrow Gauge
When Chinese track laborers struck for higher wages on the railroad, they were met with firearms and immediate termination.
- The Snohomish County Grange Fair Roots for Union Labor
While the Grange fair celebrates the county's harvest, the Women's Label League uses the space to educate visitors on the origins of the union label.
- A Seattle Fish Firm Fires Its Chinese Workers — and the Paper Cheers
In 1877, Tull & Co. dismissed all of its Chinese employees and hired white men in their place, a move the Dispatch celebrated as patriotism.
- The Hypocrisy of Convict Labor
An editorial draws a direct, nativist parallel between New York's stance on prison labor and the push to expel Chinese laborers from the Pacific coast.
- The Republican Convention of King County
A raucous 1886 political gathering reveals a party divided by railroad influence, local prohibition, and the intense anti-Chinese sentiment of the era.
- Nine Men in the Sail Locker: Seattle's Stowaway Haul
A single Chinese stowaway picked up on the wharf leads Seattle immigration officers to nine more men, plus sacks of raw silk and boxes of Manila cigars, hidden aboard the Great Northern liner Minnesota.
- The American Danger: A Turn-of-the-Century Manifesto
A jingoistic editorial from the Tacoma Times defining the nation's sense of self and global superiority in 1904.
- The Politics of Washington Coal
A fiery Chamber of Commerce debate pits local labor interests against the influx of British Columbian coal.
- The Siege of Seattle: A City Under Martial Law
After four days of intense unrest, the city maintains order and asserts its commitment to American law.
- The Tragic Disappearance of a Smuggling Sloop
Twelve people, including ten Chinese laborers and two young girls, are believed to have perished in the treacherous straits separating Victoria from the American side during a high-stakes human smuggling operation.
- The Consul’s Advice: How to Sell to China
Consul General John Goodnow advises Tacoma merchants that success in the Orient depends on cultural sensitivity and precise adherence to local conventions.
- The 'Committee of Fifteen' and the Struggle Against Chinese Labor in Tacoma
An archival look at the exclusionary 1886 resolution that fueled the violent campaign to purge Chinese residents from Tacoma.
- A 1909 Newspaper Campaign Against Japanese Immigrants
A local labor newspaper warns that the white working class of Everett faces the same economic ruin as San Francisco due to competition from Japanese laborers.
- The Labor Crisis of 1878: Seattle’s Economic Anxiety
As unemployment rises in the Pacific Northwest, a local reader takes to the press to rail against the displacement of white laborers by Chinese workers, foreshadowing the intense economic tensions that would define the era.
- Seattle’s New Year Outlook: A Refuge from the Gilded Age
An 1877 editorial contrasts Seattle’s frontier promise with the labor riots and extreme inequality ravaging the rest of the nation.
- The Hidden Cruelty of Early Seattle
A visit to a Chinatown tenement reveals a harrowing reality of human suffering, sparking a volatile debate over labor, poverty, and local morality.
- A Violent Reckoning at a Seattle Import Shop
After embezzling over $600 from his partners, a treasurer at a local Chinese merchant firm attempted to strike down his employer with a sword-knife, sparking a chaotic pursuit through the city streets.
- Tacoma’s Chinese Merchant Question Turns to Threats of Violence
A visiting Chinese businessman tests whether Tacoma will admit Chinese merchants, while the Trades Council calls them “a pestilential social element” and a crowd waits at the depot.