Historic Photos of Washington State / text and captions by Dale E. Soden. Nashville, Tenn. : Turner Pub. Co., c2008. x, 206 p.

Whitworth University professor of history Dale E. Soden dug into the photo collections of the Washington State Historical Society and the Library of Congress, his efforts resulting in this book of just over 200 black and white photographs portraying different aspects of the Evergreen State from 1860 to 1959.

The majority of the visuals focus on the occupational history of everyday people and the evolution of Washington's infrastructure. Aside from the Native Americans, there is little coverage here of ethnic or social life history-- that isn't his chief interest. Soden's concentration seems to be on the history of emerging technologies and how they impact the lives of average citizens.

There appears to be a well balanced representation of the geographic regions of the state. OlyBloggers might enjoy the few early pictures of Olympia, including an early shot as if you had stepped into the middle of the street in front of the present day BroHo and looked up Capitol Way (then called Main St.). Even little Elma makes an appearance here.

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I am an avid reader of Washington State history and after awhile the visual half of my brain grows weary of seeing the same photographs recycled in a variety of books. Although some of Soden's choices for publication might not be artistic treasures in terms of composition, I really appreciated the fact that most of these were new to me. Also, it is refreshing to see his subjects were working people and not the big names. In this regard the work is quite Populist, and this seems in keeping with the character of our state.

Presented more or less in chronological order, the pieces are grouped into eras. Soden provides a brief overview of his chosen time periods and then gives captions to each photo, the text being longer than a normal sentence, shorter than a paragraph. He has a good sense of Washington State history. Among his topics: The British presence, Walla Walla as the biggest city in Washington Territory, Seattle's 1889 fire, Alaskan Gold Rush, The 1902 forest fire, Wellington Disaster, Denny Regrade, Seattle General Strike, Galloping Gertie, Internment of Japanese Americans.

Industries covered include railroads, maritime, logging, agriculture. Soden gives coverage to the almost forgotten fact that coal mining was once a major industry here.

I do have a few problems with this book, but they are minor. It would be nice to see, even in tiny print, a date and photo credit on each picture. Plus, there is no subject index. And, I'm sorry for being so nitpicky here, the word "important" or "importance" is overused-- at least one in ten captions by my count. In a single sentence on an overview page (p. 81), the word "important" appears twice. I found it distracting.

1959 is a good cutoff point. The Interstate system had not fully connected Washington to the rest of the world as it was still under construction, and the Century 21 Exposition (Seattle World's Fair) had yet to put us on the map. The Smith Tower was still the tallest building in the state. J.P. Patches was just getting started. For a lot of us native Washingtonian Boomers, the time coverage of this book ends at about the same time our memories begin, so it is a way for us to place our own histories in context.

This would be a great book for students in a Washington State history class to use as a way of finding a topic for a paper as it is a nice visual sampler.