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Showing papers in "Pacific Historical Review in 1996"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the recent Columbian quincentennary, historians of the American West find themselves in a strange position: the breakup of colonial empires, fighting over multiculturalism, and the commercial success of films like Dances with Wolves and Black Robe have kin-
Abstract: the recent Columbian quincentennary, historians of the American West find themselves in a strange position. Their research specialty, the frontier history of the European occupation of Native America from the East Coast to Alaska and Hawai'i, has exploded into public consciousness. The breakup of colonial empires, fighting over multiculturalism, and the commercial success of films like Dances with Wolves and Black Robe have kin-

58 citations




Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The history of Asian Americans can be divided into four periods: the first, characterized by partisanship, lasted from the 1870s to the early 1920s; the second, from 1920s to 1960s, was dominated by social scientists; the third, during which revisionist works appeared, extended from the 1960s to early 1980s; and the fourth period, which began in the early 80s, have professional historians played a leading role in creating historical knowledge about Asian Americans as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: teenth century. The Asian American historiographical tradition is thus one and a half centuries old. It may be divided into four periods. The first, characterized by partisanship, lasted from the 1870s to the early 1920s. The second, from the 1920s to the 1960s, was dominated by social scientists. The third, during which revisionist works appeared, extended from the 1960s to the early 1980s. Only in the fourth period, which began in the early 1980s, have professional historians played a leading role in creating historical knowledge about Asian Americans. Though virtually none of the studies published during the first three periods were written by historians, they nevertheless are of historical interest because they reflect the temper of the times in which they were produced. Authored by missionaries, diplomats, politicians, labor leaders,journalists, propagandists, and scholars trained in sociology, economics, social psychology, and political science, this literature is quite voluminous. I shall identify its salient features before turning my attention to books published in the last fifteen years.1

36 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Although every area that later became a national park was once utilized or inhabited by American Indians, only Yosemite National Park has ever included a native community within its boundaries as mentioned in this paper, and Americans are able to cherish their national parks today only because Indians abandoned them involuntarily or were forcibly removed to reservations.
Abstract: Although every area that later became a national park was once utilized or inhabited by American Indians, only Yosemite National Park has ever included a native community within its boundaries. Indeed, Americans are able to cherish their national parks today only because Indians abandoned them involuntarily or were forcibly removed to reservations. Because Indian removal from Yosemite National Park occurred in the first

28 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The frontier-region dichotomy is not a mere theoretical relic of an earlier era, but is still present in American western historiography as mentioned in this paper, where scholars remain divided over issues of frontier or region, process or place, triumph or tragedy, settlement or conquest, development or despoliation.
Abstract: A few years ago, in a talk marking the centennial of the much-maligned frontier thesis, Allan Bogue (FrederickJackson Turner's most recent biographer), recalled the shortcomings of an earlier historiographical age. He noted that a simple dichotomy had dominated the field of American history. Historians argued over whether the national past was characterized by conflict or consensus, and for many the issue of "this or that" seemed to mark the apex of intellectual inquiry.' But the "this or that" syndrome is not a mere theoretical relic of an earlier historiographical age; indeed, it is still present in American western historiography. Scholars remain divided over issues of frontier or region, process or place, triumph or tragedy, settlement or conquest, development or despoliation.2 Yet these simple dichotomies are no more representative of a century of scholarship on the West than the "cowboys and Indians" dichotomy is representative of western reality a century ago. The frontier-region dichotomy is partly the legacy of a half

22 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For instance, tourism has defined the high and low points in the development of the twentieth-century West as mentioned in this paper, and despite its importance and its inclusion within an earlier generation's matrix of scholarly inquiry, the subject has remained largely unexplored even as its significance to the western economy has increased.
Abstract: Tourism, as much as any other industry, has defined the high and low points in the development of the twentieth-century West.1 Despite its importance and its inclusion within an earlier generation's matrix of scholarly inquiry, the subject has remained largely unexplored even as its significance to the western economy has increased. Over the past century the West has experienced a proliferation in the varieties of tourism, from the marketing of the region's scenery and mythic past to the post-World War II development of recreation and entertainment. Tourism has also emerged as a hoped for panacea to which people turn when they seek to revive areas in economic decline. Because tourism is a malleable industry designed to anticipate and cultivate trends in American society, its growth since 1900 has been influenced by changing cultural iconography, increased wealth and broader distribution of income, and

22 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: On November 17, 1890, General Nelson A. Miles, acting under the authority of President Benjamin Harrison to take "such steps as may be necessary" to suppress an anticipated "outbreak" of Lakota Ghost Dancers, ordered troops to the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations in South Dakota.
Abstract: On November 17, 1890, General Nelson A. Miles, acting under the authority of President Benjamin Harrison to take "such steps as may be necessary" to suppress an anticipated "outbreak" of Lakota Ghost Dancers, ordered troops to the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations in South Dakota. Over the next two weeks, soldiers from as far away as California were summoned, as the largest concentration of U.S. troops since the Civil War surrounded these and two other Lakota reservations-

20 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For example, during World War II roughly a million soldiers, sailors, and war workers spent time in the territory of Hawaii and the U.S. military command and Hawaii's ruling elites tried to cast wartime visitors in a carefully constructed role of tourists as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: During World War II roughly a million soldiers, sailors, and war workers spent time in the territory of Hawaii. In order to mediate the potentially explosive tensions produced by this influx of homesick and battle weary men into an unfamiliar and highly diverse society, the U.S. military command and Hawaii's ruling elites tried to cast wartime visitors in a carefully constructed role-that of tourists.1 Tourists, as sociologist Dean MacCannell has pointed out, see difference as pleasurable, rather than threatening, and the unusual as affirming their own way of life rather than challenging it.2 The paradigm of the fighting-man-as-tourist enabled wartime visitors to consume the "otherness" of Hawaii without risking loss of primary identity and without needing to directly confront or reject the "other." At least this was what military and civilian authorities hoped would occur. As they and the soldiers themselves discovered, the role of tourist was a contested one. While elites might proffer a certain model of touristic behavior, it could be rejected or adapted to other purposes. During World War II, the paradigm of "tourism" in Hawaii was hotly contested and carried surprising political import.

19 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In 1987, two weather service employees filed a discrimination suit against the National Weather Service, charging it with bypassing them for promotion because of their speech and the court eventually ruled against them, stating that the weather service had not discriminated illegally because the public's need to understand weather reports was a legitimate reason for the promotion decision.
Abstract: In 1987 the Board of Education for Hawai'i's public statewide school system attempted to ban Hawai'i Creole English from the classroom. This attempt set off a public debate among board members, linguists, teachers, and the general public. Coincidentally, in the midst of this debate, two weather service employees filed a discrimination suit against the National Weather Service, charging it with bypassing them for promotion because of their speech. The court eventually ruled against them, stating that the weather service had not discriminated illegally because the public's need to understand weather reports was a legitimate reason for the promotion decision.1 These events point to a number of questions about the relationship of language to power, status, race, and class. What has been the role of speech in determining who has gained privileges and preferred positions? What have been the various perspectives on Hawai'i Creole English held by people in different positions of power at different times in the past? What roles have




Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The problem of student unrest on the Berkeley campus of the University of California brilliantly highlighted the populist themes of Reagan's campaign: morality, law and order, strong leadership, traditional values, and anti-intellectualism.
Abstract: The problem of student unrest on the Berkeley campus of the University of California brilliantly highlighted the populist themes of Reagan's campaign: morality, law and order, strong leadership, traditional values, and anti-intellectualism. California higher education had, he argued, failed the heavily burdened taxpayer who financed the system and the parents who entrusted their children to it. Reagan's adroit handling of this issue helped him win comfortably in 1966 and gain reelection in 1970. Yet during his first term, unrest escalated sharply. He was more effective at radicalizing students than at taming them. But this failure was unimportant to Reagan since, win or lose, his confrontation with students had enormously beneficial side effects: it embarrassed and weakened California liberals; it camouflaged

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the summer of 1951, under the headline "Realism with Reverence," Time magazine ran two color landscape photographs by Ansel Adams as mentioned in this paper with the caption: "No artist has pictured the magnificence of the western states more eloquently than photographer AnselAdams."
Abstract: In the summer of 1951, under the headline, "Realism with Reverence," Time magazine ran two color landscape photographs by Ansel Adams. Beneath them was the caption: "No artist has pictured the magnificence of the western states more eloquently than photographer Ansel Adams. This summer thousands upon thousands of tourists will follow Adams's well-beaten trail up and down the National Parks fixing the cold eyes of their cameras on the same splendors he has photographed-and hoping, somehow, to match his art."I Nearly forty years later, in the 1988 documentary film, Yosemite: TheFate of Heaven, a young couple struggled to raise their tent in a Yosemite campground. The interviewer asked the woman why they came to the park. After blaming her boyfriend for getting her into this hot and overcrowded place, the woman admitted that "the truth of it is that... I had gone up to San Francisco to see [the exhibition] Ansel Adams: One with Beauty.... I really wanted to see that [pointing out across the valley] with my own eyes after seeing it through his eyes."2 More than any other individual in this century, Ansel Adams has drawn the public to the national parks and in the process helped to define their meaning for millions. In panora-



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The United States Senate voted 88 to 2 to approve a resolution granting President Lyndon Johnson blanket authority to respond to two North Vietnamese attacks against U.S. patrol vessels in the Tonkin Gulf.
Abstract: On August 7, 1964, the United States Senate voted 88 to 2 to approve a resolution granting President Lyndon Johnson blanket authority to respond to two North Vietnamese attacks against U.S. patrol vessels in the Tonkin Gulf. This article explores the background conditions which allowed the resolution to sail through the upper chamber with such ease. Quite beyond the institutional barriers inherent in any challenge by the Senate to executive prerogatives in international affairs and the specific partisan arguments used to rally support for the resolution among Democratic senators, internal weaknesses within an emerging dissenting movement laid the groundwork for the resolution's comfortable passage. Between 1959 and 1964, a group of around a dozen Democratic senators had begun offering a coherent alternative vision of the American role in world affairs.



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For example, the authors argues that tourism has long been important to the western economy, but "equally significantly" it has been central to the reshaping of western culture, and that tourism brings historians to the nexus among the cultural, social, economic, and environmental forces at work in transforming the West into an "American" place.
Abstract: other "new" to the burgeoning field of western histories, the study of tourism, as the following essays ably demonstrate, provide scholars with fresh insights into some of the region's most compelling historic and contemporary issues. Tourism brings historians to the nexus among the cultural, social, economic, and environmental forces at work in transforming the West into an "American" place. As Annie Gilbert Coleman points out in her award-winning essay on the western ski industry, tourism has long been important to the western economy, but "equally significantly" it has been central to the reshaping of western culture.






Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A review of the early struggle to alleviate the tuberculosis problem illustrates the extent of the government's willingness to tackle tribal health issues and, second, the administrative effort aimed at controlling tuberculosis in the Southwest.
Abstract: nesses, struck with particular devastation among the Indians of the Southwest. Once the federal government realized the magnitude of the tuberculosis problem, it launched a drive to combat the "Indian health problem"' reverse mortality rates, and improve the quality of life for native peoples living both on and off the reservations. During the first four decades of the twentieth century, government officials engaged in a significant medical effort aimed at controlling tuberculosis in the Southwest.1 Despite some progress, this campaign experienced only limited success. A review of the early struggle to alleviate the tuberculosis problem illustrates, first, the extent of the government's willingness to tackle tribal health issues and, second, the administrative and

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: One important exception is as mentioned in this paper, which states that the surrender of Japan could not "prejudice the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler." Later that day, Tokyo transmitted its qualified acceptance of the Potsdam terms of surrender to the Allies.
Abstract: one important exception. The surrender could not "prejudice the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler."' Later that day, Tokyo transmitted its qualified acceptance of the Potsdam terms of surrender to the Allies. Diplomats in Moscow, London, and Washington interpreted the Japanese offer to their own advantage during hastily convened meetings around the world and around the clock between Friday, August 10, and Tuesday, August 14. The five-day diplomatic marathon in Washington ended the war againstJapan, but it opened new levels of mistrust and hostility with the Soviet Union.2 President Harry Truman and