|
|
|
Reviews
Puget's Sound: A Narrative of Early Tacoma and the Southern Sound
|
By Murray Morgan
Introduction by William L. Lang
|
University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2003. Illustrations, photographs, maps, notes, index. 372 pages. $22.50 paper.
|
Reviewed by Cary C. Collins
Maple Valley, Washington
|
|
|
| The late Murray Morgan (1916–2000) is part of the first rank of an exclusive fraternity of historians: the crafters of books so singularly brilliant that they transcend the people, places, and events they portray. This is high art painted with words. Morgan writes with power and originality, reflecting his painstaking research with breathtaking imagery and jarring analytical insights as he reveals to readers a collage of worlds long faded. His style merges novelist with historian, and consequently his stories have wide appeal. A onetime journalist and fiction writer turned historian, community college professor, and radio host, Morgan achieved the profession's highest standard of excellence in over twenty pieces of historical nonfiction, most notably in his definitive, never-out-of-print portrait of early Seattle aptly titled Skid Road (1951). Puget's Sound, first published in 1979, is an intimate, warts-and-all history of Morgan's beloved hometown, Tacoma. |
1
|
|
The University of Washington Press has reprinted Puget's Sound as a selection in their prestigious Columbia Northwest Classics series. Aside from a new foreword by the historian William Lang, the text is as originally published. The book traces the history of Tacoma and its environs from the arrival of the British explorer George Vancouver in 1792 to the establishment of the Fort Lewis Military Reservation in 1916. Chapters cover the fur trade, the exploration of Puget's Sound, the Medicine Creek Treaty and the warfare that followed, the founding of the city of Tacoma, the coming of two transcontinental railroads, the expulsion of Chinese, and the industrial growth of the city. Roiling just beneath the surface of each of these topics is the turbulence of social tension — between minorities and whites, capitalists and labor, and the cities of Tacoma and Seattle. Yet, it is ultimately the conflict between man and nature, Morgan suggests, that conspired against Tacoma becoming the shining metropolis on Puget's Sound that it might have been. The City of Destiny was destined instead to be an abyss of Gilded Age speculation where personal fortunes were won and lost and won again on the basis of such vagaries as knowing the right people, being the right color, believing in the right faith, and belonging to the right political party. Nor did it hurt to be on the right side of Lady Luck. |
2
|
|
Morgan was legendary for his ringing verses of lyrical prose, and no review of a Morgan book would be complete without the inclusion of a passage or two. This beautiful vignette from his chapter on George Vancouver captures the author's remarkable eye for landscape and the complex rhythms of Northwest wildlife: "The Englishmen awoke Monday morning in light rain and set off without breakfast. The tide ran against them but the rain soon stopped. Flocks of pigeon guillemots cruised the heavy green waters; some dived as the longboats approached but most skittered across the surface on long take-off runs, trailing hoarse whispers of protest as they curved toward land to fire themselves point blank into nest holes in the clay cliffs" (p. 10). Morgan was equally adept at portraiture, which is evident in this caustic characterization of the American explorer Lt. Charles Wilkes: "Wilkes's personality was his problem. He was proud, touchy, secretive; he looked on unavoidable accidents as personal affronts and on disagreement as conspiracy. Like Bligh on the Bounty, he should always have sailed alone. Had he been God, many a saint would have fled Heaven" (p. 44). |
3
|
|
The best books have the capacity to tower above their subjects, remaining relevant long after their authors have left us. Morgan, through his poetic and evocative imagery, created an enduring legacy that will enable generations of future readers to experience the grandeur and the wonder of the Pacific Northwest, its history, and its people. |
4
|
|
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|