The rugged Pacific Northwest known to the
earliest settlers was not for the faint of heart. These settlers had come to work
in the mines and forests, but their free time was spent in the saloons,
gambling halls and brothels. This was not a place built for families and
religious peoples. In his new book Outsiders in a Promised Land Dale Soden writes
about how early Protestants, Catholics, and Jews worked together to provide
social institutions in the Pacific Northwest. Today Soden shares with us his
personal experiences as an undergraduate student during the 70’s and how he
became interested in studying religious activists in the Pacific Northwest.
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I first became interested in religious
activists when I was an undergraduate student in the early ‘70s. The civil rights struggles, the
anti-war movement as well as the emerging consciousness around environmental
issues all provoked thought and action on the part of fellow students in those
years. I remember heated debates
among people who believed that their religious convictions were leading them to
take action in some form or another.
At the same time, I became increasingly aware
of the fact that the Pacific Northwest was and still is considered the most
secular part of the country. As I
began studying Northwest history, I became aware that once the missionary movement
ended, religious influence on the region quickly slipped from the pages of most
historical narratives of the region.
However, my consciousness of the role
religiously motivated figures played in Northwest history increased during my years in graduate school at the
University of Washington. I did a doctoral dissertation that
turned into a book about the most influential Protestant minister in the
Pacific Northwest during the first half of the 20th century, the Reverend Mark
Matthews. He built First
Presbyterian Church in Seattle into the largest congregation in the
denomination with close to 10,000 members. More interestingly, Matthews wielded significant influence in
Seattle’s political and cultural life and it’s his story that piqued more of my
interest in other figures in the Pacific Northwest.
When I started the research that led to
Outsiders, I wanted to cover essentially Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. But before long it became apparent that
there was more than enough material to confine myself to Washington and Oregon.
My interest centered on religious activists
who wanted to influence the culture of the Pacific Northwest. In the late 19th century and generally
up to the Depression, activists concerned themselves with issues related to the
safety of women and children. From
the establishment of public and private schools, orphanages, rescue homes, YM
and YWCAs as well as the fight for the prohibition of alcohol and the
regulation of child labor, activists attempted to change a culture that had its
roots in the saloon, gambling hall and house of prostitution. And generally religious activists
were mostly united in vision and strategy around how to change the culture.
By the middle decades of the 20th century,
the nature of conflict shifted; progressive/liberal Protestants, Catholics, and
Jews increasingly found themselves advocating for civil liberties and civil
rights of generally oppressed groups, not the least of
which were Japanese-American and African American. Religious conservatives grew more nervous about the perils
of communism, labor unions and a fear of the secularism of the public
schools. This divide rooted in
mid- 20th century issues became a full blown culture war in the 1970s following
the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War. Reacting to the emergence of radical feminism as well as reacting
to the growing public acceptance of abortion and homosexuality, more
conservative activists made their positions more public. On the other hand, liberal activists
felt compelled to oppose the deployment of the Trident nuclear submarine,
advocate for environmental protection, work for economic justice for the poor,
and offer a constant voice for what were perceived to be politically
marginalized peoples—African Americans, Hispanics, women, and homosexuals.
Outsiders in a Promised Land makes the case that religious
activists, whether on the right or left have generally believed that they were
not alignment with the predominant culture of the Pacific Northwest. I think this helped motivate them to
work harder for cultural change than what may normally be the case. The Northwest is clearly emerging as a
region that is attracting scholarly interest from around the country. Hopefully this helps fill out a more
complex picture in terms of the culture and politics of the region.