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On representation
One honest word before you walk through.
This room gathers everyday Seattle from roughly 1850 to 1950. That window does not represent every community in today’s city, and we want to be honest about that up front. Here is the real picture of who lived here over time, with the source so you can check it yourself.
The data
What we surface
Where the objects and the record let us, we surface more than one Seattle. The arrival of the Black community in the jazz age and the music and life that came with it. The Chinese-American experience, including the hard truth of the Chinese Exclusion era. The slow, uneven work of integration in the early decades. We tell these plainly, with dignity, and without pretending one room can carry them in full.
Go deeper
If you want the fuller picture, go to the people who do it best. We send you to them gladly.
Wing Luke Museum
The Asian Pacific American experience, in the heart of the Chinatown-International District.
Seattle Asian Art Museum
Centuries of Asian art, in Volunteer Park.
Northwest African American Museum
Black history, art, and culture across the Pacific Northwest.
National Nordic Museum
The Nordic and Scandinavian story that shaped so much of early Seattle.
An open door
We are happy and genuinely excited to work with anyone who has interesting artifacts and stories that deserve to be told, from any community and any period. If that is you, get in touch.
Early Seattle grew up with a mostly European background. Today the rest of the world has come to make the Puget Sound its own, bringing its own culture and flavor with it. That is the better, bigger story, and we want this collection to keep growing toward it.
A note on the collection
For the most part, everything here is the work of one person, Andrew. This is an ongoing exhibition, and we hope to expand it over the years into a lasting part of the Seattle experience.