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Historic Virginia
Capital: Richmond
State abbreviation/Postal code: Va./VA
Governor: Tim Kaine, D (to Jan. 2010)
Lieut. Governor: Bill Bolling, R (to Jan. 2010)
Senators: John Warner, R (to Jan. 2009); Jim Webb, D (to Jan. 2013)
U.S. Representatives: 11
Secy. of the Commonwealth: Katherine M. Hanley, D (apptd. by gov.)
Treasurer: J. Braxton Powell, D (to Jan. 2010)
Atty. General: Robert F. McDonnell, R (to Jan. 2010)
Entered Union (rank): June 25, 1788 (10)
Present constitution adopted: 1970
Motto: Sic semper tyrannis (Thus always to tyrants)
State symbols:
flower American dogwood (1918)
bird cardinal (1950)
dog
American foxhound (1966)
shell oyster shell (1974)
tree dogwood (1956)
Nicknames: The Old Dominion; Mother of Presidents
Origin of name: In honor of Elizabeth “Virgin Queen”
of England
10 largest cities (2005 est.): Virginia Beach, 438,415; Norfolk,
231,954; Chesapeake, 218,968; Arlington, 195,965; Richmond, 193,777; Newport News, 179,899; Hampton, 145,579; Alexandria,
135,337; Portsmouth, 100,169; Roanoke, 92,631
Land area: 39,594 sq mi. (102,558 sq km)
Geographic center: In Buckingham Co., 5 mi. SW of Buckingham
Number of counties: 95, plus 39 independent cities
Largest county by population and area: Fairfax, 1,006,529 (2005);
Pittsylvania 978 sq mi.
State forests: 16 (50,000+ ac.)
State parks/natural areas: 34
Residents: Virginian
2005 resident population est.: 7,567,465
The history of America is closely tied to that of Virginia, particularly
during the Colonial period. Jamestown, founded in 1607, was the first permanent English settlement in North America and slavery
was introduced there in 1619. The surrenders ending both the American Revolution (Yorktown) and the Civil War (Appomattox)
occurred in Virginia. The state is called the “Mother of Presidents” because eight U.S. presidents were born there.
Today, the service sector provides one-third of all jobs in Virginia,
generating as much income as the manufacturing and retail industries combined in 1999 and accounting for 23% of gross state
product. (The largest component of the service sector is business services, which includes computer and data processing services.)
Virginia has a large number of manufacturing industries, including
transportation equipment, food processing, electronic and other electrical equipment, chemicals, textiles and apparel, lumber
and wood products, and furniture.
Agriculture remains an important sector, and the state ranks among
the top ten in a variety of agricultural products, including tomatoes, tobacco, peanuts, apples, summer potatoes, sweet potatoes,
snap beans, and turkeys and broilers. Virginia also has a large dairy industry.
Virginia is one of the top ten coal producers in the U.S. Coal accounts
for roughly 70% of Virginia's mineral value; crushed stone, sand and gravel, lime, and kyanite are also mined.
Points of interest include Mt. Vernon, home of George Washington;
Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson; Stratford, home of the Lees; Richmond, capital of the Confederacy and of Virginia; and
Williamsburg, the restored Colonial capital.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel spans the mouth of Chesapeake Bay,
connecting Cape Charles with Norfolk. Consisting of a series of low trestles, two bridges and two mile-long tunnels, the complex
is 18 miles (29 km) long. It was opened in 1964.
Other attractions are the Shenandoah National Park, Colonial National
Historical Park, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, the Booker T. Washington birthplace near Roanoke,
Arlington House (the Robert E. Lee Memorial), Luray Caverns, the Skyline Drive, and the Blue Ridge National Parkway.
History
Early Settlements of the Virginia Company
Virginia
(named for Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen) at first included in its lands the whole vast area of North America not held by
the Spanish or French. The colony on Roanoke Island, organized by Sir Walter Raleigh, failed, but the English soon made another
attempt slightly farther north. In 1606 James I granted a charter to the London Company (better known later as the Virginia
Company), a group of merchants lured by the thought of easy profits in mining and trade. The company sent three ships and
144 men under captains Christopher Newport, Bartholomew Gosnold, and John Ratcliffe to establish a base, and the tiny force
entered Chesapeake Bay in Apr., 1607. On a peninsula in the James River they founded (May 13, 1607) the first permanent English
settlement in America, which they called Jamestown. It soon became clear that the company's original plans were unrealistic,
and the Jamestown settlers began a long and unexpected struggle to live off the land.
By 1608, despite the firm and resourceful leadership of John Smith,
hunger and disease had reduced their numbers to 38. The company responded by sending supplies and men as well as new leadership
in the person of Sir Thomas Gates, who was to take charge as deputy governor under the authority of a new charter (1609).
Gates arrived in 1610 to find that only a handful of settlers had survived the terrible winter (the “starving time”)
of 1609–10. He decided to take them back to England, but as they were about to abandon the colony in June, 1610, his
superior, Governor Thomas West, Baron De la Warr, ordered them to reoccupy Jamestown. Although sickness and starvation continued
to take a heavy toll, the settlement at last began to make headway under the harsh regimes of Sir Thomas Dale, De la Warr's
successor in 1611, and later under that of Sir Samuel Argall.
Tobacco, first cultivated by John Rolfe in 1612, gave the company
new hope of a profitable return on its investment. To encourage settlement and improve agricultural productivity it granted
colonists (still technically employees and shareholders) the right to own private gardens, then, at the urging of Sir Edwin
Sandys, promised to give 100 acres (40 hectares) of its land to purchasers of stock and 50 acres (20 hectares) to settlers
who brought over other settlers at his own expense (the “head-right” system). The company also set up smaller
joint-stock companies to settle vast tracts known as “colonies” or “hundreds.” In 1619, at the instruction
of the company, Governor George Yeardley provided additional incentives to settlers by forming a house of burgesses—the
first representative assembly in the New World—and in 1620 by beginning to send women to the colony.
Although these various expedients did succeed in attracting new
settlers and strengthening the colony, the company itself failed to prosper. Rolfe's marriage (1614) to Pocahontas, daughter
of chief Powhatan, secured good relations with the Native Americans for a time, but in 1622 Powhatan's son Opechancanough
led the Powhatan Confederacy in a surprise attack on the colony, killing 350 settlers (about one third of the total community).
English retaliation effectively ended Native American resistance, except for a final uprising of the Confederacy in 1644.
However, the 1622 attack had delivered a fatal blow to the company, and in 1624, beset by internal dissension, it surrendered
its charter to the crown.
A Royal Colony
After almost two decades as a private enterprise,
Virginia became a royal colony, the first in English history. Partly because the English kings were occupied with affairs
at home, the Virginia house of burgesses was able to continue its functions and won formal recognition in the late 1630s.
Thus representative government under royal domain was assured. By 1641, when Sir William Berkeley became governor, the colony
was well established and extended on both sides of the James up to its falls.
Three fourths of the European settlers (about 7,500 in 1641) had
come as indentured servants or apprentices, but many of them became freemen and small farmers. In 1641 there were also about
250 Africans (the first had arrived in 1619 on a Dutch ship), most of whom were indentured servants rather than slaves. The
freeholders, together with the merchant class (from which were descended most of the “first families of Virginia”),
controlled the government. Only white males were enfranchised, and property-owning qualifications for voting continued during
and after the colonial period.
Most of the white settlers were Anglicans, and during the civil
war in England, many well-to-do Englishmen (mainly Anglicans and supporters of Charles I, if not actually Cavaliers) came
to Virginia. The colony was understandably loyal to the crown until 1652, when an expedition sent by Oliver Cromwell forced
it to adhere to the Puritan Commonwealth. With the Commonwealth busy at home, Virginia was practically independent until 1660,
engaging in free trade with foreigners, especially the Dutch, and enjoying the profits of the expanding tobacco and fur trade.
This prosperous era came to an end with the Restoration in 1660.
The Navigation Acts forced the tobacco trade to use only English
ships and English ports, which were at first insufficient to handle it; tobacco piled up in Virginia and in England, and prices
plummeted. The wealthy planters weathered this depression, but the small farmers faced ruin. Serious discontent spread and
was aggravated by Governor Berkeley's high-handed policies, by his favoritism toward the wealthy tidewater planters, and by
his refusal to sanction a campaign against the Native Americans who had been attacking frontier settlements. These grievances
brought the eruption of Bacon's Rebellion in 1676. The unfortunate death of Nathaniel Bacon left the yeomen leaderless, and
they were put down so ruthlessly that Berkeley was recalled to England.
Tidewater Plantations and Westward Migration
Expansion of the
plantation system was made possible only with the use of slave labor (first recognized in law in 1662), and tens of thousands
of Africans were being imported every year by the end of the century. Small, independent cultivators, unable to compete with
the plantation-slave system, formed the nucleus of a poor white class that drifted southward or pioneered to the west. Also
contributing to westward settlement were the French Huguenots, who came to Virginia by the end of the 17th cent. and began
to settle the Piedmont.
Westward movement was stimulated under Gov. Alexander Spotswood,
who himself discovered (1716) the Swift Run Gap in the Blue Ridge Mts., leading into the Shenandoah valley. Spotswood also
imported (1714–17) Germans to work his iron furnaces in the Piedmont area, and numerous others followed their countrymen.
They helped settle the Shenandoah valley (beginning c.1730) as did many newcomers from Pennsylvania—German Lutherans,
English Quakers, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, and a lesser number of Welsh Baptists.
Soil exhaustion from continuous tobacco cultivation hastened the
westward march, as did the settlement activities of land speculators like Spotswood and William Byrd (d. 1744). Many of these
speculators were indebted eastern planters attempting to salvage their fortunes. The Ohio Company grant (1749) furthered exploration
beyond the Allegheny Mts. but brought conflict with the French.
The activities and interests of the new frontier settlements contrasted
sharply with the plantation life of the tidewater region, where the lavish material life of the planter aristocracy was complemented
by high cultural accomplishments and by the spread of the ideas of the Enlightenment. The last of the French and Indian Wars,
in which Virginians—notably Col. George Washington—were prominent, ended the French obstacle to westward migration.
After the war many indebted planters were disturbed by England's own limitations on westward settlement.
The American Revolution
Along with Massachusetts, Virginia was
a leader in the movement that culminated in the American Revolution although, despite the burning oratory of Patrick Henry
and the enlightened political writings of Thomas Jefferson and other brilliant native spokesmen, Virginia was never as politically
discontent or radical as Massachusetts. In 1773 the burgesses at Williamsburg (the capital since 1699), led by Richard Henry
Lee, formed an intercolonial committee of correspondence. The Virginia leaders proposed (May, 1774) a congress of all the
colonies, delegates were chosen at the First Virginia Convention (Aug.), and in September Virginia's Peyton Randolph was elected
president of the First Continental Congress. The next year, in June, George Washington was made commander in chief of the
Continental Army.
After the patriots forced the royal governor, John Murray, earl
of Dunmore, to flee, the Fifth Virginia Convention (May 6–June 29, 1776) declared the colony's independence, instructed
the Virginia delegates to the Continental Congress to propose general colonial independence (resulting in the Declaration
of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson), and adopted a declaration of rights and the first constitution of a free American
state, both drawn up by George Mason. Patrick Henry was elected the first governor.
Although the British had burned Norfolk in Jan., 1776, they did
not invade the state in full force until 1779, when they took Portsmouth and Suffolk. Continentals under Lafayette came to
Virginia in 1780, and the British cause was lost as American land forces and a French fleet combined to bring about Cornwallis's
surrender (Oct. 19, 1781) in the Yorktown campaign. Meanwhile, George Rogers Clark and his Virginians had wrested (1779) the
Northwest Territory from the British, and in 1784 Virginia yielded its claim to this area to the federal government.
Virginia's Role in the New Nation
During the Revolution a degree
of religious freedom had been instituted in Virginia under the lead of Jefferson. Other reforms had removed entail and primogeniture
from land tenure, liberalized the legal code, and abolished further importation of slaves. A liberal law for formal emancipation
of slaves was passed in 1782 and remained in force for more than 20 years. In 1786 a statute for religious freedom, championed
by James Madison, completed the disestablishment of the Anglican Church and established complete religious equality for all
Virginians.
In replacing the unsatisfactory Articles of Confederation with the
Constitution of the United States, Virginians, especially James Madison, again played leading roles. Other leaders such as
Patrick Henry, Edmund Pendleton, and Edmund Randolph at various times opposed the document, but the state ratified it (June
26, 1788) with both tidewater and western support. Later, another Virginian, Chief Justice John Marshall, later gave the document
much of its strength. The Old Dominion ceded (1789) a portion of its Potomac lands to the United States for the creation of
the District of Columbia. In 1792, Kentucky, a Virginia county since 1776, was admitted to the Union as a separate state.
After Madison and Jefferson raised an opposition to the financial program of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, Virginia
supported the emerging Democratic-Republican party's struggle against the Federalists and became a hotbed of states' rights
sentiment (see Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions).
Of the first 12 Presidents of the United States, seven were Virginians—Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, James Monroe (these four comprising the “Virginia Dynasty”), William Henry Harrison, John
Tyler, and Zachary Taylor. Later, in the 20th cent., the name of Woodrow Wilson was to further lengthen the generally distinguished
list of Virginian presidents.
The native sons who led the country during the 1800s sometimes expanded
national power and national development to an extent that many states' rights Virginians deemed unconstitutional. However,
Virginia itself, stimulated by western complaints, embarked on a vigorous policy of internal improvements in the second and
third decades of the 19th cent. The tidewater majority made few concessions to western demands for male suffrage and other
reforms in the constitution of 1830. Economically, however, the whole state benefited from transportation improvements, from
the growth of scientific agriculture and the spread of wheat cultivation, and from the growth of such industries as tobacco
processing and iron manufacture.
Slavery, Insurrection, and Civil War
As the cotton economy grew
in the newer Southern states the tidewater became a breeding ground for the slaves they needed. Elsewhere in the state, especially
in the west, antislavery sentiment was strong in the early 19th cent., and following the slave insurrection (1831) led by
Nat Turner the house of delegates voted down a bill to abolish slavery by the narrow margin of seven votes. The insurrection
did result in harsher laws and more conservative policies regarding African Americans. The constitution of 1851, granted suffrage
to “every white male citizen,” and thus effected reapportionment of representation.
For the most part Virginians labored to avert conflict between North
and South. But “fire-eaters” such as Edmund Ruffin and abolitionists such as John Brown of Harpers Ferry fame,
shaped the course that led to the Civil War. Secession came (Apr. 17, 1861) only after all attempts to keep peace had failed.
Virginia joined the Confederacy, and Richmond became the Confederate capital. Robert E. Lee entered the military service of
the South's new government, but not a few Virginians such as Winfield Scott, George H. Thomas, and David G. Farragut remained
loyal to the Union. Most Virginians who lived west of the Appalachians also opposed secession, and on June 20, 1863, this
section was admitted to the Union as the new state of West Virginia. As the conflict progressed, Virginia emerged as the chief
battleground of the Civil War.
In the beginning the Union armies repeatedly suffered setbacks—at
the first battle of Bull Run (July 21, 1861), in the Seven Days battles of the Peninsular campaign (April-July, 1862) after
the Monitor and Merrimack had clashed in Hampton Roads, and in lesser but related campaigns such as the triumph of Thomas
J. (Stonewall) Jackson in the Shenandoah valley. The second battle of Bull Run (Aug., 1862) was a smashing victory for Lee,
but in the Antietam campaign (Sept., 1862) he fared no better than Union Gen. George B. McClellan in invading enemy country.
However, in the battles of Fredericksburg (Dec. 13, 1862) and Chancellorsville (May 2–4, 1863), the Federals under Gen.
Ambrose E. Burnside and then under Gen. Joseph Hooker were again repulsed.
Thus encouraged, Lee and his lieutenants—James Longstreet,
R. S. Ewell, A. P. Hill, and J. E. B. Stuart—undertook another invasion of the North but failed against George G. Meade
in the Gettysburg campaign (June–July, 1863). That campaign marked the beginning of the end for the Confederacy, although
it took considerable bloody pounding by Gen. U. S. Grant in the Wilderness campaign (May–June, 1864) and the siege of
Petersburg (1864–65) before Lee surrendered what remained of his Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Courthouse
(see under Appomattox) on Apr. 9, 1865. President Jefferson Davis had already fled Richmond, and the Confederacy soon collapsed.
Postwar Political Reform and a New Economy
The war left its marks
on the land and the people. The Shenandoah Valley was particularly desolate after the campaigns of Confederate Gen. Jubal
A. Early and Union Gen. Philip H. Sheridan in 1864. But poverty-stricken as it was after the war, the state, under Gov. Francis
H. Pierpont, escaped the worst aspects of Reconstruction. Radical Republicans were but briefly in power. On the recommendation
(1869) of President Ulysses S. Grant, Congress allowed Virginia to vote without coercion, and the state passed the essential
clauses of a constitution that the Radicals had drafted (1868), providing for free public schools and heavy taxes on land.
More importantly, Virginia was allowed to elect to office its own moderate party, the “white Republicans,” led
by Gen. William Mahone. Radical sway was ended. In 1870, after the Virginia assembly had ratified the 14th and 15th amendments
to the Constitution, the state was readmitted to the Union.
The abolition of slavery and the hard agricultural times of postwar
decades ended the plantation system in Virginia and brought some increase in farm tenancy, but the economy benefited from
diversification as fruit farming and the tobacco industry became important. To offset declines in demand for dark Virginia
tobacco, the bright-leaf variety was increasingly grown.
Politics and Industry in the Early Twentieth Century
In 1902
a new state constitution demanded rigorous literacy tests for voters, thus completing the long process of reducing the black
electorate. During the years preceding World War I, Virginia's prosperity grew as dairy farming in particular gained importance.
During the war agriculture boomed, as did industry. Especially prosperous were the important shipbuilding works at Hampton
Roads.
In the mid-1920s, Harry Flood Byrd assumed direction of the state's
powerful Democratic organization, formerly headed by U.S. Senator Thomas S. Martin and Methodist Episcopal Bishop James Cannon,
Jr. Byrd, governor from 1926 to 1930 and U.S. Senator from 1933 until 1965, became the most influential figure in the state.
As chief executive he initiated a sound reorganization of the state government, brought about the passage of the first antilynching
law adopted by any state, and improved the highway system. However, the organization's chief boast was that the state was
entirely free of debt due to a rigid “pay-as-you-go” policy. Liberals criticized this financial policy for scrimping
on public education and welfare.
In the Great Depression of the 1930s Virginia fared better than
many states. Its industries had not been overexpanded, and, more important, the state's economy was built around consumer
goods—foods, textiles, and tobacco—that remained in relatively high demand. Farmers benefited from the Agricultural
Adjustment Administration, but conservative Virginians resisted some of the economic policies of the New Deal. In World War
II Virginia was the scene of much military training, and the shipyards at Hampton Roads and other industries again aided the
war effort. In the prosperous postwar period the conservative Byrd organization maintained its power.
Desegregation and Growth
After the 1954 Supreme Court decision
on public school integration, attempts at desegregating Virginia's schools proceeded slowly. After Virginia courts and federal
courts ruled illegal the order by Gov. J. Lindsay Almond, Jr., to close public schools in nine counties, a lame compromise
of “local option” was adopted. With the exception of Prince Edward County, where schools remained closed from
1959 until 1964, all parts of Virginia had accepted at least token integration by the mid-1960s. In 1989, L. Douglas Wilder,
a Democrat, became the first African American elected governor in Virginia.
Virginia has benefited in recent decades from increased federal
spending. In the 1980s the Hampton Roads area saw a naval shipbuilding boom. The greatest growth, however, has come in the
suburbs of Washington, D.C., where expanded federal offices and hundreds of quasi-official and private organizations engaged
in lobbying, communications, and other businesses that owe their existence to proximity to the seat of the government have
in turn spawned trade and service hubs like Dale City and Tysons Corner.
For more on Virginia and its vibrant past, please
visit www.virginia.org .
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Washington Wonders
Capital: Olympia
State abbreviation/Postal code: Wash./WA
Governor: Christine Gregoire, D (to Jan. 2009)
Lieut. Governor: Brad Owen, D (to Jan. 2009)
Senators: Patty Murray, D (to Jan. 2011); Maria Cantwell, D (to
Jan. 2013)
U.S. Representatives: 9
Secy. of State: Sam Reed, R (to Jan. 2009)
Treasurer: Michael J. Murphy, D (to Jan. 2009)
Atty. General: Rob McKenna, R (to Jan. 2009)
Auditor: Brian Sonntag, D (to Jan. 2009)
Organized as territory: March 2, 1853
Entered Union (rank): Nov. 11, 1889 (42)
Present constitution adopted: 1889
Motto: Al-Ki (Indian word meaning “by and by”)
State symbols:
flower coast rhododendron (1892)
tree western hemlock (1947)
bird willow goldfinch (1951)
fish steelhead trout (1969)
gem petrified wood (1975)
colors green and gold (1925)
song “Washington, My Home” (1959)
folk song “Roll On Columbia, Roll On” (1987)
dance square
dance (1979)
grass bluebunch wheatgrass (1989)
insect blue darner dragonfly (1997)
fossil Columbian mammoth (1998)
fruit apple (1989)
Nicknames: Evergreen State
Origin of name: In honor of George Washington
10 largest cities (2005 est.): Seattle, 573,911; Spokane, 196,818;
Tacoma, 195,898; Vancouver, 157,493; Bellevue, 117,137; Everett, 96,604; Federal Way, 83,088; Kent, 81,800; Spokane Valley,
81,380; Yakima, 81,214
Land area: 66,544 sq mi. (172,349 sq km)
Geographic center: In Chelan Co., 10 mi. WSW of Wenatchee
Number of counties: 39
Largest county by population and area: King, 1,793,583 (2005); Okanogan,
5,268 sq mi.
State forest lands: 2.1 million ac.
State parks: 120
Residents: Washingtonian
2005 resident population est.: 6,287,759
As part of the vast Oregon Country, Washington territory was visited
by Spanish, American, and British explorers—Bruno Heceta for Spain in 1775, the American Capt. Robert Gray in 1792,
and Capt. George Vancouver for Britain in 1792–1794. Lewis and Clark explored the Columbia River region and coastal
areas for the U.S. in 1805–1806.
Rival American and British settlers and conflicting territorial
claims threatened war in the early 1840s. However, in 1846 the Oregon Treaty set the boundary at the 49th parallel and war
was averted.
Washington is a leading lumber producer. Its rugged surface is rich
in stands of Douglas fir, hemlock, ponderosa and white pine, spruce, larch, and cedar. The state holds first place in apples,
lentils, dry edible peas, hops, pears, red raspberries, spearmint oil, and sweet cherries, and ranks high in apricots, asparagus,
grapes, peppermint oil, and potatoes. Livestock and livestock products make important contributions to total farm revenue
and the commercial fishing catch of salmon, halibut, and bottomfish makes a significant contribution to the state's economy.
Manufacturing industries in Washington include aircraft and missiles,
shipbuilding and other transportation equipment, lumber, food processing, metals and metal products, chemicals, and machinery.
Washington has over 1,000 dams, including the Grand Coulee, built
for a variety of purposes including irrigation, power, flood control, and water storage.
Among the major points of interest: Mt. Rainier, Olympic, and North
Cascades National Parks. Mount St. Helens, a peak in the Cascade Range, erupted in May 1980. Also of interest are Whitman
Mission and Fort Vancouver National Historic Sites; and the Pacific Science Center and the Space Needle, in Seattle.
History
European Exploration
Washington's early history
is shared with that of the whole Oregon Territory. The perennial search for the Northwest Passage aroused initial interest
in the area. Of the early explorers along the Pacific coast, Spanish expeditions under Juan Pérez (1774) and Bruno Heceta
(1775) are the first known to have definitely skirted the coast of what is now Washington. Capt. James Cook's English expedition
(1778) first opened up the area to the maritime fur trade with China, and British fur companies were soon exploring the West
and encountering Russians pushing southward from posts in Alaska. In 1787, Charles William Barkley found the inland channel,
which the following year John Meares named the Juan de Fuca Strait (after the sailor who is alleged to have discovered it).
In 1792, the British explorer George Vancouver and the American fur trader Robert Gray crossed paths along the Washington
coast. Vancouver sailed into Puget Sound and mapped the area; Gray, convinced of the existence of a great river that the other
explorers rejected, found the entrance, crossed the dangerous bar, and sailed up the Columbia, establishing U.S. claims to
the areas that it drained.
Early Settlement and Boundary Disputes
The Lewis and Clark expedition,
which reached the area in 1805, and the establishment of John Jacob Astor's settlement, Astoria, both helped to further the
American claim; but in 1807 the Canadian trader David Thompson traveled the length of the Columbia, mapping the region and
establishing British counterclaims. After Astoria was sold to the North West Company in the War of 1812, British interests
appeared paramount, although in 1818 a treaty provided for 10 years (later extended) of joint rights for the United States
and Great Britain in the Columbia River country. The Hudson's Bay Company absorbed the North West Company in 1821 and, under
the patriarchal guidance of Dr. John McLoughlin, dominated the region until challenged by the Americans in the 1840s.
Fort Vancouver, on the site of present-day Vancouver, sheltered
American overland traders—particularly Jedediah Smith, Benjamin Bonneville, and Nathaniel Wyeth—and later the
American missionaries, who were the first real settlers in the area north of the Columbia. Marcus Whitman established (1836)
a mission at Waiilatpu (near present-day Walla Walla), which for a decade not only served Native Americans as a medical and
religious center but also provided an indispensable rest stop for immigrants on the Oregon Trail. Meanwhile the British, although
despairing of control over the area S of the Columbia, were still determined to retain the region to the north; the Americans,
on the other hand, demanded the ouster of the British from the whole of the Columbia River country up to a lat. of 54°40'N.
“Fifty-four forty or fight” became a slogan in the 1844 election campaign, and for a time war with Britain threatened.
However, diplomacy prevailed, and in 1846 the boundary was set at lat. 49°N.
Native American Resistance and Territorial Status
Peace with
the British did not, however, preclude Native American conflict. Partly as a protective measure, the Oregon Territory, embracing
the Washington area, was created the following year; but in 1853 the region was divided, and Washington Territory (containing
a part of what is now Idaho) was set up, with Isaac Stevens as the first governor. (The Idaho section was cut away when Idaho
Territory was formed in 1863.) Meanwhile, some of the pioneers on the oregon trail began to turn northward, and a small settlement
sprang up at New Market, or Tumwater (near present-day Olympia).
After word of the needs of California gold-seekers for lumber and
food spread northward, settlers recognized the commercial potential of the Puget Sound country and poured into the area in
ever-increasing numbers. Lumber and fishing industries arose to satisfy the demand to the south, and new towns, including
Seattle, were founded. Meanwhile Stevens, who also served as superintendent of Indian affairs, set about persuading the Native
Americans to sell much of their lands and settle on reservations. Treaties with the coast tribes were quickly concluded, but
the inland tribes revolted, and hostilities with the Cayuse, the Yakima, and the Nez Percé tribes continued for many years.
Over the years, Native Americans remained a small but significant presence in the state; in the early 1990s their population
was over 81,000.
Gold, Immigration, and Statehood
Gold was first discovered in
Washington in 1852 by a Hudson's Bay Company agent at Fort Colville, but the Yakima War was then in progress and it hindered
extensive mining activity. In 1860 the Orofino Creek and Clearwater River deposits were uncovered, bringing a rush of prospectors
to the Walla Walla area. The major influx of settlers was delayed, however, until the 1880s, when transport by rail became
possible (the first of three transcontinental railroads linked to Washington was completed in 1883).
The population almost quadrupled between 1880 and 1890; although
the majority of the new settlers were from the East and Midwest, the territory also absorbed large numbers of foreign immigrants.
Chinese laborers had been brought in during the 1860s to aid in placer mining; after 1870 they were followed by substantial
groups of Germans, Scandinavians, Russians, Dutch, and Japanese immigrants. By the time Washington became a state in 1889,
the wide sagebrush plains of E Washington had been given over to cattle and sheep, agriculture was flourishing in the fertile
valleys, and the lumber industry had been founded.
Although some agrarian and labor dissatisfaction with the railroads
and other big corporations existed, giving rise to the Granger movement and the Populist party, the discovery of gold in Alaska
in 1897 brought renewed prosperity. Seattle, the primary departure point for the Klondike, became a boomtown. Labor and election
reform laws were enacted, and the primary, the initiative, the referendum, and the recall were adopted.
The Early Twentieth Century
The turn of the century brought labor
clashes that gave Washington a reputation as a radical state. The extreme policies of the Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW; also known as the “Wobblies”) proved appealing to the shipyard and dock workers and to the loggers, and
in 1917 the U.S. War Dept. was forced to intervene in a lumber industry dispute. A general strike following World War I had
a crippling effect on the state's economy; antilabor feeling increased, and the famous incident at Centralia resulted in bloody
strife between the IWW and the American Legion. The alarmed and brutal reaction of management to radical labor policies produced
a confrontational atmosphere that hindered the mediation until the onset of the lean days of the 1930s and the emergence of
the New Deal.
Washington was an important center of the defense industry during
World War II, particularly with the immense aircraft industry in Seattle and the Manhattan Project's Hanford Works at Richland.
(Decades later it was discovered that the Hanford facility had leaked large amounts of hazardous radioactive waste in the
1940s and 50s.) During the war, the large Japanese-American population in the state (more than 15,000 persons) was moved eastward
to camps, where they suffered great physical and emotional hardship.
Postwar Change and New Industry
In the postwar period military
spending continued to pour into such facilities as the Hanford nuclear reservation and the Bremerton naval shipyard, as well
as into Boeing's bomber production. At the same time, trade with Asia boomed. Since the 1970s, Washington has attracted a
large number of firms moving from California to a more favorable business climate. These include computer software manufacturers
and other high-technology companies. The increased economic diversification and stepped-up activity in high-tech industries
have cushioned the impact of job losses in the 1990s from post–cold war cutbacks, especially in aerospace orders for
Boeing. At the same time, industrial and residential growth has brought the state face to face with environmental issues,
among them the effects of continued massive logging and the impact of dams on fish populations.
To see more on Washington
please visit us at www.experiencewa.com .
West Virginia Wilderness
Capital: Charleston
State abbreviation/Postal code: W.Va./WV
Governor: Joe Manchin III, D (to Jan. 2009)
Lt. Governor/Senate President: Earl Ray Tomblin, D (to Jan. 2009)
Senators: Robert C. Byrd, D (to Jan. 2013); John D. “Jay” Rockefeller IV, D (to Jan.
2009)
U.S. Representatives: 3
Secy. of State: Betty Ireland (to Jan. 2009)
Treasurer: John D. Perdue, D (to Jan. 2009)
Atty. General: Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., D (to Jan. 2009)
Entered Union (rank): June 20, 1863 (35)
Present constitution adopted: 1872
Motto: Montani semper liberi (Mountaineers are always free)
State symbols:
flower rhododendron (1903)
tree sugar maple (1949)
bird cardinal (1949)
animal black
bear (1973)
colors blue and gold (official) (1863)
songs “West Virginia, My Home Sweet Home,” “The
West Virginia Hills,” and “This Is My West Virginia” (adopted by Legislature in 1947, 1961, and 1963 as
official state songs)
Nickname: Mountain State
Origin of name: In honor of Elizabeth, “Virgin Queen” of England
10 largest cities (2005 est.): Charleston, 51,176; Huntington, 49,198; Parkersburg, 32,020; Wheeling,
29,639; Morgantown, 28,292; Weirton, 19,544; Fairmont, 19,049; Beckley, 16,936; Clarksburg, 16,439; Martinsburg, 15,996
Land area: 24,077 sq mi. (62,359 sq km)
Geographic center: In Braxton Co., 4 mi. E of Sutton
Number of counties: 55
Largest county by population and area: Kanawha, 193,559 (2005); Randolph, 1,040 sq mi.
State forests: 9 (79,502 ac.)
State parks: 37 (74,508 ac.)
Residents: West Virginian
2005 resident population est.: 1,816,856
West Virginia's early history from 1609 until 1863 is largely shared with Virginia, of which it
was a part until Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861. The delegates of the 40 western counties who opposed secession formed
their own government, which was granted statehood in 1863.
In 1731 Morgan Morgan established the first permanent white settlement on Mill Creek in present-day
Berkeley County. Coal, a mineral asset that would figure significantly in West Virginia's history, was discovered in 1742.
Other important natural resources are oil, natural gas, and hardwood forests, which cover about 75% of the state's area.
The state's rapid industrial expansion began in the 1870s, drawing thousands of European immigrants
and African Americans into the region. Miners' strikes between 1912 and 1921 required the intervention of state and federal
troops to quell the violence.
Today, the state ranks second in total coal production, with about 15% of the U.S. total. It is
also a leader in steel, glass, aluminum, and chemical manufactures. Major agricultural commodities are poultry and eggs, dairy
products, and apples.
Tourism is increasingly popular in mountainous West Virginia. More than a million acres have been
set aside in 37 state parks and recreation areas and in 9 state forests and 2 national forests. Major points of interest include
Harpers Ferry and New River Gorge National River, The Greenbrier and Berkeley Springs resorts, the scenic railroad at Cass,
and the historic homes in the Eastern Panhandle.
History
Early Inhabitants and European Settlement
The Mound Builders were the earliest
known inhabitants. When the first Europeans arrived, however, the region was for the most part unpopulated, serving as a common
hunting ground (and therefore a battleground) for the settlers and Native Americans. This part of Virginia, which later became
West Virginia, was penetrated by explorers and fur traders as early as the 1670s. It was cut off from the eastern regions
by rugged mountains and remained uninhabited for more than a century after Virginia had thriving colonies.
What is now the Eastern Panhandle attracted the first settlers. They were Germans and Scotch-Irish,
and they came not over the Blue Ridge Mts. from Virginia but rather down the valleys from Pennsylvania. German families established
(c.1730) a settlement on the Potomac and named it Mecklenburg; now called Shepherdstown, it is the oldest town in the state.
Homes sprang up along the rivers, but the formidable Allegheny Plateau barrier was not crossed until after the British government,
concerned about French claims to the Ohio valley, granted (1749) the Ohio Company large tracts of land in the trans-Allegheny
region.
Settlers began laboriously making their way over the mountains, and they eventually came into conflict
with the French; this conflict was the direct cause of the French and Indian War (1754–63; see under French and Indian
Wars). During the war, most settlers fled the area. They returned after the English captured Fort Duquesne in 1758 and broke
the French hold on the Ohio valley. Great numbers poured back over the mountains, ignoring the British proclamation of 1763,
which, in the hopes of avoiding conflict with the Native Americans, forbade settlement W of the Alleghenies.
The Native Americans resented this encroachment on their hunting grounds, and their hostility was
fed by the often unjust treatment they received at the hands of settlers. The brutal murder of the family of chief James Logan
provoked a series of attacks that resulted in Lord Dunmore's War (see Dunmore, John Murray, 4th earl of), in which the Native
Americans were decisively defeated (Oct. 10, 1774).
The American Revolution
During the American Revolution the area was invaded three times by British-led
Native American forces. After the American conquest of the Northwest by an army (consisting mostly of western Virginians)
under George Rogers Clark, the British and Native American threat to the area was virtually removed. Western Virginians overwhelmingly
supported ratification of the U.S. Constitution; they wanted a strong federal government that would quell further conflict
with the Native Americans and that would enrich commerce along the Ohio, a river of central importance to their economic life.
Growth and Estrangement from Eastern Virginia
Population growth and prosperity were spurred by
the opening of the Mississippi River with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, by the resulting expansion and improvement of river-borne
commerce, and by the completion (1818) of the National Road at Wheeling. The area became an increasingly important part of
Virginia, but the predominance of small farms and the almost total absence of slavery were already contributing to a sense
of estrangement from the eastern part of the state.
Virginia was politically dominated by the wealthy tidewater planters, who were overrepresented in
the state legislature because slaves were counted in apportioning representation. As a result the western Virginians suffered
from inequitable taxation, and their demands for internal improvements and public education were not met. A new Virginia constitution,
ratified in 1830, brought no reforms, but another charter (1851) effected a compromise by which representation in the lower
house was based on white population and under which universal white male suffrage was granted. It was not enough; tidewater
domination of the state legislature continued, and the two sections were being pulled further apart by economic differences—western
Virginia was becoming an industrialized coal and steel center—and by the increasing prominence of the slavery issue.
Civil War and the Creation of West Virginia
At the outset of the Civil War the northwestern counties
of Virginia overwhelmingly opposed the state's ordinance of secession (Apr. 17, 1861). Unable to halt Virginia's secession
from the Union, westerners in the state were quick to take advantage of a long-awaited opportunity for their own separation
from Virginia. Protected by federal troops, delegates representing most of Virginia's western counties met at Wheeling on
June 11, 1861, and nullified the Virginia ordinance of secession, declared the offices of the state government at Richmond
to be vacated, and formed the “restored government” of Virginia, with Francis H. Pierpont as governor.
Creation of a new state was overwhelmingly approved in the referendum of Oct. 24, and in November
another convention at Wheeling began to draft the state constitution that was approved in Apr., 1862. President Lincoln proclaimed
(Apr. 20, 1863) admission of a new state, West Virginia, to be effective 60 days thence, and on June 20, 1863, Arthur I. Boreman
was inaugurated as its first governor. Pierpont and his “restored government” of Virginia had, of course, consented
to the formation of the new state, thereby technically fulfilling the requirement in the U.S. Constitution that a state consent
to its own division. Pierpont continued to act as governor of occupied Virginia throughout the war.
Meanwhile, the Confederates had failed to hold on to the region militarily; Union forces, under
the command of Gen. George B. McClellan and then under Gen. William S. Rosecrans, were victorious in battles at Philippi (June
3, 1861), Rich Mt. (July 11), Corrick's Ford (July 13), and Carnifax Ferry (Sept. 10). Gen. Robert E. Lee's attempt to rally
the Confederate forces ended in defeat at Cheat Mt. (Sept. 12–13), and a year later Rosecrans's victory at Gauley Bridge
extended Union control to the lower Kanawha valley.
The Confederates made no serious endeavor to recover the territory W of the Allegheny Front, although
guerrilla attacks persisted throughout the war. The strategically important Eastern Panhandle, on the other hand, was the
scene of continual fighting; not originally a part of West Virginia, it had been quickly annexed (1863) because it contained
the Baltimore and Ohio RR. (West Virginia's possession of this area was confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1871.) Of the
many West Virginians who remained loyal to the old state, Virginia, the most notable was Gen. Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson;
his only sister, however, was a staunch Union supporter. Such a division in allegiance was common in many families, and these
divisions affected West Virginia's politics for several decades after the war.
Postwar Political Changes and the Hatfield-McCoy Feud
Slavery was abolished in 1865, but it was
not until 1872 that the state allowed African Americans to vote and to hold public office. In 1866 Radical Republicans disenfranchised
all persons who had aided the Confederacy, but after the Democrats came to power (which they held for 25 years thereafter),
this act was annulled (1871) by the Flick Amendment.
In 1885 the capital, which had been shuttled back and forth between Wheeling and Charleston, became
fixed at Charleston. Three years earlier, along the border region between West Virginia and Kentucky, there had begun the
now famous Hatfield-McCoy feud, which was to encompass many killings and embroil the governors of the two states in lengthy
and heated controversy. The blood of West Virginia Hatfields and Kentucky McCoys was shed until 1896.
Industrial Expansion and the Labor Movement
Of great significance to West Virginia was the state's
industrial expansion in the late 19th cent. Based on rich resources and supported by the immigration of Southern blacks and
northern laborers, industrialization marked a change from the largely self-sufficient economy of local communities to one
of dependence on industry's profits and labor's wages. West Virginia's great chemical industry was founded during World War
I when German chemicals could no longer be imported, and it was greatly expanded during World War II.
Both wars also brought unprecedented boom periods to the mines and the steel mills. The state's
rapid industrialization, however, was long accompanied by serious labor problems. This was especially true in the coal mines,
where wages were low and working conditions dangerous. Unionization was bitterly resisted by mine owners, and strikes throughout
the latter part of the 19th cent. and the first third of the 20th cent. were often marked by serious and extended violence,
particularly in 1912–13 and in 1920–21.
The Great Depression in 1930 intensified difficulties, but reform measures under the New Deal finally
assured the miners their right to organize; membership in the United Mine Workers of America soared, and by 1937 labor leaders
enjoyed tremendous political power in the state. During the 1950s economic weakness in the coal industry, combined with the
mechanization and automation that enabled mines to operate at top efficiency with far fewer employees, were the chief factors
in bringing about the highest unemployment rate in the country and a major exodus of the state's population—down 7.2%
from 1950 to 1960 and another 6.2% from 1960 to 1970.
Late-Twentieth-Century Developments
Economic conditions improved during the 1960s, as federal
aid poured into the state (in part owing to the rise to power in the U.S. Senate of Robert C. Byrd), and massive efforts were
made to attract new industry. Since the 1960s the ravages of surface mining have been a major political issue; recently, the
practice of leveling mountains and filling creeks with slag has come under fire. In the 1970s, West Virginia's coal-based
economy flourished as energy prices rose dramatically; but in the 1980s energy prices fell and employment in the mines rapidly
declined as West Virginia suffered through one of the worst economic periods in its history. By 1983 the state's unemployment
rate had risen to 21% as its manufacturing base also slumped. West Virginia's population declined 8% from 1980 to 1990. It
rose slightly from 1990 to 2000, as a modest recovery based largely on foreign investment and further development of the tourist
industry took place, but the state still ranked last in U.S. housing construction. The mountains are callin' you at
www.escape2wv.com .
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Wisconsin You're Home
Capital: Madison
State abbreviation/Postal code: Wis./WI
Governor: Jim Doyle, D (to Jan. 2011)
Lieut. Governor: Barbara Lawton, D (to Jan. 2011)
Senators: Russell D. Feingold, D (to Jan. 2011); Herbert Kohl, D (to Jan. 2013)
U.S. Representatives: 8
Secy. of State: Douglas J. La Follette, D (to Jan. 2011)
State Treasurer: Dawn Marie Sass, D (to Jan. 2011)
Atty. General: J. B. Van Hollen, R (to Jan. 2011)
Organized as territory: July 4, 1836
Entered Union (rank): May 29, 1848 (30)
Present constitution adopted: 1848
Motto: Forward
State symbols:
flower wood violet (1949)
tree sugar maple (1949)
grain corn (1990)
bird robin (1949)
animal
badger
wild life animal white-tailed deer (1957)
domestic animal dairy cow (1971)
insect honeybee (1977)
fish
musky (muskellunge) (1955)
song “On Wisconsin”
mineral galena (1971)
rock red granite (1971)
symbol
of peace mourning dove (1971)
soil antigo silt loam (1983)
fossil trilobite (1985)
dog American Water Spaniel
(1986)
beverage milk (1988)
dance polka (1994)
waltz “The Wisconsin Waltz” (2001)
ballad “Oh
Wisconsin, Land of My Dreams” (2001)
Nickname: Badger State
Origin of name: French corruption of an Indian word whose meaning is disputed
10 largest cities (2005 est.): Milwaukee, 578,887; Madison, 221,551; Green Bay, 101,203; Kenosha, 95,240; Racine,
79,392; Appleton, 70,217; Waukesha, 67,658; Oshkosh, 63,485; Eau Claire, 62,570; Janesville, 61,962
Land area: 54,310 sq mi. (140,673 sq km)
Geographic center: In Wood Co., 9 mi. SE of Marshfield
Number of counties: 72
Largest county by population and area: Milwaukee, 921,654 (2005); Marathon, 1,545 sq mi.
State parks, forests, and recreation areas: 95
Residents: Wisconsinite
2005 resident population est.: 5,536,201
The Wisconsin region was first explored for France by Jean Nicolet, who landed at Green Bay in 1634. In 1660
a French trading post and Roman Catholic mission were established near present-day Ashland.
Great Britain obtained the region in settlement of the French and Indian Wars in 1763; the U.S. acquired it in
1783 after the Revolutionary War. However, Great Britain retained actual control until after the War of 1812. The region was
successively governed as part of the territories of Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan between 1800 and 1836, when it became
a separate territory.
Wisconsin is a leading state in milk and cheese production. Other important farm products are peas, beans, beets,
corn, potatoes, oats, hay, and cranberries.
The chief industrial products of the state are automobiles, machinery, furniture, paper, beer, and processed
foods. Wisconsin ranks second among the 47 paper-producing states. The state's mines produce copper, iron ore, lead, and zinc.
Wisconsin is a pioneer in social legislation, providing pensions for the blind (1907), aid to dependent children
(1913), and old-age assistance (1925). In labor legislation, the state was the first to enact an unemployment compensation
law (1932) and the first in which a workman's compensation law actually took effect. In 1984, Wisconsin became the first state
to adopt the Uniform Marital Property Act.
The state has over 14,000 lakes, of which Winnebago is the largest. Water sports, ice-boating, and fishing are
popular, as are skiing and hunting. The 95 state parks, forests, and recreation areas take up one-seventh of the land.
Among the many points of interest are the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore; Ice Age National Scientific Reserve;
the Circus World Museum at Baraboo; the Wolf, St. Croix, and Lower St. Croix national scenic riverways; and the Wisconsin
Dells.
History
French Fur Trading and the Influx of Eastern Tribes
The Great Lakes offered an easy access
from Canada to the region that is now Wisconsin, and the Frenchman Jean Nicolet arrived at the site of Green Bay in 1634 in
search of fur pelts and the Northwest Passage. He was followed by other traders and missionaries, among them Radisson and
Groseilliers; Marquette and Joliet, who discovered the upper Mississippi; and Aco and Hennepin, from the party of La Salle.
Meanwhile the spread of settlers in the East was bringing the Ottawa, the Huron, and other Native American tribes
into Wisconsin, where they in turn displaced the older inhabitants, the Winnebago, the Kickapoo, and others. Similarly, the
Ojibwa drove their kinsmen the Sioux westward from Wisconsin. Only the Menominee remained relatively settled.
Nicolas Perrot helped (1667) establish Green Bay as the center of the Wisconsin fur trade, and in 1686 he formally
claimed all the region for France. The fur trade flourished despite the 50-year war between the Fox and the French, and the
historic Fox-Wisconsin portage was used by generations of traders from Green Bay and Prairie du Chien in their search for
beaver and other furs.
British-American Struggles
Like all of New France, Wisconsin fell to the British with the end of the French
and Indian Wars (1763). British traders mingled with the French and eventually gained the bulk of the fur trade. The British
hold continued even after the end of the American Revolution, when the Old Northwest formally passed (1783) to the United
States and was made (1787) a part of the Northwest Territory. After Jay's Treaty (1794), northwestern strongholds were turned
over to the Americans, but the British continued to dominate the fur trade from the Canadian border. In the War of 1812 Wisconsin
again fell into British hands. It was only with the Treaty of Ghent (see Ghent, Treaty of) that effective U.S. territorial
control began and that the American Fur Company gained control of much of the fur trade.
Settlement and Native American Resistance
Present-day Wisconsin was transferred from Illinois Territory to
Michigan Territory in 1818. By then the fur trade was diminishing, but the lead mines in SW Wisconsin had long been active,
and booming lead prices in the 1820s brought the first large rush of settlers. The region's great agricultural potential was
also apparent, and after 1825 a considerable number of easterners began arriving via the new Erie Canal and the Great Lakes.
They settled in the Milwaukee area and along the waterways. The U.S. army preserved order from key forts established at Green
Bay (1816), Prairie du Chien (1816), and Portage (1828) and built bridges, trails, and roads throughout the region. The hostility
of the Native Americans toward the incursions of aggressive settlers culminated in the Black Hawk War (1832). This revolt,
brutally crushed, was the last Native American resistance of serious consequence in the area.
Territorial Status and Early Statehood
In 1836, Wisconsin was made a territory, and the legislators chose
a compromise site for the capital, midway between the Milwaukee and western centers of population; thus the city of Madison
was founded. By 1840 population in the territory had risen above 130,000, but the people, fearing higher taxes and stronger
government, rejected propositions for statehood four times. In addition, politicians were at first unwilling to yield Wisconsin
claims to a strip of land around Chicago and to what is now the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. However, hopes that statehood
would bring improved communications and prosperity became dominant; the claims were yielded, and Wisconsin achieved statehood
in 1848. The state constitution provided protection for indebted farmers, limited the establishment of banks, and granted
liberal suffrage. These measures and the state's rich soil attracted immigrants from Europe.
The influx of Germans to Wisconsin was especially heavy, and some parts of the state assumed the tidy semi-German
look that has persisted along with an astonishing survival of the German language. Liberal leaders, like Carl Schurz, came
after the failure of the Revolution of 1848 in Germany and added to the intellectual development of the state. Contributions
were also made, then and later, by Irish, Scandinavians, Germans who had previously emigrated to the Volga region of Russia,
and Poles.
The state's development was not always smooth. Although the state constitution provided for a system of free
public schools, the principle was implemented only slowly. Similarly, the Univ. of Wisconsin (chartered 1848) was slow to
assume importance. After a referendum (1852) ended the state constitutional ban on banking, farmers and many others mortgaged
their property to buy railroad stocks, only to suffer distress when the state's railways went bankrupt in the Panic of 1857.
Late-Nineteenth-Century Political and Economic Developments
Wisconsin was steadily antislavery; the Free-Soil
party gained a large following in the state (although the party's homestead plank and economic program were the major attractions).
Wisconsin abolitionists played an important part in the formation of the Republican party. In the Civil War Wisconsin quickly
rallied to the Union. Copperheads were few, but many War Democrats opposed the abridgment of civil liberties and other aspects
of the war effort, and some of the German immigrants, who had left Germany because they opposed compulsory military service,
opposed even voluntary war service.
The boom times brought by the war mitigated discontent, and economic and social growth was rapid during the 1860s
and after. Railroads and other means of communication linked Wisconsin closely to the East. The meatpacking and brewing industries
of Milwaukee began to assume importance in the 1860s. Wheat was briefly dominant especially in S Wisconsin, but was superseded
in the 1870s as states further west became wheat producers and Wisconsin shifted to more diversified farming. Its great dairy
industry developed, spurred by an influx of skilled dairy farmers from New York and Scandinavia and by the efforts of the
Wisconsin Dairymen's Association (est. 1872). In these years the great pine forests of N Wisconsin began to be greatly exploited,
and in the 1870s lumbering became the state's most important industry. Oshkosh and La Crosse flourished. With lumbering came
large paper and wood products industries, and the opening of iron mines in Minnesota and Michigan promoted the N Great Lake
ports and increased industrial opportunities.
Although hard hit in the panics of 1873 and 1898, Wisconsin was generally prosperous in the late 19th cent.,
and the reform-minded Granger movement and Populist party received less support than in other Midwestern states. A trend toward
liberal political views was stimulated in Wisconsin by socialist thought, which was introduced early. Socialism, in a pragmatic
and reformist rather than a doctrinaire form, dominated Milwaukee politics for many years and gave the city efficient government,
particularly under the leadership of Victor Berger and Daniel Hoan. Stemming from a different source was the reform spirit
of specialized and advanced Wisconsin farmers, who recognized the need for a more viable political and economic framework.
Robert La Follette and the Progressive Movement
In the early 20th cent., reform sentiment blossomed in the
Progressive movement, under the tutelage of the Republican leader, Robert M. La Follette. This pragmatic attempt to achieve
good effective government for all and to limit the excessive power of the few resulted in a direct primary law (1903), in
legislation to regulate railroads and industry, in pure food acts, in high civil service standards, and in efforts toward
cooperative nonpartisan action to solve labor problems. An important adjunct of progressivism was the “Wisconsin idea”—that
of linking the facilities and brainpower of the Univ. of Wisconsin to progressive experiments and legislation. The plan owed
much to Charles McCarthy and to the support of university president Charles Van Hise, and it brought such diverse benefits
as the spread of scientific agricultural methods and the many labor and other bills drafted by Professor John R. Commons.
The progressive movement was temporarily halted by World War I. La Follette, some Socialists, and many German-Americans
were critical of U.S. involvement in that war, but they were a distinct minority. Wisconsin was generally prosperous in the
1920s; industrialization made rapid strides, reforestation of the once great but now exhausted timberland was stimulated by
state legislation, and the dairying industry continued to grow.
Wisconsin was alone in voting for its native son, La Follette, when he ran for president on the Progressive party
ticket in 1924, and in the state his policies continued to be carried forward by his sons Robert M. La Follette, Jr., and
Philip La Follette. Wisconsin's pioneer old-age pension act (1925) and its unemployment compensation act (1931) served as
models for national social security a few years later. The Great Depression of the 1930s struck particularly hard in industrialized
Milwaukee, but some relief was provided by the New Deal, and in addition Gov. Philip La Follette attempted, in his “little
new deal,” to improve agricultural marketing, promote electrification, and enforce fair labor practices.
World War II to the Present
During World War II, Wisconsin's shipbuilding industry flourished, and in the
prosperous postwar era, urbanization and industrial growth continued; even in the nationwide slump of the late 1980s, the
state's manufacturing sector proved resilient. Wisconsin politics continued to resonate on the national scene. U.S. Sen. Joseph
McCarthy aroused controversy with his unsubstantiated anti-Communist campaign of the 1950s, but “McCarthyism”
was balanced by other political strains in the state; thus Milwaukee, in the same period, again elected a Socialist mayor,
and the Democratic party, long no match for Republican or Progressive forces, has gained strength in state elections since
the late 1950s. In the 1990s the state was a pioneer in welfare reform. Wisconsin is more than just cheese. Please visit
us at www.travelwisconsin.com .
Wyoming Vistas
Capital: Cheyenne
State abbreviation/Postal code: Wyo./WY
Governor: Dave Freudenthal, D (to Jan. 2011)
Senators: Michael B. Enzi, R (to Jan. 2009); Craig Thomas, R (to Jan. 2013)
U.S. Representatives: 1
Secy. of State: Max Maxfield, R (to Jan. 2011)
Treasurer: Joe Meyer, R (to Jan. 2011)
Atty. General: Patrick Crank, D (appt'd. by gov.)
Organized as territory: May 19, 1869
Entered Union (rank): July 10, 1890 (44)
Present constitution adopted: 1890
Motto: Equal rights (1955)
State symbols:
flower Indian paintbrush (1917)
tree cottonwood (1947)
bird western meadowlark (1927)
dinosaur
Triceratops (1994)
fish cutthroat trout (1987)
fossil Knightia (1987)
gemstone jade (1967)
insignia bucking
horse (unofficial)
mammal bison (1985)
reptile horned toad (1993)
soil Forkwood series (unofficial)
song “Wyoming”
(1955)
Nickname: Equality State
Origin of name: From the Delaware Indian word, meaning “mountains and valleys alternating”;
the same as the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania
10 largest cities (2005): Cheyenne, 55,731; Casper, 51,738; Laramie, 26,050; Gillette, 22,685; Rock
Springs, 18,772; Sheridan, 16,333; Green River, 11,787; Evanston, 11,459; Riverton, 9,430; Cody, 9,100
Land area: 97,100 sq mi. (251,501 sq km)
Geographic center: In Fremont Co., 58 mi. ENE of Lander
Number of counties: 23, plus Yellowstone National Park
Largest county by population and area: Laramie, 85,163 (2005); Sweetwater, 10,426 sq mi.
State parks and historic sites: 24
Residents: Wyomingite
2005 resident population est.: 509,294
The U.S. acquired the land comprising Wyoming from France as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.
John Colter, a fur-trapper, is the first white man known to have entered the region. In 1807 he explored the Yellowstone area
and brought back news of its geysers and hot springs.
Robert Stuart pioneered the Oregon Trail across Wyoming in 1812–1813 and, in 1834, Fort Laramie,
the first permanent trading post in Wyoming, was built. Western Wyoming was obtained by the U.S. in the 1846 Oregon Treaty
with Great Britain and as a result of the treaty ending the Mexican War in 1848.
When the Wyoming Territory was organized in 1869, Wyoming women became the first in the nation to
obtain the right to vote. In 1925 Mrs. Nellie Tayloe Ross became the first woman governor in the United States.
Wyoming's towering mountains and vast plains provide spectacular scenery, grazing lands for sheep
and cattle, and rich mineral deposits.
Mining, particularly oil and natural gas, is the most important industry. Wyoming has the world's
largest sodium carbonate (natrona) deposits and has the nation's second largest uranium deposits.
In 2004 Wyoming ranked second among the states in wool production (exceeded only by Texas) and third
in sheep and lambs (exceeded only by Texas and California); it also had 1,400,000 cattle. Principal crops include wheat, oats,
sugar beets, corn, barley, and alfalfa.
Second in mean elevation to Colorado, Wyoming has many attractions for the tourist trade, notably
Yellowstone National Park. Hikers, campers and skiers are attracted to Grand Teton National Park and Jackson Hole National
Monument in the Teton Range of the Rockies. Cheyenne is famous for its annual “Frontier Days” celebration. Flaming
Gorge, the Fort Laramie National Historic Site, and Devils Tower and Fossil Butte National Monuments are other points of interest.
History
European Claims
Portions of what is now Wyoming were at one time claimed by Spain,
France, and England. The acquisition of the territory by the United States was completed through five major annexations—the
Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the Treaty of 1819 with Spain, cession by the Republic of Texas in 1836 and partition from Texas
after it was annexed in 1845, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) after the Mexican War, and the international agreement
(1846) with Great Britain concerning the Columbia River country (see Oregon).
The Fur Trade and Westward Migration
The early development of Wyoming was closely linked with
the fur trade and the great westward migrations. French trappers and explorers may have reached the area in the middle to
late 18th cent., but the first authentic accounts of the region were provided by John Colter, who, trapped in the Wyoming
mountains for several years, returned to St. Louis in 1810 with fantastic accounts of the steaming geysers and great canyons
of the Yellowstone. Colter returned west, and other fur traders made their way into Wyoming. The overland party on its way
to found Astoria on the Columbia River went through Teton Pass in 1811. The following year Robert Stuart, returning from Astoria,
crossed South Pass and followed much of the route that was to become the Oregon Trail.
Only the hardiest and most self-sufficient could survive the Native American attacks and the rugged
isolation of the country. With the expeditions of William H. Ashley, the mountain men entered the country, and some of the
most famous of those early explorers—Thomas Fitzpatrick, James Bridger, and Jedediah S. Smith—crossed and recrossed
the land. Attracted by the fur trade, Capt. B. L. E. de Bonneville organized a sizable expedition, and his were the first
wagons to go (1832) through South Pass. The first permanent trading post was Fort William (1834), famous under its later name,
Fort Laramie. In 1843 Fort Bridger (now in a state park) was built. The area also aroused the interest of John C. Frémont,
who made an expedition in 1842. By the 1840s the route west through Wyoming was in steady use by caravans headed toward Oregon,
and the fur-trading posts became stations on the Oregon Trail.
As the fur trade declined, many former trappers and mountaineers settled along the trail, furnishing
horses and other supplies to the migrants and purchasing debilitated stock to be put to pasture and sold the following year.
Mormons trekking to Utah (Brigham Young led the first party in 1847) and Forty-Niners rushing to the gold fields of California
joined the many thousands traversing the mountain passes of Wyoming. A number of Mormons settled for a time in W Wyoming.
The death of Mormon pioneers in a blizzard (1856) and the thousands of graves along the Oregon Trail give an indication of
the toll taken by disease, starvation, attacks by Native Americans, and winter snows. Despite the hardships, telegraph stations
(1861) and stagecoach and freight lines were established, and in 1860–61 pony express riders crossed Wyoming on their
route between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California.
Native American Hostilities and Increased Settlement
Native Americans hostile to encroachment
in the early 1860s forced the rerouting of stagecoaches to the south, along the Overland Trail. Displaced from their former
homes in the east and west, and waging internecine warfare for control of the rich buffalo ranges, the tribes feared further
encroachment by the settlers on their hunting grounds, especially after the opening (1864) of the Bozeman Trail. Treaties
were made and broken by both sides, and wars with the Sioux persisted, particularly in the Powder River valley.
Meanwhile, S Wyoming was relatively free of attacks, and a gold rush, stimulated by the discoveries
at South Pass (1867), brought the first heavy influx of settlers to that region; the flow was increased by the uncovering
of vast coal deposits in SW Wyoming. Probably the greatest stimulus to settlement was the completion (1868) of the Wyoming
sector of the Union Pacific RR. Towns, including Cheyenne, sprang up beside the tracks, and trade thrived on the demands of
the road crews and the new settlers.
Territorial Status and Economic Development
In 1868 the region became the Territory of Wyoming,
with Cheyenne as its capital. Wyoming pioneered in political equality when, in 1869, the first territorial legislature granted
the vote to women. The territory continued to advance economically as huge herds of cattle were driven up over the Texas or
Long Trail. Native American resistance had been suppressed by the late 1870s. The Arapaho were placed on the Wind River Reservation
with their former enemies, the Shoshone, and cattlemen safely moved their herds to grasslands throughout Wyoming.
After the complete opening of rangelands, cattle rustling became so common that the authorities
could not control it, and juries grew fearful of returning just verdicts against criminals. The Wyoming Stock Growers Association
was organized in 1873 to protect cattle owners, and members frequently formed vigilante groups to administer their own justice.
The struggle reached its height in the Johnson county cattle war of 1892. Lawlessness was also exemplified by the Hole-in-the-Wall
gang, which broadened its activities to include bank and train robberies as well as cattle theft.
Gradually, vast areas were fenced in and winter pastures were established. The influx of sheep in
the late 1890s, however, brought new violence. Cattlemen made frantic efforts to exclude the sheep from close grazing on the
precious grasslands. Homesteaders were also unwelcome, and many left when they realized that the country was unsuited for
small acreage cultivation. Nonetheless, population increase was steady, advancing from about 9,000 in 1870 to over 90,000
in 1900. With expanding population came other kinds of development: eager frontiersmen rapidly (and somewhat chaotically)
established schools, and in 1887 the Univ. of Wyoming was founded.
Statehood and Progressive Legislation
Statehood was achieved in 1890, and in keeping with its
frontier ideals, Wyoming adopted a liberal state constitution that included the secret ballot. The Carey Act of 1894, providing
for the reclamation and settlement of land, stimulated further agrarian development and, in addition, pointed out the need
for conservation and efficient use of water. The establishment of national parks protected timberlands and extensive grazing
areas, and water power was harnessed to furnish electricity for farms and industries.
In politics, the Progressive movement found numerous adherents in Wyoming; in 1915, after one of
the most bitter fights in the state's history, Progressive forces triumphed over the railroad and related interests with the
establishment of a state utilities commission. A worker's compensation law was passed in 1915, and also in that year the legislature
authorized the Univ. of Wyoming to accept federal grants for agricultural experiments and demonstrations. Thus were begun
the state's outstanding and widespread services for agrarian improvement. In 1924 Wyoming became the first state to elect
a woman governor, Nellie Tayloe Ross.
The Energy Industry and Agriculture in the Twentieth Century
By the mid-1920s the state ranked
fourth in the nation in the production of crude oil, but the valuable finds at Teapot Dome are probably remembered best as
the symbol of corruption in the administration of President Warren Harding. Under the New Deal, Wyoming was well served by
national soil conservation programs, which benefited dry farmers who had extended operations into semiarid regions and had
suffered severely in the drought years beginning in the late 1920s. The cooperative movement in agriculture also gained ground
in this period and has since grown.
One of the most important events in the state since World War II was the discovery of uranium. New
oil finds also helped to offset economic losses resulting from a disastrous four-year-long drought in the 1950s. The decade
from the early 1970s to the early 1980s was a boom period for Wyoming as high energy prices boosted the state's coal, oil,
and natural gas industries. By the mid-1980s, however, energy prices were falling and the economy was hurt by its lack of
diversity, but tourism and recreation subsequently developed as an important sector of the economy. Wyoming also has suffered
from the injurious environmental effects of the energy industry, and pollution has become a serious problem in some mining
towns. Although its population rose by almost 9% between 1990 and 2000, the state is still the least populous in the nation.
With the increase in energy prices in the early 21st cent. Wyoming again found itself in an economic boom. Wyoming isn't
just home on the range, for more information visit
www.wyomingtourism.org .
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