WSU Press Books Explore Great-Depression Seattle, Biologist’s Wildlife Secrets

A journalistic history of Seattle during the Great Depression and a wildlife biologist’s 40 years of research on Pacific Northwest wildlife are April releases from WSU Press.

Seattle in the Great Depression: A History of Business, Labor, and Politics Drawn from Local Chronicles by longtime journalist Bruce A. Ramsey captures stories from Seattle newspapers and other sources to trace a turbulent decade that scarred a generation and defined years of policy and culture.

Themes explored include how the Depression resulted from World War I, intensified by reckless lending and restrictions on trade; that the New Deal helped people overcome the Depression but could not end it; that the radical left made big gains in the 1930s but was ultimately rejected; and that, after the war, private economy revived but was not fundamentally altered.

The road to Seattle in the Great Depression began with Ramsey’s first book, The Panic of 1893: The Untold Story of Washington State’s First Depression (2018). Growing up hearing stories of the Depression from his parents, who lived through and were deeply affected by it, Ramsey was always drawn to the subject.

His career also lent itself to The Panic of 1893; over almost 40 years, Ramsey wrote as a reporter, columnist, editorial writer, and more for several newspapers in the Seattle area and one Hong Kong magazine. To write the book, he delved into old newspapers to find the untold stories and wider picture, a process he repeated for Seattle in the Great Depression.

“Newspapers describe the world one story at a time. Rarely do they step back and think much about what yesterday’s news means, the bigger story it’s a part of, and write about that kind of connection,” Ramsey said. “For a writer of history, it is the job—and finding those connections is the payment. I found great satisfaction in seeing how so many different stories from 90 years ago weave together in a book and connect with the city of today. I think today’s readers will respond to that, too.”

Chasing Wildlife Secrets: A Biologist’s Journey by professional wildlife biologist Scott McCorquodale is his compelling, dramatic, and detailed accounts from 40 years of research on Pacific Northwest bears, deer, elk, and moose. He and his colleagues spent hours tracking animals in miserable conditions, setting countless traps, and hanging out of helicopters with a dart gun.

Their efforts were transformative, exciting, and demanding. Frequent helicopter and small airplane flights also meant dangerous duty that sometimes led to tragedy. Finally, McCorquodale highlights the major efforts he led, the evolution of wildlife research, and how different the work is today.

He includes stories like “27 Elk,” recounting his groundbreaking master’s degree field study of elk in eastern Washington’s treeless shrub-steppe—a study that redefined what scientists now know about this species.

In studying wild bears in Montana and Washington, the author worked closely with these amazing, intelligent, and adaptable animals, capturing them for radio-collaring, tracking them through their wanderings, even entering their winter dens, he said.

The chapter “Buttons” is the poignant and true story of an elk deeply impacted by humans who thought they were being compassionate but nearly extinguished her identity as an elk. McCorquodale tells the story from a very personal perspective as he tries to navigate obstacles to saving the elk’s life.

“I wrote the book to help people understand what it is like to do wildlife field research,” he said. “I’ve had many experiences with people who seemed genuinely interested in what that was like. I also found that although there have been other memoirs, none seem to tell the story of a biologist’s work in quite the same way.”