Hazel Wolf: Fighting the Establishment by Susan Starbuck (review)

heritage.A thought-provokingNative American study stands side by sidewith a grittyexamina tionofblack strikebreakersinKing County's coal mines, and a smorgasbord of Scandinavian im migrant oral histories follows a romp through Seattle's theaterhistory. A word of caution about readingRobert Fisher's essayon Seattle's restau rant-laden past ? not eating beforehand guar antees you'll put thebook down to go out fora meal. Elizabeth Salas's "Mexican-American Women Politicians in Seattle" and Nhien T. Nguyen's discussion of the growth of King County's Vietnamese community document im portant histories thatare poignant and that will give futuregenerations something to look back onwith pride. More Voices,New Stories can easily be read byhigh school studentsand adults.The endnotes allow for furtherinvestigation of the topics dis cussed, which would be useful for student re ports or inpersonal study.Readers interested in thehistory ofKing County or Seattle, especially ethnic, religious, or social topics,will find this collection useful. Itprovides abetterunderstand ingof thecomplex historical tapestrythat makes up King County and reveals a new way ofview ing it, which is the collection's strength. The lay out of thebook's twelve chapters allows for re flectionbetween each topic.This isnecessary be cause of theirvaried themes and theauthors' dif ferent perspectives and presentation styles. For the most part, this isa tightly packed and well-researched bit of King County history. I would have hoped for more evenlydistributed, county-wide coverage, such as thatpresented in Kay Reinartz's discussion of the Duwamish Valley's firstsettlersandMichael Reese's essayon mothers' pensions inKing County. Seattle,being what itis,traditionallydrawsmore than itsshare of attention; and Iwould hope that ifa second edition isplanned, it will better acknowledge the histories of cities, communities, and rural areas outside Seattle's citylimits. Nevertheless, theau thors spent a great deal of timewending their way through oral histories, old newspapers, ar chives, and bits of ephemera. The endnotes that accompany each essay pay homage to the au thors' tenacityand scholarship. While thenature of thisbook does not per mit a fulldiscussion of the various arguments presented in thiscollection, Iwould suggest that readersput aside their preconceived notions about each of the topicspresented. Each selection chal lenges readers toview history ina new way. It is thattweakedperspective thatallowsMore Voices, New Stories to occupy a completely new chair at thedinner table when theretelling ofKing County history occurs in thefuture. Hazel Wolf: Fighting theEstablishment By Susan Starbuck University ofWashington Press, Seattle, 2002. Illustrations, photographs, notes, index. 408 pages. $29.95 cloth. Reviewed by Sandy Polishuk Portland State University,Portland, Oregon Hazel Wolf was born in 1898 in Victoria, British Columbia, where she grew up poor. Shewas one of "the boys," living an outdoor life, fearless in her adventures, and swimmingyear-'round in the Victoria inlet.She married in 1918, had a daughter, left herhusband in 1920,and immigrated to Seattle in 1921, where shebecame involved inthe Workers' Alliance and theCommunist Party and organized unions at herworkplaces. She proved tobe a giftedorga nizer.Although she had wanted to be a doctor and, later,a socialworker,her primary paidwork 288 OHQ vol. 104, no. 2 was as a legal secretary. In 1949, she became a targetofdeportation effortsthatshe fought,suc cessfully, until her casewas dismissed in 1963. In 1964, aftera friend insisted she join the Audubon Society and invitedher on a birding trip,her life took a new course. Renewing the outdoor lifestyleof her youth, Wolf became an avid birder, kayaker, and backpacker and a na tionalfigureintheenvironmental movement. She organized Audubon chapters throughout Wash ington stateand drew the society into the envi ronmental movement and into alliances with other groups, most notably Native Americans. In 1984, she traveled to Nicaragua, where she ex perienced "a synthesisof her past asworking class organizer and her present as environmental organizer" (p. 225).A photograph of Wolf inher kayak at age 96 testifies to her astonishing stamina. She died less than twomonths shyof her 102nd birthday. AlthoughWolf married twice, less than two pages are devoted to hermarriages. We could thinkthatshe liveda celibate lifeafterleavingher second husband in 1929, ifshehad not been de niedU.S. citizenship in 1939forfailing"to estab lishgood moral character" ? that is,for living with aman without benefit of marriage (pp. 101, 326-7). "Let's...