Completing the Union

Completing the Union
Author: John S. Whitehead
Publisher: UNM Press
Total Pages: 460
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780826336378

The story of the thirteen-year effort to add the 49th and 50th states to the Union.

Alaska

Alaska
Author: Stephen W. Haycox
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Total Pages: 435
Release: 2020-04-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 0295746874

Alaska often looms large as a remote, wild place with endless resources and endlessly independent, resourceful people. Yet it has always been part of larger stories: the movement of Indigenous peoples from Asia into the Americas and their contact with and accommodation to Western culture; the spread of European political economy to the New World; the expansion of American capitalism and culture; and the impacts of climate change. In this updated classic, distinguished historian Stephen Haycox surveys the state’s cultural, political, economic, and environmental past, examining its contemporary landscape and setting the region in a broader, global context. Tracing Alaska’s transformation from the early postcontact period through the modern era, Haycox explores the ever-evolving relationship between Native Alaskans and the settlers and institutions that have dominated the area, highlighting Native agency, advocacy, and resilience. Throughout, he emphasizes the region’s systemic dependence on both federal support and outside corporate investment in natural resources—furs, gold, copper, salmon, oil—and offers a less romantic, more complex history that acknowledges the broader national and international contexts of Alaska’s past.

The Alaska State Constitution

The Alaska State Constitution
Author: Gerald A. McBeath
Publisher:
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2011
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0199778299

With only 54 years of existence, the Constitution of the State of Alaska is in its developmental infancy compared to the constitutional history of the rest of the United States. However, having had the benefit of over 300 years, the Alaskan Constitution is a pioneer and model in--among other things--simplicity, coherence, vision and accessibility. The Alaska State Constitution provides an outstanding constitutional and historical account of the state's governing charter. In addition to an overview of Alaska's constitutional history, it provides an in-depth, section-by-section analysis of the entire constitution, detailing the many significant changes that have been made since its initial drafting. This treatment, along with a table of cases, index, and bibliography provides an unsurpassed reference guide for students, scholars, and practitioners of Alaska's constitution. Previously published by Greenwood, this title has been brought back in to circulation by Oxford University Press with new verve. Re-printed with standardization of content organization in order to facilitate research across the series, this title, as with all titles in the series, is set to join the dynamic revision cycle of The Oxford Commentaries on the State Constitutions of the United States. The Oxford Commentaries on the State Constitutions of the United States is an important series that reflects a renewed international interest in constitutional history and provides expert insight into each of the 50 state constitutions. Each volume in this innovative series contains a historical overview of the state's constitutional development, a section-by-section analysis of its current constitution, and a comprehensive guide to further research. Under the expert editorship of Professor G. Alan Tarr, Director of the Center on State Constitutional Studies at Rutgers University, this series provides essential reference tools for understanding state constitutional law. Books in the series can be purchased individually or as part of a complete set, giving readers unmatched access to these important political documents.

Fighting for the Forty-Ninth Star

Fighting for the Forty-Ninth Star
Author: Terrence Cole
Publisher: University of Alaska Press
Total Pages: 520
Release: 2010-12-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1883309077

When Alaskans in the 1950s demanded an end to "second-class citizenship" of territorial status, southern powerbrokers on Capitol Hill were the primary obstacles. They feared a forty-ninth state would tip the balance of power against segregation, and therefore keeping Alaska out of the Union was simply another means of keeping black children out of white schools. C.W. "Bill" Snedden, the publisher of America's farthest north daily newspaper, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, helped lead the battle of the Far North against the Deep South. Working behind the scenes with his protege, a young attorney named Ted Stevens, and a fellow Republican newspaperman, Secretary of Interior Fred Seaton, Snedden's "magnificent obsession" would open the door to development of the oil fields at Prudhoe Bay, inspire establishment of the Arctic Wildlife Range (now the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), and add the forty-ninth star to the flag. Fighting for the Forty-Ninth Star is the story of how the publisher of a little newspaper four thousand miles from Washington, D.C., helped convince Congress that Alaskans should be second-class citizens no more.

Alaska

Alaska
Author: Claus M. Naske
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 519
Release: 2014-10-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 0806186135

The largest by far of the fifty states, Alaska is also the state of greatest mystery and diversity. And, as Claus-M. Naske and Herman E. Slotnick show in this comprehensive survey, the history of Alaska’s peoples and the development of its economy have matched the diversity of its land- and seascapes. Alaska: A History begins by examining the region’s geography and the Native peoples who inhabited it for thousands of years before the first Europeans arrived. The Russians claimed northern North America by right of discovery in 1741. During their occupation of “Russian America” the region was little more than an outpost for fur hunters and traders. When the czar sold the territory to the United States in 1867, nobody knew what to do with “Seward’s Folly.” Mainland America paid little attention to the new acquisition until a rush of gold seekers flooded into the Yukon Territory. In 1906 Congress granted Alaska Territory a voteless delegate and in 1912 gave it a territorial legislature. Not until 1959, however, was Alaska’s long-sought goal of statehood realized. During World War II, Alaska’s place along the great circle route from the United States to Asia firmly established its military importance, which was underscored during the Cold War. The developing military garrison brought federal money and many new residents. Then the discovery of huge oil and natural-gas deposits gave a measure of economic security to the state. Alaska: A History provides a full chronological survey of the region’s and state’s history, including the precedent-setting Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, which compensated Native Americans for their losses; the effect of the oil industry and the trans-Alaska pipeline on the economy; the Exxon Valdez oil spill; and Alaska politics through the early 2000s.

A History of Alaska Statehood

A History of Alaska Statehood
Author: Claus-M. Naske
Publisher:
Total Pages: 336
Release: 1985
Genre: History
ISBN:

Revised edition of the 1973 publication containing three new chapters and a postscript, bringing the story of Alaska up to 1984 and the celebrations which marked the 25th anniversary of statehood.

Doing Oral History

Doing Oral History
Author: Donald A. Ritchie
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2003
Genre: Historiography
ISBN: 9780195154344

Contains chapters on the discipline of oral history, especially as it relates to public history; starting an oral history project, including funding, staffing, equipment, processing, and legal concerns; conducting interviews; using oral history in research and writing, including publishing; videotaping oral history; and more.