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By Richard C. Berner. (Seattle: Charles, 1991. xviii + 398 pp. Paper, $24.95, ISBN 0-9629889-0-1.)
While head of the University of Washington Manuscripts Division from 1958 to 1983, Richard C. Berner built up a superb collection of materials on Washington State labor history, public power, and political history. In this book he begins a two-part series on the history of Seattle, 1900-1940, which draws on that wealth of material.
Unlike most local historians, Berner places political economy at the center of his story. We learn here in intricate detail of the sometimes coordinated, just as often conflicting, visions of economic development that Seattle's business elites brought to "their" city. In Byzantine machinations, commercial, transportation, and industrial elites utilized the city's political system to construct their ideal...