History Theses and Dissertations

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Browsing History Theses and Dissertations by Subject "Alaska"

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    A History of the Salmon Industry in the Pacific Northwest
    (University of Oregon, 1940-06) Spurlock, Clark Patrick
    This study, then, will constitute an investigation of the history of northwestern America's most important fishery. Certain of its problems and events which have proved pertinent to the history of Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska, as well as to that of the larger social , economic and political patterns of which they are an integral part, will not be neglected. In accordance with nature I s arrangement of marine life for this coast and because of the palates she has given men, the salmon have sustained the greatest fishery in the region and, indeed, now support the most valuable fishery in America. As such the industry is treated here. The history of salmon fishing techniques will be included and discussed in detail because the writer has had some experience in their use both in the coastal states and Alaska. In any case the "how" of human enterprise would seem to reveal much about the "what" and the "why".
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    “The Whole Thing Was to Try to Make a Living Here”: Labor, Land, and the Relationships They Produced on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, 1974-Present
    (University of Oregon, 2024-08-07) McIntosh, Matthew; Beda, Steven
    This thesis examines the relationships between workers, their labor, and the land during and after the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS). It places these relationships within a broader history of twentieth century industrial labor on the North Slope and in Alaska. Without these antecedents, the TAPS would not have been possible. I understand and analyze these relationships using oral histories, memoirs, and archival materials including photographs and journals. The TAPS workers’ relationships with labor and land were a productive historical process and force which created oil infrastructure. Workers on the TAPS built meaningful affective relationships which shared many factors with the conservation and environmental movements that so vehemently opposed the TAPS. Therefore, I argue that for some Pipeline workers, these relationships contributed to the construction of future personal lives and small businesses in Alaska’s post-1977 economy. This economy features environmental tourism alongside other resource extraction. I argue that the logics of capitalist extraction and extractivist labor run throughout both forms of value production. Because workers are one consistent throughline between these seemingly disparate economies, labor organizers can use environmental logics with fossil fuel workers to win broad proposals for a post-fossil capital economy.