On June 26, two op-ed pieces published in the Anchorage Daily News reminded us that racism existed in early 20th-century Alaska. It's not very surprising: Historically speaking, human divisions of various kinds seem, sadly, to come with the human condition.
But what Alaskans need to know is that "racism" was less of a problem in early 20th-century Alaska than it was Outside, not because the territory's ethnic make-up wasn't diverse -- it was. Rather, ethnic tensions were less of a problem in Alaska because life in the territory was difficult enough, and Alaska always needed more people who could do useful work. If the people who came were Serbs or Argentines, it didn't matter very much.
Let's focus on early Anchorage, a government railroad town established in 1914. By 1917, the city's population stood at about 5,000. It couldn't have been true, as one journalist said, that "all nationalities" worked in Anchorage. But the city's early telephone books and other archival sources point to Alaska's -- and Anchorage's -- broad appeal.
The Alaska Engineering Commission (AEC), which was responsible for building the railroad connecting Anchorage to Seward and Fairbanks, drew an international work force. At the time, one observer wrote that, except perhaps in the Foreign Legion, a greater variety of people couldn't be found elsewhere. Among the AEC's workers were men from Sweden, Turkey, Finland, Serbia, Romania, Russia, the Netherlands, Greece and Austria.
Between 1916 and 1920, more than 100 immigrants petitioned in Anchorage for U.S. citizenship. This process was helped along by American citizens who vouched for the applicants' characters. For example, the Anchorageites George Abraham (a contractor) and Frank Walsh (a carpenter) spoke for the moral character of Hamma Haddad, who had been born in Syria.
Or consider the Japanese. Unlike in regions of America and Canada (and parts of Australia and New Zealand), the Japanese living in early Anchorage enjoyed freedom of movement and easy access to the economy.
Some of Anchorage's first businessmen of Japanese origin emphasized American identities: K. Kamada owned the Union Bath House and Laundry and Y. Kimura ran the U.S. Restaurant. But S. Abe called his restaurant the Tokio Cafe. If Japanese in Anchorage faced the kind of open resentment they might have encountered in San Francisco or Vancouver, it's unlikely that one of them would have named a business after Japan's capital.
The fact is that the Japanese living in Anchorage faced little racial pressure. In 1915, the Cook Inlet Pioneer matter-of-factly announced the visit to Anchorage of G. Shinowasa, editor of the Seattle Japanese newspaper Asahi News. And newspapers cited the names of Japanese en route to Anchorage from Seattle -- Mrs. A Shimeko and Harry Fukuhara -- among European names without comment.
Even after the attack at Pearl Harbor, residents of Japanese heritage who lived in the Anchorage area faced little personal animosity. The order that led to their removal to internment camps Outside came from authorities in the federal government.
Certainly, early Anchorage, where few Natives lived before the Second World War, was no utopia. Writing in the 1960s, one laborer who had been in Anchorage at the beginning recalled a "race problem" between Eastern Europeans and others, noting that the "Slovaks" lived and recreated in a self-segregated area. But then he placed a group of drunken Swedes in an even lesser light. And while some of the nicknames one heard in early Anchorage -- "Dago Jim," "Pale Faced Kid," "Nigger Jim" (a white Southerner) -- would be the stuff of lawsuits today, it's important to understand that when Anchorage began, the civil rights movement was 50 years away. We can't demand that early 20th-century people live and think like early 21st-century people.
In the context of its own time, early Anchorage was a notably tolerant place. This was because early 20th-century Alaska presented settlers with challenges enough. There was little available energy to expend on ethnic animosity.
Preston Jones is the author of "Empire's Edge: American Society in Nome, Alaska, 1898-1934" (University of Alaska Press). He is now completing a history of Anchorage to the outbreak of World War II.
By PRESTON JONES