I’m starting a new novel about a love story between a white woman and a Chinese man in Tacoma in 1883-1885, leading up to the expulsion of the Chinese from Tacoma in November 1885. To prepare, I’m reading a lot of articles from the Tacoma Daily Ledger from those early years of Tacoma. I plan to post some of my discoveries here and include links to websites where I’m finding related information.
Some of the links will be related directly to the expulsion. Others will be simply for context of the times:
The Tacoma Method Probably the best place to start for an overview of the Chinese expulsion from Tacoma.
Washington Territorial Legislature Merges Tacoma City and New Tacoma “Sprague declined to run for a full term and third-ward councilman R. Jacob Weisbach was elected mayor. He would prove to be the wrong man at the wrong time. When public sentiment turned against the city’s Chinese residents in 1885, Mayor Weisbach, rather than calling for calm, became chairman of the Anti-Chinese League. This group was dedicated to the sordid goal of ridding the city of its Chinese residents, who were thought at least partly responsible for ongoing economic difficulties.”
History of Tacoma. Job Carr Museum
Theses Tacoma’s Anti-Chinese Committee of Fifteen
The Chinese Must Go Chapter from Murray Morgan Puget’s Sound: A Narrative of Early Tacoma and the Southern Sound (I believe)
RL Martin 