Perimeters of Democracy

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln University of Nebraska Press -- Sample Books and Chapters University of Nebraska Press Spring 2010 Perimeters of Democracy Heather Fryer Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/unpresssamples Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Fryer, Heather, "Perimeters of Democracy" (2010). University of Nebraska Press -- Sample Books and Chapters. 102. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/unpresssamples/102 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Nebraska Press at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Nebraska Press -- Sample Books and Chapters by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. perimeters of democracy Buy the Book ii | Runninghead Buy the Book inverse utopias and the wartime social landscape in the american west heather fryer University of Nebraska Press | Lincoln and London Buy the Book © 2010 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data Fryer, Heather. Perimeters of democracy : inverse utopias and the wartime social landscape in the American West / Heather Fryer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8032-2033-1 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Government-controlled communities—United States. 2. World War, 1939–1945—United States. 3. Internal security—United States—History—20th century. 4. Klamath Indian Reservation (Or.)—Social conditions—20th century. 5. Los Alamos (N.M.)—Social conditions—20th century. 6. Topaz (Utah)— Social conditions—20th century. 7. Vanport (Or.)—Social conditions— 20th century. 8. West (U.S.)—Social conditions—20th century. I. Title. d769.8.g68f79 2010 307.770978’09044—dc22 2009047713 Set in Quadraat by Kim Essman. Designed by Nathan Putens. Buy the Book Contents List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Discovering the Inverse-Utopian West 1 1. Beware of Crafty Bandits: Enmification in the Empire for Liberty 35 2. The Great Citizenship Pantomime: Politics and Power in a Barbed-Wire Democracy 83 3. Cultivating Dependency: Economics and Education in America’s Inverse Utopias 126 4. Tragic Ironies: Everyday Life in an Inverse Utopia 171 5. From Barbed Wire to Bootstraps: Freedom and Community in Cold War America 213 6. Termination of the Klamath Reservation: From Inverse Utopia to Indian Dystopia 250 7. No Camps for Commies: The Dual Legacies of Dissonance and Dissidents 276 Notes 313 Bibliography 351 Index 373 Buy the Book Buy the Book Illustrations Following p. 72 Klamath tribal police Students, Klamath Agency School Klamath residents Topaz panorama view Topaz Community Council Vanport street scene Vanport ration counter Los Alamos aerial view High security passage, Los Alamos Following p. 212 Billboard, Klamath Reservation Klamath Honor Roll Boys playing football, Topaz Barrack interior, Topaz Flood waters, Vanport African American Vanporters Vanport flood victims Efficiency apartment, Los Alamos “E” Award ceremony, Los Alamos Putting Los Alamos County on the map map Inverse Utopias in the United States, 1943 30 Buy the Book Buy the Book Acknowledgments This book got its start in a graduate seminar in urban history taught in 1997 by Marilynn Johnson, whose book The Second Gold Rush: Oakland and the East Bay during World War II lit up my historical imagination. War mobilization and the complicated social geography of the American West became instant fascinations. So too did the commonalities between Oakland and the lost city of Vanport, Oregon, which resided in a hazy place in the historical memories of Pacific Northwesterners. This fascination quickly became a dissertation topic under Lynn’s direction. When she gently suggested a comparative study of Vanport and another community (probably meaning one), I proposed compar- ing five before narrowing it down to four. If my insistence on studying a bunch of places I knew next to nothing about made Lynn doubt my com- mon sense, she never showed it. Always generous with her knowledge, wisdom, and time, she helped me build the foundation for Perimeters of Democracy and for my practice as a historian more generally. Cynthia Lynn Lyerly and Kevin Kenny, as members of my dissertation commit- tee, pressed me to bring real precision to this comparative analysis. The History Department at Boston College also lent its support through a dissertation fellowship that funded the greater part of the research for Perimeters of Democracy, along with an Albert J. Beveridge Grant from the American Historical Association. The Creighton University College of Arts and Sciences and my col- leagues in the History Department provided everything from release time to reorganize the manuscript to the moral support necessary for seeing a long project through. Julie Fox saved the day before a deadline more than once, helping me get overwhelming piles of paper into the mail on time. I am tremendously grateful to the Reinert Alumni Library staff, which did a thousand favors and worked a few miracles to keep my research going. Sustained research can be a rough road, so I was fortunate to find so many brilliant librarians and archivists across the country to help smooth Buy the Book the way. The staff of the Los Alamos Historical Museum and Archives was helpful and hospitable, as were the professionals at the Bancroft Library who went out of their way to help me locate documents and illustrations. Todd Kepple and Lynn Jeche at the Klamath County Museum located Klamath Reservation photographs and made them available to me in Omaha, and the National Archives Pacific Coast branch in Seattle helped me navigate Record Group 75, even in the immediate aftermath of the 6.0 earthquake that brought my first research day to an unsettling halt. The Truman Presidential Library, and Dennis Bilger in particular, took extraordinary time and care in locating valuable material on all four communities. I also relied heavily on the resources of the Multnomah County Public Library in Portland, Oregon, especially the beautiful Sterling Room for Writers, where much of the first draft was written. The Oregon Historical Society (ohs) deserves special mention, not only for giving me a start as a volunteer researcher from 1992–95 but also for allowing me to use their reading room as my home base for two years. Not only did they act as real partners in my research, bringing to light sources I would never know to look for, they were wonderful people to spend time with. ohs is also where I met Sieglinde Smith, librarian and treasured friend to many historians, who gave me my first lessons in archival research. I am also indebted to Franklin Brummett and Barbara Alatorre, who after agreeing to sit for just a single interview with me became long- term consultants on Vanport and the Klamath Reservation, respectively. They offered valuable perspectives as independent historians and former residents of both communities. My interviews with Regina Flowers, Jim and Fumi Onchi, Vern Marshall, Diane Norstrand, Ramona Rank, George Saslow, and June Schumann, while brief, helped me see the connections between the four inverse utopias. Where most people would ignore an inquiry about their lives from a stranger, they were tremendously generous in sharing their time and their recollections. I am deeply grateful to my editor at the University of Nebraska Press, Heather Lundine, who has seen this project through its transformation from four discrete case studies to its current thematic form (which, x | Acknowledgments Buy the Book frankly, is so much better). She, Bridget Barry, and Joeth Zucco led the exciting transformation from manuscript to book, making the publish- ing process a truly rewarding experience. Christopher Steinke’s keen and insightful copyediting brought great clarity to the final version of the text. I also want to thank the anonymous readers whose comments and critiques helped immensely in the conceptual and narrative development of the manuscript. The final product is far richer for your generous input. I could not have completed this project without the love and support of my family and friends, who at times probably felt like this project had taken over their lives as well as mine. Tracy Leavelle, my partner in all things, was ever ready with an editor’s pencil, a cup of tea, or a minute to talk through a fuzzy idea. Amy Bográn shared half of a studio apartment when I had just a pocket full of fellowship money and two years of research ahead of me. My father passed away in 2004, but his love of history has made its mark on this volume. My mother, who probably thought she would be done shuttling kids from place to place years ago, was still dropping her thirty-something daughter off at the library during my visits to her home in Oregon. Visits home never turned all work and no play: my sisters, Holly and Stephanie, reminded me to take much- needed down time, and my nephew and nieces — Patrick, Sophie, and Olivia — were always right there with the comic relief, reminding their occasionally frazzled auntie why searching the past to chart new pos- sibilities for the future is well worth the labor. Acknowledgments | xi Buy the Book Buy the Book perimeters of democracy Buy the Book Buy the Book Discovering the Inverse-Utopian West Hard as it is to believe, there is a ghost town in the center of the Portland International Raceway. The foundations are vaguely discernible at the center of the track, and the stories are etched into the collective memory of lifelong Portlanders. For most, the details are vague: Vanport City (later shortened to “Vanport”) was one of the many miracles of war production in 1942, built on 648 acres to house about 40,000 shipyard workers on a twenty-four-hour production schedule.

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