Special Projects

To fulfill its mission - promoting broad public discussions about Columbia River Basin History and its connection to the present - the Center for Columbia River History applies critical historical methodology, engages directly with Columbia River Basin communities, and through a number of special projects, creates educational public history products on-line, in print, and through public educational programs.

The Columbia River Basin Project, 1997-2000

The Columbia River Basin Project (CRBP) directs the talents and expertise of a team of historians, teachers, librarians, archivists, computer specialists, and educators, to the creation of an integrated and interdisciplinary electronic library and learning center built from materials focused on the Columbia River Basin. The CRBP is funded by a $500,000 three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education to the History Department at Portland State University. Three separate but linked programs comprise CRBP: The Community History Program; the Oral History Program; and the Integrated Curriculum program.

CRBP's Community History Program

The "Columbia Communities" project is an extension of an earlier National Endowment for the Humanities-funded project that sought to document diverse community histories throughout the Columbia River Basin.  The demonstration project focused on Moses Lake, Washington and Sandpoint, Idaho, and worked with local museums and volunteers to create and exchange exhibits and public programs.  The Moses Lake and Sandpoint Web Sites are now available on the CCRH website.

Other community history Web Sites created by CRBP staff include Camas, Washington, the Columbia Slough, Cottage Grove, and Umatilla, Oregon, and a Columbia Basin Native Fishery Web Site. Project staff create "virtual" exhibits presented on the Center's web site. These are based on historical research and interviews that focus on community change since the building of the big dams on the Columbia and its tributaries.   The community "exhibits," which include many primary documents, photographs, and oral histories, are designed to reach a wide audience, including the general public, teachers, and elementary, high school, and college students.

CRBP's Oral History Program

The Office of Oral History in the Oregon Historical Society (OHS) will produce seventy or more interviews in two projects about the Columbia River Basin.  The first project will focus on groups and individuals who organized and acted in opposition to or with a different vision of management of the Columbia River by official agencies such as the Army Corps of Engineers, Bonneville Power Administration, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  The second focuses on the premier agency in the review of Columbia River operations--the Northwest

Power Planning Council.  OHS staff will interview key individuals who contributed to the shaping of policies that have had and continue to have enormous effect on the region.   Interviews will be transcribed and published on the CCRH web site.

CRBP's Integrated Curriculum Program

This project will develop collated materials about the Columbia River and make them available for classroom use by creating an interdisciplinary, integrated, and thematic curriculum on the Columbia River that can be used in classrooms throughout the region.  The curricula will utilize the teaching disciplines of mathematics, literature, history, biological and physical sciences, and art.  When completed and tested, it will provide a model for other integrated curricula using library materials.  The curriculum program will tap the expertise of interdisciplinary teacher teams from two Columbia River Basin high schools--Stevenson High School in Stevenson, Washington, and St. Helens High School in St., Helens, Oregon--who will plan, implement, and eventually expand course offerings.  The curriculum will be shared between the two schools and will be posted on the CCRH web site.

CRBP's Post-Doctoral Web Projects

Two Post-Doctoral Fellows have been integral to the Columbia Basin Project. From fall, 1997 through winter, 1998, Debra Sutphen worked on the Community History Web Site while teaching the Johnson Creek Capstone course at Portland State University and developing the Women and Timber Oral History Web Project. From Spring 1999 through Spring 2000, Katrine Barber worked on the Community History Web Site, taught two Johnson Creek Capstones courses, and developed a Celilo Falls Web Project.

The Vancouver National Historic Reserve Social History Project, 1999-2005

The Vancouver National Historic Reserve (VNHR) Social History Project directs the preparation of professionally researched and written narratives outlining the historical importance of the Vancouver National Historic Reserve. VNHR, located in Vancouver, Washington, is a 366-acre historic site reserved by Congress in 1996. The publicly owned land encompasses a variety of historic, cultural, and natural resources, including Fort Vancouver National Historic Site and Vancouver Barracks' Officer's Row. The Historic Reserve is administered through the cooperation of four partners: the city of Vancouver, the United States Army, the state of Washington, and the National Park Service. The Center for Columbia River History is located on the Historic Reserve at the O.O. Howard House on Officer's Row.

The Social History project, funded by the National Park Service, serves four needs:

  1. establishes a research agenda for future investigations of historical topics of VNHR;
  2. establishes research information for National Park Service interpretive programs and VNHR educational programs;
  3. provides narratives on selected VNHR historical topics;
  4. provides Web Site publications of selected materials generated by this research work on VNHR.

Part One of the project focuses attention on VNHR topics from 1846-1898, including the relationship between Fort Vancouver's Hudson's Bay Company and the incoming U.S. military, and women at Vancouver Barracks. Part Two focuses on VNHR topics from 1898-1920; Part Three focuses on VNHR topics from 1920 to 1942.

Hard copies of the reports are available at the Washington State Historical Society Research Center, the Oregon Historical Society Research Library, the Washington State University Vancouver Library, the Clark County Historical Musuem, the Portland State University Library, and the Fort Vancouver Regional Library.

The study's author is Donna Sinclair, MA, an independent historian who has been a CCRH associate since 1997. She is former special collections coordinator for oral history at the Oregon Historical Society and is completing her Ph.D. at Portland State University in the Urban Studies Department.

The three reports are available for downloading in PDF form by clicking on the links below.