Chinese Canadians in Greater Vancouver

Chinese Canadians are a sizable part of the population in Greater Vancouver, especially in the Chinese communities in the city of Vancouver and the adjoining suburban city of Richmond. The legacy of Chinese immigration is prevalent throughout the Vancouver area.
Chinese Canadians have been a presence in Vancouver since its 1886 incorporation. Shifts in the economy of smaller towns in British Columbia and immigration caused the size of Vancouver's ethnic Chinese community to increase. Like those of other areas of North America, Vancouver's initial Chinese population was mainly from Guangdong province.
A new wave of immigration started in the middle of the 20th century, continuing to the present. The first wave originated from Hong Kong, and subsequent waves of immigration from Taiwan and Mainland China changed the composition of the Chinese community.
History.
Early history.
There were 114 Chinese in the Burrard Inlet area in 1884. The population included 60 sawmill hands, 30 cooks and washing persons, ten store clerks, five merchants, three married women, and one prostitute. The sawmill hands worked at Hasting's Sawmill. Additional Chinese settled an area north of False Creek after an 1885 announcement that the terminus of the railway was to be extended to that area. Former railroad workers caused Vancouver's population to increase.
The city of Vancouver incorporated in April 1886, and at the time the city had a pre-existing Chinese population. The Chinese coming to Vancouver had originated from Guangdong. Many Chinese worked at Hastings Sawmill upon arrival, and many Chinese worked in logging camps, mills, and in forest-clearing crews. Property owners hired Chinese to clear forests because the Chinese were the cheapest laborers available.
Vancouver gained the Chinese name "Erbu", which means "Second Port". However New Westminster also had the name "Erbu". To disambiguate the two cities, Chinese persons referred to Vancouver as "Xianshui Erbu", which means "the Second Port on Brackish Water". This name was used in place of "Erbu" and continues to be used as of 2007.
Discriminatory actions against Chinese occurred early in the city's history, including mob violence, newspaper articles asking for preventing Chinese from living in Vancouver, and post-Great Vancouver Fire street resolutions asking for preventing the return of the Chinese. In the period's newspaper articles, according to James Morton, author of "In the Sea of Sterile Mountains", "anti-Chinese sentiment appeared to be unanimous". The practice of contractors hiring labour crews of only one race had caused the wage disparity between whites and Chinese, and according to Paul Yee, author of "", the lower pay of the Chinese workers was the "classic explanation" for anti-Chinese sentiment among whites. Morton stated that "Greedy speculators" had chosen to use Chinese labourers despite the abundance of White labourers. Some historians argued that whites desiring a racially homogenous White Canada was another strong factor in anti-Chinese sentiment. In early 1886 one party in the mayoral election in Vancouver prevented Chinese from voting.
In 1900 there were 36 Chinese laundries in Chinatown. The city government had passed a law in 1893 that the section of Pender Street between Carrall and Columbia was the only place which could have laundry businesses; Paul Yee stated that enforcement of this law was very difficult, and therefore in 1900 the permitted zone had only two Chinese laundries. The city government later passed laws that harmed smaller Chinese laundries to benefit white-owned laundries, so the Chinese hired Wilson V. Sekler, a lawyer, to get the laws overturned.
20th and 21st centuries.
In 1907 the Asiatic Exclusion League sponsored a parade in Vancouver that opposed persons of Asian origin. This parade developed into a riot that caused damage to Vancouver's Chinatown and Japantown.
The 1911 census stated that Vancouver had 3,559 Chinese, giving it the largest Chinese population in all of Canada. Around that year 3,500 persons alone lived in Vancouver's Chinatown, and it was Canada's largest Chinatown. According to the census, Vancouver's Chinese population increased to 6,500, including about 600 women and over 500 children attending public schools, due to immigration from 1911-1914 and in the immediate post-World War I period, by 1921. A 1919 missionary report stated that of Vancouver's Chinese, 7% were born in Canada, and that there were a total of 210 Chinese families. The Chinese community was served by six schools and one hospital by the 1920s. During the same decade, the community had two Chinese theatres providing recreation.
As part of the Great Depression many Chinese began leaving small towns and settling in Vancouver and Victoria. In 1931 the Chinese populations of Vancouver and Victoria combined became more numerous than the Chinese elsewhere in British Columbia.
In the mid-20th Century Chinese began moving from smaller British Columbia towns to Vancouver and eastern Canada because of the collapse of some of British Columbia's agricultural industries. The rise of agricultural operations in the United States in the market in the 1950s made local British Columbia market gardening unprofitable, and this deprived Chinese remaining in the province's interior of their livelihood. The consequence was a decline in small town Chinese populations that began in that decade. In 1961-1962 about 18,000 ethnic Chinese were resident in the Vancouver area.
Some Mainland Chinese were fleeing political developments in the mid-20th century, while tensions between the Mainland and Taiwan resulted in some Taiwanese moving to Vancouver. In the late 1980s and 1990s a wave of Chinese from Hong Kong came to Vancouver, prompted by anxieties related to the upcoming 1997 Handover of Hong Kong. Levels of Chinese coming from Hong Kong declined after the handover occurred.
Vivienne Poy wrote that instances of antagonism towards Chinese and incidents of racial hatred targeting Chinese occurred by the late 1980s.
Geography.
As of 2011, there were over 450,000 people of Chinese descent in Greater Vancouver. Vancouver received the title of being, outside of Asia, the "most Asian city" due to its large Chinese population. Vancouver had Chinese residents when the city was founded in 1886. People with origins from Hong Kong "have been especially notable in the flow of international migrants to British Columbia which, for all intents and purposes, has meant the Vancouver region."
Significant Chinese populations are located in all Greater Vancouver neighbourhoods. Richmond, in Greater Vancouver, had more Chinese residents than White Canadian residents in 2013, and has been described as "the most Chinese city in North America."
Geography by city.
There are people of Chinese ethnicity located throughout the city of Vancouver. 40% of the residents of a large portion of Southeast Vancouver are Chinese. The Granville and 49th area within South Vancouver also has a Chinese population. The Vancouver Chinatown is the largest Chinatown in Canada.
In 1981 the vast majority of Chinese in Greater Vancouver lived in the Vancouver city limits. At the time Chinese were concentrated in the East End of Vancouver, namely Chinatown and Strathcona. By the mid-1990s Chinese had moved into Kerrisdale and Shaughnessy. In those communities Chinese built large modern-style housing in place of Neo-Tudor and other style houses from the early 20th century.
Richmond has a high concentration of Chinese. Chinese make up 80% of the residents of the Golden Village area, focussed along No. 3 Road, which contains many Chinese businesses. Douglas Todd of the "Vancouver Sun" wrote "Richmond remains the most striking bastion of Chinese culture". In 1997 the newly immigranted Chinese in Richmond were stereotyped as being "wealthy 'yacht people'". Richmond had few Chinese in 1981, with most census tracts being fewer than 5% Chinese in composition and with no census tract having over 10% Chinese. By 1986 the proportion of Chinese in Richmond was increasing; in 1986 the city's 8,000 Chinese made up 8.3% of Richmond's total population and 9% of the Vancouver area's Chinese Canadians. By 1991, 16.4% of Richmond's population was Chinese Canadian and 11% was Chinese immigrants. In 1997 Ray, Halseth, and Johnson wrote that "it appears that" new Chinese immigrants were bypassing Vancouver and moving directly to Richmond.
Areas of northern Coquitlam also have Chinese residents, like most other places in the Lower Mainland. The Halifax Street and Kensington Street area of North Burnaby has Chinese residents, like most of Vancouver's neighbourhoods and suburbs.
Demographics.
In 1964 there were 16,700 ethnic Chinese in the Vancouver area. Cantonese made up the majority, with most of them originating from Siyi. About 50 were Hakka people, and 50-60 were northern Chinese.
In 1992 Vancouver had the second largest Chinese population outside of China, with San Francisco having the largest such population.
In 2006 Statistics Canada stated that there were 381,535 Chinese in the Vancouver metropolitan area, making up 43% of the area's total number of visible minorities. In 2006 there were 396,000 Chinese in Greater Vancouver. That year, according to Statistics Canada data, the numbers of Chinese in Greater Vancouver included 168,210 in the city of Vancouver proper, 75,730 in Richmond, 60,765 in Burnaby, 20,205 in Surrey, 19,580 in Coquitlam, 5,835 in Delta, 3,770 in New Westminster, and 3,360 in West Vancouver.
As of around 2009, about 30% of Vancouver residents had some or more Chinese ancestry, and Chinese ancestry was the most commonly reported out of all of the ancestries.
By 2012 Hong Kong has been overtaken by Mainland China, and to a lesser extent Taiwan, as the main sources of Chinese immigration to Vancouver.
A 2013 study by Dan Hiebert of the University of British Columbia predicted that by 2031 the Chinese population of Vancouver would be 809,000.
Place of origin.
As of 2011 most Chinese immigrants to British Columbia go to Vancouver, and of the overall provincial Chinese immigration most originate from Mainland China. Historically immigrants came from Hong Kong and to a lesser, extent, Taiwan. The Mainland Chinese government prohibits dual citizenship, while the Hong Kong government allows its permanent residents to also hold citizenships from western countries, meaning that previously Hongkongers had had more of an incentive to come to Vancouver compared to Mainlanders.
In the period 1996-2001, according to Canadian census data, the number of persons from Mainland China arriving to Vancouver eclipsed the numbers of Hongkongers; the number of Hongkongers present in Vancouver declined between 1996 and 2006. In 2006 there were 137,245 immigrants from Mainland China in Vancouver, while there were 75,780 Hongkonger immigrants in the same city that year. The Hongkonger immigrant number had declined 12% between 1996 and 2006 with almost all of the decline occurring from 2001 to 2006. From 1996 to 2006, Ian Young of the "South China Morning Post" wrote "the fall in the number of such immigrants present in the city suggests" that 29,325 Hongkongers left Vancouver while according to the census data 18,890 Hongkongers arrived. Meanwhile, the Mainlander population increased 88% between 1996 and 2006. In 2012 7,872 Mainland Chinese arrived in Vancouver while 286 Hongkongers arrived in the same city. According to Ley, the demographics of immigrants changed because "everyone [from Hong Kong or Taiwan] who wanted a [Canadian] passport got one."
As of 2008 there were 50,000 Taiwanese-origin persons in the Vancouver area.
Mainland Chinese.
By 2011 many Mainland Chinese were settling in Vancouver. Manyee Lui, a realtor quoted in a 2011 Bloomberg article, described this as the "third wave" of Chinese immigration into the city. Cathy Gong, a Vancouver resident originating from Shanghai quoted in the same 2011 Bloomberg article, stated that Mainland Chinese were moving to Vancouver due to the existing Chinese population in addition to the climate, and the perceived high quality of the public schools. Some households of Mainlander origin in Vancouver involve a wife and children living there while the husbands of the households are working in China. In 2013 Young wrote that "Anecdotal evidence suggests mainland Chinese wives commonly stay in Vancouver to provide a citizenship toehold for their absentee husbands." As of 2003 many Mainland immigrants had Mainland credentials in skilled jobs but encountered difficulty in finding employment in their fields with these credentials.
Hong Kongers.
Vancouver received most of the Hong Kongers settling in British Columbia, and out of all of Canada British Columbia had the highest proportion of Hong Kong settlers. Many professionals, spurred by the impending 1997 Handover of Hong Kong and 1980s economic and political issues, immigrated to Vancouver. Therefore, late 20th century Hong Kong immigration had relatively more socioeconomically higher end persons compared to previous waves of Chinese immigration. Hong Kong immigrants perceived Vancouver as a good destination due to concerns about safety and the quality of Canadian schools. As of 2013 several Hong Kong-origin families based in Vancouver are transnational, meaning that members of the family may move between Hong Kong and Vancouver.
Language.
Historically Cantonese was the dominant Chinese variety of Greater Vancouver. Cantonese was the variety used in radio and television programming involving that community. As of 1964 the Hakka people spoke both Hakka and Cantonese. As of 1970 there were fewer than 100 Hakka Chinese speakers in Vancouver. By 2003, Mandarin began to have a presence, including in the media, due to an increase in immigrants from mainland China. By 2012 Mandarin was displacing Cantonese in Greater Vancouver.
Both Cantonese and Mandarin are commonly spoken in Richmond.
Institutions.
Prior to the 1960s many Chinese in Vancouver established associations based on their clan origins and districts in addition to educational and recreational organizations. In 1964 Vancouver had about 80 Chinese associations. As of the 1960s, ad hoc community organizations established by Chinese businesses existed in Chinese communities which did not have their own full-fledged community associations.
By the 1960s and 1970s older voluntary associations were unable to properly assist or connect with new immigrants coming from Hong Kong, and so they declined in influence and popularity. A new wave of Chinese Canadian organizations opened around the 1970s and 1980s. The newly arrived Hong Kong immigrants began participating in those ones, and the people leading the new organizations tended to be Hong Kongers. Graham E. Johnson, the author of "Hong Kong Immigration and the Chinese Community in Vancouver", wrote that older organizations were "flourishing" at that time.
Benevolent associations and other community associations.
The benevolent associations were established to represent the Chinese community as a whole.
The Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver (CBA), as of 2006, has 2,000 members and serves as a federation of various Vancouver-based Chinese organizations. Douglas Aitken of "The Georgia Straight" stated that the CBA was the most important organization operating in the Vancouver Chinatown in the first half of the 20th century. The "Vancouver Sun" wrote "They were, for all intents and purposes, the government of Chinatown." It was first established in 1896, and it was registered as a nonprofit organization ten years later.
The Chinese Benevolent Association of Canada (CBAC), as of 1991; had 600 persons, mostly Taiwanese immigrants, as members; and represented 11 groups. It separated from the CBA in 1979. The CBAC is headquartered in Vancouver and it maintains branches in other Canadian cities. It funds the Overseas Chinese Public School, which gives Mandarin classes; provides minor arbitration services; and provides activities and entertainment catering to the Chinese community.
The Ming Sun Benevolent Association has its offices in 441 Powell, a Japantown structure which dates to 1891 and had a front section added in 1902 by the Uchida family. In 2010 the city government declared April 24 as "Ming Sun Benevolent Association Day". In 2013 the city government began efforts to force the demolition of 441 Powell.
Clan associations.
Clan associations such as the Lim Society, Mah Society, and the Wing Society were established by the early 20th Century. The associations brought together Chinese persons who held the same Chinese family name. There were 26 clan associations in Vancouver in 1923, and that number increased to 46 by 1937.
In 1964 there were about 23 clan associations in the Vancouver area. That year the clan associations had established three reading rooms. The Hong Kong immigrants of the mid-20th century did not join the clan associations. In 2008 there were eleven clan associations active in the Vancouver Chinatown, and they continued holding meetings and events there; that year they owned a total of twelve buildings in Chinatown. The "Vancouver Sun" wrote in 2008 that many of the buildings were in poor condition, though the 1903 Lim Society building and the Mah Society building remained in good conditions. That year the eleven clan associations formed the Chinatown Society Heritage Buildings Association to facilitate the renovations of the clan association buildings.
Wong's Benevolent Association, which accepts persons with the family name Wong, opened in 1911. It operates the Hon Hsing Athletic Group, which performs lion dances; engages in political concerns; and operates the Mon Keang School, the sole North American Chinese school operated by a clan association. In 1991 it had 700 members.
Cultural centres.
The Chinese Cultural Centre (CCC) is located in Vancouver's Chinatown, where it manages cultural, recreational, and training programs. In 1991 it had 40 program training teachers and 16 administrative employees. Members of a 1973 conference held at Wong's Benevolent Association in the Vancouver Chinatown decided to establish a cultural centre. 21 people joined the cultural centre building committee, and the CCC was registered in 1974. It moved into a permanent building in September 1980. Its programs include language training, arts classes, language classes, and the Spring Festival celebration.
The Sun Yat-sen Classical Garden Society is in operation in Vancouver. The purpose of the society was to raise funds to complete the Sun Yat-sen Classical Garden.
Fraternal associations.
The fraternal associations defined political factions, ran activities, established clubrooms, and printed newspapers. The Vancouver Chinese Freemasons (VCF), a local chapter of the Chinese Freemasons founded in 1888, and the Kuomintang were the two primary fraternal associations in Vancouver as of 1964. As of 1991 the VCF had over 3,000 members. The Freemasons chapter founded the oldest Chinese newspaper in Canada, the "Chinese Times", in 1907. The VCF established the 81 unit Chinese Freemasons' Senior Building, which houses elderly persons, and the Chinese Freemasons Athletic Club, which has athletic activities.
Locality associations.
There were "huiguan" locality associations that provided welfare to persons from their particular places of origin. In 1964 the Vancouver area had such associations for the six places in Guangdong where most Chinese Vancouverites originated from: Enping, Kaiping, Panyu, Taishan, Xinhui, and Zhongshan. In 1898 Vancouver had at least ten locality associations. The number of locality associations in Vancouver was 12 in 1923 and 17 in 1937. The Hong Kong immigrants of the mid-20th century did not join the locality associations.
Social services organizations.
The first organization to provide social services to the Hong Kong immigrants of the mid-20th century was the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) or the "Pender Y," located in Chinatown at the intersection of Dunlevy Street and Pender Street. The Pender Y initially provided adequate services but became overwhelmed. Prior to the founding of Chinese-established groups it established a job skills program, distributed information about essential services in Cantonese and English, and provided counseling. Hong Kong immigrants were attracted to the YWCA because they had patronized the YWCAs that had been established in Hong Kong.
In 1973 the organization S.U.C.C.E.S.S., a loose acronym for the United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society, was founded to provide social services for Chinese, including recent immigrants. It was founded by several persons of Hong Kong origin, including Maggie Ip, who became the first chairperson, Jonathan Lau, Linda Leong, Mei-Chan Lin, and Pauline To. As of 2003, it had 350 employees, a headquarters in Vancouver, and 11 other offices in the Greater Vancouver region. As of the same year its budget is $16 million. The organization from 2006 until 2010 was headed by CEO Tung Chan, a former Vancouver city councillor.
In 1992 the Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians (VACC; 溫哥華華裔加人協會 "Wēngēhuá Huáyì Jiārén Xiéhuì") formed. It advocated in favor of Chinese people who claimed refugee status after entering Canada. Victor Wong served as the executive director. In the summer of 1999 599 persons arrived in a boat, and the VACC became involved in this case.
Other associations.
The Chinese Consumers' Association of Vancouver (CCAV) mediates disputes between retail businesses and their customers. The CCAV was established in 1986. As of 1991 it was headed by an immigrant and University of British Columbia graduate from Hong Kong and had over 200 members.
Several organizations in Vancouver had specific purposes. The Chinese community established gambling societies, music societies, and youth clubs. Prior to 1994 Chinese "music societies" in Vancouver, first founded in the 1920s, had an increase in popularity.
Commerce.
Restaurants.
Chinese restaurants in Vancouver have become popular with both ethnic Chinese and non-ethnic Chinese in the city. As of 2011 most of the restaurants serve Cantonese cuisine.
By the 1980s Cantonese-style restaurants began appearing in Vancouver as an influx of Hong Kongers came there. Hot pot restaurants became very popular in the 1990s. The use of British Columbian seafood and the presence of star chefs from Hong Kong gave Vancouver's Chinese restaurant scene a reputation for quality, and the variety of Chinese cuisines that already existed in Hong Kong due to its history of receiving transplants from other parts of China was duplicated in Vancouver. As of 2011 Richmond has multiple Chinese restaurants, most of which served Cantonese cuisine, with a customer base almost fully ethnic Chinese; that year Mia Stainsby of the "Vancouver Sun" wrote that the city had the "mother lode" of Chinese restaurants and "Some say we have the best Chinese food in the world." Growth of non-Cantonese restaurants in Richmond occurred due to a post-1997 influx of Mainland Chinese.
The Chinese Restaurant Awards (CRA; 中國食肆大獎, P: "Zhōngguó Shísì Dàjiǎng"), co-founded by Stephen Wong and Craig Stowe, now run by Rae Kung (About the Awards). Chinese Restaurant Awards regularly ranks Chinese restaurants and displays its rankings on its website. It holds the Critics' Choice Signature Dish Awards, Food Bloggers' Choice Awards and the public voting Diners' Choice Awards. Stainsby described the awards as "the vox populi of Chinese food in Metro Vancouver", and that overall CRA is "the go-to guide to Chinese food in Metro Vancouver for locals and tourists alike."
Shopping malls.
Several large shopping centres in Greater Vancouver were developed to serve the Chinese Canadian community. Many malls which contain businesses catering to Chinese speakers are concentrated in Richmond, though common throughout Vancouver and in many of its suburbs, particularly near Coquitlam Town Centre and in the Metrotown Town Centre area of Burnaby. Construction of such malls in the metropolitan area began in the late 1980s. Aberdeen Centre in Richmond, the first large ethnic Chinese-oriented shopping centre in the Vancouver area, opened in 1989. Ethnic Chinese and Asian shopping centres in Richmond that were built after Aberdeen Centre include Continental Centre, Cosmo Plaza, Pacific Plaza, Parker Place, and Yaohan Centre. Other Chinese and Asian shopping centres in the Vancouver area include Burnaby's Crystal Mall, Coquitlam's Henderson Place Mall, and Surrey's Canada Asian Centre.
As of 1999 relatively few Caucasian persons shop at the Richmond centres. The Richmond centres adopted English signage and asked individual stores to hire English-speaking employees and use English signage after municipal officials held meetings with the ethnic Chinese business community; this occurred due to complaints from longtime English-speaking residents. Even with English signage, some English-speakers encounter difficulties since some salespersons do not have sufficient English comprehension. Some non-Chinese felt discomfort in the shopping centres and had the perception that they were discriminated against. Jun Nan, the author of the master's of science thesis " Immigration and Integration: The Development of `Chinese' Shopping Centres in the Suburbs of Vancouver", wrote that the Chinese signage was one of the commonly cited rationales for the perceptions, and that the existence of English signage in the same centres shows that an inability to read Chinese is not the root cause of the objection to the Chinese signs. Nan also stated that non-Chinese also objected to the Chinese-oriented merchandise and to unfriendly attitudes given towards them.
Supermarkets.
Due to the increase of Chinese in Vancouver, by 1994 many Vancouver supermarkets sold Chinese food items, and ethnic Chinese and non-ethnic Chinese purchased these items. T & T Supermarket was established in 1993 by Cindy Lee and her husband Jack. T&T became the largest Asian supermarket chain in Canada. As of 2009 of it has eight stores in the Vancouver area.
Transportation.
Air services to China were established as traffic between Canada and China, including immigration, increased. In 1987 Air China established Vancouver operations. It was one of the first Mainland Chinese companies to have operations in British Columbia, and its presence prompted other Mainland Chinese airlines to follow, including China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, and Sichuan Airlines. China Southern was scheduled to begin service to Guangzhou from Vancouver on June 15, 2011, establishing Canada's first nonstop flights to that city. Sichuan Airlines's flight serves Shenyang and Chengdu. As of July 2014 there are 72 weekly direct flights between Vancouver and China. Beijing Capital Airlines is scheduled to begin services between Vancouver and Qingdao and Hangzhou on December 30, 2016.
Air Canada operates its own services from Vancouver to Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Cathay Pacific provides services to Hong Kong, and China Airlines and EVA Air provide services to Taipei.
Media.
As of 2009, of all of the major ethnic categories in Vancouver the Chinese had the secondary highest number of media products.
Fairchild Group operates Fairchild TV and Talentvision.
Four Chinese-language daily newspapers, "Ming Pao", "Sing Tao", "World Journal", and "Rise Weekly" cater to the city's large Cantonese and Mandarin speaking population.
The "Vancouver Sun" operates "Taiyangbao" (), a Mandarin version of their regular newspaper. The English-language edition of the "Epoch Times", a global newspaper founded by Chinese emigres, is distributed through free boxes throughout the metropolis.
The "Truth Monthly" (), a Christian newspaper, is in Vancouver.
Historical media.
One of Canada's first Chinese newspapers, the "Chinese Reform Gazette" (, Cantonese: "Yat Sun Bo" "Daily News"), was published by the Vancouver branch of the Chinese Empire Reform Association and argued in favor of Kang Youwei's ideas of governance. Two other major newspapers were published by reformist groups of the early 1900s. The "Wah Ying Yat Bo" ("Chinese English Daily News"), an English-Chinese bilingual paper, was founded by Christians and acquired by the Cheekongtong, which then founded the "Tai Hon Bo" in 1907. In 1908 the "Wah Ying Yat Bo" was disestablished.
The "Dai Luk Bo" ("Mainland Times") began publication in 1908 in Vancouver, advocated in favor of revolution in China, and was disestablished the following year. The "Tai Hon Bo" began taking a pro-Sun Yat-sen stance after Sun Yat-sen follower Feng Tzu-yu took the position of editor at that publication. The newspapers of the Cheekongtong and the "Rixin Bao" were in conflict with each other by the late 1900s and early 1910s; the former asked for revolution while the latter asked for reform without revolution. A revolution in China occurred in 1911. The "Tai Hon Bo" was, in 1914, renamed "Tai Hon Kung Go" ("Chinese Times"). In the 1970s "Tai Hon Kung Bo" was still in operation.
The "Chinatown News", a biweekly, English-language paper, was a newspaper established by Chinese born in Canada, or "tusheng". The founder was Roy Mah, who served as its editor. The paper focused on Canadian politics and events and did not focus on intra-Chinese political conflicts. Instead its focus was on things of interest to Canadian-born Chinese, and the paper often favored the "tusheng" in conflicts they had with newly arrived Chinese. It ran until 1995. The "Chinese News Weekly" and "New Citizen" were also established by locally born Chinese, in 1936 and 1949, respectively, but closed after short durations of operation.
The "Canada Morning News" ("Jianada Zhongguo Chenbao") was a Kuomintang newspaper that had a leftist persuasion.
The "Da Zhong Bao" was opened in February 1961. It was published by the Chinese Youth Association. It was originally bimonthly but it later shifted into being a weekly paper. There was an English version published in the Fall of 1970. Four issues were made in the CYA's attempt to spread messages to "tusheng".
Other historical Chinese-language papers in Vancouver include the "Chinese Times", "Chinese Voice", and "New Republic".
Politics.
Politics in the City of Vancouver.
As of around 2005 12% of the Vancouver-based politicians had some Chinese ancestry. This formed a 0.40 index of proportionality in relation to the city's overall population of those with Chinese ancestry.
When Vancouver was founded in 1886, its charter stated that municipal elections would not have First Nations and Chinese voters. R. H. Alexander, the operator of the Hastings Mill, asked his Chinese employees to vote anyway but they were chased away from the polls by whites. These men were supporters of David Oppenheimer, a rival candidate who was to become the city's second mayor. Alexander, at the time, was making an unsuccessful bid for the Mayor of Vancouver. Around 1900 the City of Vancouver barred Chinese from voting. This along with the provincial ban on voting left Vancouver's Chinese unable to meaningfully participate in Canadian politics.
On July 24, 1899, several area merchants, including Won Alexander Cumyow, Charley Yip Yen, Chen Cai, and Huang Yushan, established the Vancouver branch of the Chinese Empire Reform Association (CERA), an organization asking for reform of the Chinese political system. The organizations' name changed to Constitutional Party ) in 1906. The Cheekongtong, which advocated for reform of the Chinese political system without revolution, competed with political organizations that called for revolution in China. Political developments occurred in China around the 1911 Chinese Revolution, and therefore political activity related to China occurred in the Vancouver Chinatown. Members of the Chinese community helped fund the revolution. As Vancouver's Chinese population grew in size, Chinese political activity in the province became centred in Vancouver.
In the post-revolution period the Cheekongtong renamed themselves the Freemasons. The Freemasons, which had contributed money to the revolution but was not given favors by the Kuomintang, competed with the KMT's Canadian subsidiary, Chinese Nationalist League for political influence, including control of the Vancouver CBA. The Freemasons allied with the Constitutional Party. The KMT and Freemasons continued to be in conflict until the 1970s.
Chinese newspapers in the Vancouver region, during the 1960s and December 1970 began asking for their readers to participate in elections. In the Vancouver municipal elections in 1968 and 1970 three Chinese candidates each ran for election. In both Chinese candidates did not succeed in being elected.
By 1985 the City of Vancouver had a Chinese alderman. Bill Yee, the second visible minority ever on the Vancouver City Council, was elected in 1982, with Sandra Wilking elected to council in 1988; as the first Chinese Canadian woman to hold an elected position in the city's government. By 1994 Chinese politicians have run for and been elected in many political campaigns in the Vancouver area. Most of these politicians were of Hong Kong origins. Since the 1980s and as of 2009 Vancouver City Council has consistently had Chinese members.
By the 1990s white residents of some Vancouver neighbourhoods criticized Chinese for demolishing older houses and building larger, newer houses in their place. Existing White Canadians and others in the affected neighbourhoods perceived the Chinese and their new houses as being "an assault on traditional meanings associated with suburbia."
During a failed 2004 election proposal to reinstitute the ward system in the City of Vancouver, the heavily Chinese southeast Vancouver voted in "clear opposition" against the measure. The at-large voting system used by Vancouver makes it difficult to elect women and minorities, and that the council's majority White Canadian demographics were "probably" influenced by the original rationale of the at-large system, to "keep those with social democratic ideologies out of politics". The ward system was abolished in 1935.
In 2014 the City of Vancouver enacted a grant program to preserve Chinese tong buildings in Vancouver's Chinatown and in the adjacent Downtown Eastside areas.
Politics in other Greater Vancouver cities.
In 2001 the Richmond Canadian Voters submitted three candidates for the Richmond City Council, including two Chinese, but none won seats. The public perceived the party as being "Chinese" "due to its leadership and conservative positions on group homes and liberal public education".
In 2013 Kerry Starchuk wrote a petition arguing that Chinese-only signs were a problem in Richmond; it was submitted to the city council by two people with over 1,000 signatures. The City Council responded by ignoring the petition; at the time the city councillors, in addition to mayor Malcolm Brodie, were White people who spoke English. In a 2013 editorial in the "National Post" Chris Selley argued that the city council was correct in ignoring the petition, citing the United States's lack of compulsory language sign laws. By 2014 the city council had changed its position and was exploring options on how to ban Chinese-only signs. At the time several non-Chinese in Richmond argued that having Chinese signs without English was exclusionary to people who are not Chinese. That year Tristin Hopper of the "National Post" wrote that "Nobody will dispute that the number of Chinese-only signs in Richmond is increasing, but the vast majority still feature English text."
By 2014 the group Putting Canada First, which criticizes having Chinese-language signs in Greater Vancouver, was established. That year, its spokesperson, North Vancouver resident Brad Saltzberg, wrote a letter arguing against having Chinese language signs to the city council of West Vancouver. The Mayor of West Vancouver, Michael Smith, criticized the movement.
In 2009 there were plans to build a new high school facility in New Westminster on top of a Chinese cemetery. The group Canadians for Reconciliation Society demanded an investigation into the past treatment of New Westminster's Chinese community, such as the exclusion of Chinese students from New Westminster public schools in 1911. In 2010 the city council of New Westminster voted to publicly apologize for past wrongdoings against the Chinese community in the English and Chinese languages, acknowledge publicly these wrongdoings, and discuss the development of a museum exhibit about the historical city government treatment of ethnic Chinese. Mayor of New Westminster Wayne Wright spoke, and another person translated his statements into Mandarin. The Chinese were prevented from voting in municipal elections in 1908. Bill Chu, the head of the Canadians for Reconciliation Society, had taken efforts to get the New Westminster city government to make the apology.
Federal politics.
In 1957 Douglas Jung, from Vancouver, was first elected to the Parliament of Canada; he was the first Chinese Canadian to serve on the parliament. In 1962 Jung lost his election. Art Lee, also from Vancouver and elected in 1974, was the second Chinese Canadian in Parliament.
According to boundaries drawn in 1984, there were two Vancouver-area ridings with over 20% of their populations each being Chinese: Vancouver East, which was 23.9% Chinese, and Vancouver Kingsway, which was 24.6% Chinese. That year, Vancouver South was 17.8% Chinese and Vancouver Quadra was 11.2% Chinese. In 1988 the ridings were redrawn. The Vancouver East riding's Chinese population was 25.4%, making it the only riding that was over 20% Chinese. The Chinese population of the Vancouver South riding was 19.7%.
In 2010 Gabriel Yiu, a New Democratic Party (NDP) candidate for a 2009 BC election, accused candidate Kash Heed, his political rival, of distributing illegal anti-NDP pamphlets to Chinese in the Vancouver-Fraserview riding. Heed was the winner of that election.
Housing prices.
Late 1980s/early 1990s housing prices.
Real estate prices rose in Vancouver in the mid-1980s as the influx of Hong Kongers came. Many of the new immigrants destroyed older houses and built new ones in their places. In response several Canadians formed a lobby to oppose the new large houses and restrict urban development.
Gregory Schwann wrote the 1989 report "When did you move to Vancouver?" which stated that there was more migration to Vancouver from British Columbia and other parts of Canada than immigration, and that immigration had declined in the period 1976 through 1986, according to Canadian Department of Employment and Immigration statistics. The Laurier Institute published this report. W. T. Stanbury and John Todd, who wrote the report "The Housing Crisis: The Effects of Local Government Regulation", stated that immigration had increased in the period 1987 through 1989 and that there were significant numbers of Hong Kong immigrants who bought large houses; This report cited statistics from the British Columbia Ministry of Finance and Corporate Relations. The Stanbury and Todd report was also published by the Laurier Institute, in January 1990.
2010s housing prices.
As of 2014 recent Chinese immigrants coming to Metro Vancouver are 96% of the total Chinese recent immigrants to the entire province. As of that year there was a trend of wealthy Mainland Chinese entering Vancouver. 29,764 wealthy Chinese, the majority of Mainland Chinese, entered British Columbia under the Immigrant Investor Programme (IIP), the Canadian wealthy investor immigration program, from 2005 to 2012. Vancouver was the intended destination of many of the IIP applicants. The applications were frozen because of the immense popularity. As of January 2013 there was a backlog of 45,800 Chinese intending to enter British Columbia using the IIP.
By 2011 these wealthy Mainland Chinese investors were buying property in Vancouver, with the westside of Vancouver, including Dunbar, Point Grey, and Shaughnessy, being the primary focus. Many of the new buyers chose to destroy earlier houses originating from the 1940s and 1950s instead of renovating them, and in their places newer houses in the Georgian and Villa styles were constructed. By November 2015 an academic study was released stating that Chinese investors bought about 70% of free-standing houses on the west side of Vancouver in a six-month period.
Some existing members of the Vancouver community, including Chinese, criticized the new investors, arguing that they were driving up housing prices. In 2010 the Canada's Frontier Centre for Public Policy stated that Vancouver was the English-speaking city with the third highest housing prices, and that its housing was more expensive than that of New York City, London, and San Francisco. As of 2013 Demographia Research ranked Vancouver as being the second-most expensive city in the world, after Hong Kong. The organization ranked 350 cities in the world. Ayesha Bhatty of the "BBC" wrote that "experts say there's little evidence to back up the fears." Mayor of Vancouver Gregor Robertson has made differing statements on whether or not the Chinese buyers are affecting housing prices.
Many critics of the rising housing prices have received accusations of racism. David Wong, an activist in the Vancouver Chinatown, criticized the racism labeling as it may prevent people from having an honest discussion about the issue.
The BC provincial government has stated the a total of $5 billion of laundered money from China had been used to purchase real estate in BC raising the prices of Greater Vancouver home prices by up to 5%. For the past 5 years from 2012 to 2017, Vancouver housing prices surged 60 percent.
LGBT issues.
There have been efforts by several ethnic Chinese groups in Greater Vancouver - many evangelical Christians - to end pro-LGBT policies and programs enacted by school districts and Christian churches. Douglass Todd of the "Vancouver Sun" wrote that LGBT "may be the most distressing" of the sociocultural issues involving Chinese Christians in the area. In 2014 the Vancouver School Board had proposed a transgender rights program. In response, several Chinese-Canadian Christian groups and organizations, including "Truth Monthly", protested the proposal. There were also Chinese Christian efforts to discontinue Burnaby Public Schools anti-homophobia programs. In addition two Chinese congregations of the Anglican diocese of New Westminster chose to leave the diocese due to its support of same-sex marriage, and other Chinese congregations protested against this acceptance.
Justin K. H. Tse (), who wrote a master's degree thesis on Chinese Christian public engagement in Vancouver and two other cities, mentioned that not all Chinese Christians have politically conservative beliefs. In addition, many ethnic Chinese in British Columbia identify as LGBT.
Education.
In 2007 that significant Chinese populations are located in all Greater Vancouver school districts.
Vancouver School Board (VSB) schools are all integrated, with many school populations now predominantly Chinese-ethnic in composition. Private schools are also integrated, whether privately chartered or Catholic church-run. Chinese-language courses are available in most schools, and are popular with non-Chinese students, although regular curriculum instruction is in English. The VSB has basic courses in Cantonese.
In 1998 a group of parents of Chinese origins asked the VSB to establish a new school. The school board opted not to establish the school. The requested school would have used school uniforms, assigned more homework than other public schools, and, in the words of Paul Yee, author of "", "bring in discipline" and "back-to-basics subjects".
As of 2012 there are Chinese-language schools in Vancouver that teach both Mandarin and Cantonese languages. In the 1980s and 1990s Cantonese was, in almost all Chinese-language schools in the city, the only variety taught.
The University of British Columbia has a continuing studies Mandarin program. Vancouver Community College has introductory Cantonese courses. Langara College has continuing studies Cantonese classes for adults and Mandarin classes for children.
Most principals of Vancouver public schools circa the 1920s did not feel that it was necessary to segregate Chinese students from non-Chinese, therefore segregation was not a common occurrence in Vancouver public schools. The Vancouver CBA made efforts to dissuade school administrations from segregating Chinese students.
The Chinese Patriotic School, established by the Empire Reform Association, was Vancouver's first Chinese school. In the early 20th century, the Chinese-language schools in Vancouver were the Wenhua Xuexiao, the Chinese Public School of Vancouver, the Jinhua School, the Kwong Chi School, the Canton School (Guangdong Xuexiao), and two other schools. There was also the Oi-kwok Hok-tong School in New Westminster. Several supplementary schools teaching the Chinese language had been established in the Vancouver area by the 1920s and 1930s, with the number being eleven at one point in time.
Religion.
As of 2011 over 100,000 of the Chinese in Greater Vancouver were Christian, making up about 24% of the total population. 14% of the total population of Greater Vancouver's Chinese stated that they were Buddhist.
Greater Vancouver has Chinese Protestant and Chinese Catholic churches. As of 2013 there are about 120 Chinese churches in the area. Of the Protestant churches there are over 110 in the area. Church services are held in Cantonese, English, and Mandarin.
There are over 26 Chinese Christian organizations in Greater Vancouver. They include theological organizations, radio stations, magazines, and newspapers.
Culture and recreation.
The first recording of Cantonese opera occurred in Vancouver in 1898.
The Chinese New Year Parade is held every year in Vancouver. Many area politicians attend the event.
Around the 1950s 80% of the patrons of the International YMCA, opened as the Chinatown Centre in 1943 but given its new name in 1950, were Chinese. Most of them were "tusheng".
The pre-1960s Chinese community in Vancouver had social clubs and places of entertainment. The number of Chinese clubs increased in the mid-1950s. The Chinese Students Soccer Club was the only team not consisting of White Americans that was active during the 1920s and 1930s. There was also a Chinese Tennis Club. The Chinese Athletic Club and the Chinese Bowling Club were populated with "tusheng" or locally born Chinese. The increase in ethnic clubs prompted the YMCA to establish an inter-club council.
The community had the Chinese Opera House and Chinese Theatre.
Around the 1950s Chinese churches in Vancouver had their own recreational programs, including Boy Scouts.
To help mark the city’s centenary in 1986, volunteers affiliated with the Vancouver Chinese Cultural Centre instituted Pearl River Delta style dragon boat races on False Creek, the first of this particular variety of long paddled watercraft regatta in North America. The first international dragon boat races were held as part of Expo 86 and the city’s first ever Tuen Ng Jit (Duan Wu Jie) festival marking the fifth day of the fifth soli-lunar reckoned calendar month was celebrated on central False Creek between the Cambie St. and Granville St. bridges in June around the traditional time of the summer solstice. (Tuen Ng Jit refers to the sun at its most potent time of the year in the northern hemisphere.) The 2010 Olympic Winter Games torch was delivered to the Opening Ceremony at BC Place, in part, via dragonboat moving up False Creek.
The Chinese Canadian Military Museum Society is located in Vancouver. It was created in 1998 and maintains a museum in that city.
Terminology.
Chinese Vancouverites and Chinese British Columbians coined the term "Saltwater City" for Vancouver.
"Hongcouver".
The city is sometimes called "Hongcouver", by international media due to the size of the Chinese population; the term is no longer used locally and is regarded as derogatory.
The nickname "Hongcouver" refers to the large numbers of Chinese in Vancouver. The nickname originated from the attraction of Hong Kong immigrants.
John Belshaw, a University of Victoria faculty member and author of "Becoming British Columbia: A Population History", wrote that Vancouver's "bitter elite" created the term. Beginning in fall of 1988, and through the early 1990s some Greater Vancouver businesses sold T-shirts with the word "Hongcouver" on them. Use of the word by Vancouverites increased as more and more Chinese moved in.
David Ley, author of "Millionaire Migrants: Trans-Pacific Life Lines", described it as an "imagined" term bringing an "exaggerated caricature" that was "fabricated" by media in North America and Hong Kong. Ley argued that "The motivation for presenting this entity was in part satirical, possibly on occasion racist". Miro Cernetig of the "Vancouver Sun" wrote that the term Hongcouver was "an era's impolitic catch-phrase for the xenophobia and palpable occidental unease in Vancouver at the prospect of a profound upheaval in society." Nathaniel M. Lewis, author of "Urban Demographics and Identities," described the term as "derogatory." Anu Sahota of the "CBC" described it as an "offensive term". Katie King, the author of "Networked Reenactments: Stories Transdisciplinary Knowledges Tell", wrote that Vancouver was "lampooned in economic racist terms" through the word "Hongcouver".
Ley argued that there was also "insight" in the term "Hongcouver". Linda Solomon Wood of the "Vancouver Observer" stated that Hongcouver was one of several affectionate terms for Vancouver.
Lewis stated that "Hongcouver" was not as commonly used as it had been in the 1990s. In 2007 Cernetig also stated that it was no longer commonly used in the city. That year, Sahota stated that "Hongcouver" "persists today".
Ian Young, a correspondent of the "South China Morning Post" (SCMP), titled his blog about the Hong Konger population in Vancouver "Hongcouver".


Edward Livingston (speaker)

Edward Livingston (April 3, 1796 Dutchess County, New York – June 16, 1840 Albany, New York) was an American attorney and politician. He served as Clerk and Speaker of the New York State Assembly.
Early life.
He was the son of Philip Henry Livingston (1769–1831) and Maria Livingston (1770–1828). His paternal uncle was Edward Philip Livingston (1779–1843), the Lieutenant Governor of New York, and his maternal uncles were Henry Walter Livingston (1768–1810), a U.S. Representative, and Robert Fulton (1765–1815), an engineer who developed a successful steamboat that ferried passengers from New York City to Albany and back again and invented the first practical submarine in history.
His paternal grandfather was Philip Philip Livingston (1741–1787), who was born in colonial New York and had settled in Jamaica, West Indies prior to the Revolutionary War, therefore remaining a British subject. Philip Philip's father, Philip Livingston (1716–1778), supported the patriot cause prior to the revolution, and as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence. He was married to Christina Ten Broeck (1718-1801), the sister of Abraham Ten Broeck (1734-1810) who was married to Elizabeth Van Rensselaer, sister of Stephen Van Rensselaer II, patroon of Rensselaerwyck.
His maternal grandparents were Walter Livingston (1740–1797), the 1st Speaker of the New York State Assembly, and Cornelia Schuyler (1746–1822), the granddaughter of Pieter Schuyler. Walter was the son of Robert Livingston (1708–1790), 3rd Lord of Livingston Manor. His paternal great-grandfather, Philip was the younger brother of his maternal great-grandfather, Robert.
Career.
He was Clerk of the New York State Assembly in 1822, 1823, 1824, 1826 and 1827, following Dirck L. Vanderheyden and serving from January 2, 1822 until January 4, 1825 when Horatio Merchant became Clerk. Livingston again served, replacing Merchant, beginning on January 3, 1826 until January 1, 1828 when Francis Seger, who later became a member of the New York State Senate, took over.
Livingston served as District Attorney of Albany County from June 14, 1825 to March 27, 1838.
Speaker of the New York Assembly.
He was a member of the New York State Assembly representing Albany Co., in 1833, 1835 and 1837, and was Speaker in 1837, serving alongside Charles Humphrey.
At the conclusion of the session where he was Speaker and which was his last public office, the House presented their thanks to Livingston "for the able, dignified and impartial manner in which he has presided over its deliberations." In response, Livingston replied:
The flattering compliment which you have awarded to my efforts to subserve the public interests, by unanimously declaring that my conduct as your presiding officer merits approbation, is the reward for which I have labored, and its bestowment will ever be cherished by me with grateful recollections.
The time of this session has been engrossed with much business of a local nature, and with many propositions and laws of a general character, in the disposition of which, questions of great public concernment, were involved. That we have had an active agency in maturing and passing many laws of a local character, which the wants of the community demanded, cannot be denied. Upon questions in which the people at large have expressed an interest, the Assembly has pronounced its judgment upon most, if not all the leading topics to which their attention has been called. More of public law than is usually adopted at any session of the Legislature, will be found to have passed into enactments; whether for good or evil, will be determined by our constituents, to whose judgment, I doubt not, we are all alike willing to submit with perfect cheerfulness. As the diversified claims of our large population for legislative aid annually increase, it is a matter of congratulation that we are enabled to adjourn at an earlier period than the Legislature of last year. This is a high testimony in favor of your industry and devotion to the public business.
In discharging the duties of the station to which your partiality called me, I have been much aided by your strict attention to business, and by your liberal support of the Chair. To your indulgence in overlooking the many errors into which I may have been betrayed, I feel much indebted; and I assure you that is has been my constant study, in return for favors received, to endeavor to discharge with strict impartiality the delicate and difficult duties confided to me. In a few moments we shall part, probably never again to assemble together within these walls. This thought excites painful emotions in my bosom; and my regrets at parting deepen when I cast my eyes on your familiar faces, and perceive that your kind sensibilities are in unison with mine. I trust that a protecting Providence will watch over and restore you to your friends in health; and that your further progress in life may be happy, will ever be one of the choicest wishes of my heart. Fellow-members, farewell.
Personal life.
In 1819, he was married to Sarah Ray Lansing (1797–1848), the daughter of Cornelia (née Ray) Lansing (1757–1834) and John Ten Eyck Lansing, Jr. (1754–1829), the former Speaker of the New York State Assembly and Chancellor of New York from 1801 to 1814. Her sister, Jane Lansing (1785–1871) was married to U.S. Representative Rensselaer Westerlo (1776–1851), and sister Frances Lansing (1791–1855) was married to Jacob Livingston Sutherland (1788–1845). Together, they were the parents of:
Livingston died June 16, 1840 in Albany, New York. He was buried at Albany Rural Cemetery.
Descendants.
Through his son, Edward Livingston, he was the grandfather of Clarisse Hazeltine Livingston, who made her debut in 1887, and Edward Livingston, Jr. (b. 1871), who graduated from Harvard in 1893 and Columbia University Law School in 1896.


James A. Roosevelt

James Alfred Roosevelt (June 13, 1825 – July 15, 1898) was an American businessman and philanthropist. A member of the Roosevelt family, he was an uncle of President Theodore Roosevelt.
Early life.
Roosevelt was born on June 13, 1825, to Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt (1794–1871) and Margaret Barnhill (1799–1861). His siblings were Silas Weir Roosevelt (1823–1870), Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt, Jr., Robert Barnhill Roosevelt (1829–1906), Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831–1878), who was married to Martha "Mittie" Bulloch (1835–1884), and William Wallace Roosevelt (1834–1835).
Career.
Roosevelt became a member of his father's mercantile firm, Roosevelt & Son, at the age of twenty, and eventually succeeded him as its head. He was connected with many other institutions, including as vice president of the Chemical Bank of New York; president of the Broadway Improvement Company; vice president of the Bank of Savings; member of the board of managers of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company; director of the New York Life Insurance Trust.
He was a trustee to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children and on the New York Board of Park Commissioners during the William Lafayette Strong Administration. He was a president of Roosevelt Hospital that was founded by his distant cousin James H. Roosevelt.
Personal life.
On December 22, 1847, he married Elizabeth Norris Emlen (1825–1912), the daughter of William Fishbourne Emlen (1786–1866) and Mary Parker Norris (1791–1872). Together, they had four children, including:
He died on July 15, 1898 near Mineola, New York while riding a train on his way home to Oyster Bay, New York.
Descendants.
Through his son, Alfred, he was the grandfather of Elfrida Roosevelt, who married Sir Orme Bigland Clarke, 4th Baronet, and was the mother of Sir Humphrey Clarke, 5th Baronet.


Buckwheat Donahue

Robert Carlin Donahue Jr. (August 16, 1951 – October 14, 2019), better known as "Buckwheat" Donahue, was an American folklorist, storyteller, entertainer, historian, adventurer, and four-time gold-panning champion, best known for his involvement in many different aspects of life in Alaska's Inside Passage. Although known for his time in and work with Alaska, he was born and died in Oklahoma.
As someone who took pleasure in the outdoors, Donahue started the Buckwheat Ski Classic in 1987 and co-founded the Dyea to Dawson Centennial Race to the Klondike, which later became known as the Yukon River Quest. Beginning on October 1, 2005, he walked 5,300 miles from Miami, Florida to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada, paddled a canoe on the Yukon River 2,200 miles to Kotlik, Alaska, then walked the remaining distance to Nome, Alaska as a fundraiser for The Heartbeat Trail, an effort to provide necessary equipment for the Dahl Memorial Clinic, the only hospital within 110 miles of his native Skagway.The adventure took 327 days.
Donahue was the Executive Director of the Skagway Convention and Visitors Bureau. A captivating storyteller, he often entertained crowds of Skagway's many tourists with his tales of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. "He is a teller of tales that keep the spirit of Alaska alive," wrote Floridian Larry Ferguson in 2004. "He is a devotee of Robert Service whose poems paint the picture of Alaska during the Gold Rush. And he is, when you see him, the very visage of an Alaskan Sourdough."


Timeline of Tijuana

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico.


St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church (Ann Arbor, Michigan)

St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church is a parish of the Roman Catholic Church located in Ann Arbor, Michigan at 530-540 Elizabeth Street. Its historic parish church is listed as a Michigan State Historic Site.
History.
In 1831, Fr. Patrick O'Kelly arrived to minister to Irish settlers in the Washtenaw area. The first Mass in Ann Arbor was said in a private home on July 12, 1835, and efforts began that year to erect a permanent church. His successor, Fr. Thomas Cullen, purchased land on East Kingsley Street near Division Street in 1842, and the first church was built on this land—the first brick church in Ann Arbor. It was not dedicated until 1845, as Bishop Lefevre did not dedicate churches until they were free of debt.
The church cemetery, on North Main Street, was acquired in 1843, but not consecrated until 1878. In 1868, the parish acquired a former public school down the street and opened its parochial school, St. Thomas the Apostle School, which celebrated its sesquicentennial in 2018.
Fr. Edward D. Kelly became pastor in 1891, and found the existing church inadequate to the needs of the parish. He began raising funds in 1896 for the current church, which was dedicated in 1899 and completed in 1905. The yellow brick rectory was completed in 1902, and a convent for the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary on Elizabeth Street in 1911. Over the years, the parish sponsored the first hospital in Ann Arbor as well as two other Catholic parishes.
In 1977, grades 9 through 12 were separated from St. Thomas the Apostle School and became Father Gabriel Richard Catholic High School, an independent institution. which moved to a new campus in 2003.
Architecture.
Fr. Edward D. Kelly hired the Detroit architectural firm of Spier & Rohns for the new church, which was designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. The cornerstone was placed in 1897, and the church was dedicated in 1899.
The building is built of local fine grain rough cut granite, on a cruciform plan. It seats a thousand people.
In 1927 Fr. Command, then pastor, traveled to the Vatican. In the course of that trip he visited Padua and ordered a statue of St. Thomas that was delivered and placed in a niche high in the gable four years later.


Makah language

The Makah language is the indigenous language spoken by the Makah. Makah has not been spoken as a first language since 2002, when its last fluent native speaker died. However, it survives as a second language, and the Makah tribe is attempting to revive the language, including through preschool classes. The endonym for the Makah is "qʷi·qʷi·diččaq".
The Makah reside in the northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It is closely related to Nuu-chah-nulth and Ditidaht, which are languages of the First Nations of the west coast of Vancouver Island on the north side of the strait, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Makah is the only member of the Wakashan language family in the United States, with the other members spoken in British Columbia, from Vancouver Island to the Central Coast region.
Makah, Nuu-chah-nulth and Ditidaht belong to the Southern Nootkan branch of the Wakashan family. The Northern Wakashan languages, which are Kwak'wala, Heiltsuk-Oowekyala and Haisla, are spoken farther north, beyond the territory of the Nuu-chah-nulth.
Phonology.
The phonemes (distinctive sounds) of Makah are presented below in the Makah alphabet; if the symbol in the native alphabet differs from the IPA symbol, the IPA equivalent will be given in brackets.
Consonants.
Rare among the world's languages, Makah has no nasal phonemes, a trait it shares with the neighboring Quileute language.
Vowels.
There are five phonologically short vowels (written ⟨a e i o u"⟩" and pronounced , , , , and ) and five phonologically long vowels (written ⟨a· e· i· o· u·⟩ and pronounced , , , , and ). There are also and six diphthongs" (written ⟨ay oy ey iy aw uy⟩, pronounced , , , , , and ).
Morphology.
"Like other Wakashan languages, Makah inflects verbs for evidentiality, indicating the level and source of the speaker's knowledge about a statement. Some examples are shown in the following table:[8]
Alongside those examples, compare corresponding sentences without the evidentials: hi·dawʔal, "he found it"; č̓apac̓, "it's a canoe"; haʔuk̓alic, "you're eating"; dudu·k̓al, "he's singing"."
The Makah word encodes much information; Davidson (2002) outlines the formal word structure below (pg. 160),
The 'unextended word' consists of a root (the 'base'), lexical suffixes, and aspectual suffixes. It carries the 'dictionary meaning' of the word, while the clitics represent what can be thought of as 'inflections' for other grammatical categories. The unextended word,
The 'expanded unextended' word is formed by the addition of a peripheral suffix, which can change the part of speech while and often contains an aspectual value. These suffixes 'cross-cut' the core/nuclear distinction. The order of the clitic sequence is as follows:
The modal-pronominal clitics are often combined, creating a separate set of pronominal clitics for each mood. Makah marks for the indicative, purposive, quotative, subordinate, inferential, mirative, conditional, relative, content interrogative and polar interrogative moods.


Bridge River Country

The Bridge River Country is a historic geographic region and mining district in the Interior of British Columbia, Canada, lying between the Fraser Canyon and the valley of the Lillooet River, south of the Chilcotin Plateau and north of the Lillooet Ranges. "The Bridge River" can mean the Bridge River Country as opposed to the Bridge River itself, and is considered to be part of the Lillooet Country, but has a distinct history and identity within the larger region. As Lillooet is sometimes considered to be the southwest limit of the Cariboo, some efforts were made to refer to the Bridge River as the "West Cariboo" but this never caught on.
Though essentially consisting of the basin of the Bridge River and its tributaries, the Bridge River Country includes the communities of D'Arcy, McGillivray Falls, Seton Portage and Shalalth, which lie in the valley of Seton and Anderson Lakes and the Gates River just to the south, are also considered to be part of the Bridge River Country, and also simultaneously of the Lillooet Country. After the 1930s, the term "Bridge River-Lillooet" came into currency as a result of the chosen masthead of the fledgling Bridge River-Lillooet News, which served the town and environs of Lillooet as well as the mining towns of the upper Bridge River.


Ayotlan (state)

Ayotlan was a state located along the upper reaches of the Armeria River in the general vicinity of El Grullo in Jalisco. It should not be confused with the municipality of the same name that is in Jalisco which is significantly further east.
Ayotlan was a state prior to the Spanish incursion which had tributary states at Tlepantequipa and Tlaquitetequi. It was conquered by the Spanish in 1525. After this it was incorporated into the domain of Autlan.


Victoria Island (Ottawa River)


Lincoln (proposed Northwestern state)

Lincoln is the name for several proposals to create a new state in the Northwest United States. The proposed State has been defined in multiple ways, but can generally be said to be coterminous with the region known as the Inland Northwest. The proposed state was named in honor of Abraham Lincoln, who was president during the American Civil War. His name was also proposed for the states that were eventually named North Dakota and Wyoming.
Lincoln in the Northwest.
The State of Lincoln has been proposed to consist of the Panhandle of Idaho and Eastern Washington (that is, east of the Cascade Mountains). Other than Lincoln, the names "Columbia" and "Eastern (or East) Washington" were proposed to be used for the state. It was first proposed by Idaho in 1865, when the capital was moved from Lewiston in December 1864 to its present-day location of Boise in January 1865, in an Idaho greatly reduced in land area. The original Idaho Territory, from a bill signed by President Lincoln in March 1863, was declared by Governor William H. Wallace in Lewiston, July 4, 1863, and included present-day Idaho, and virtually all of present-day Montana and Wyoming, making it larger in land area than Texas.
Montana was made a territory in May 1864 and the Panhandle was specifically excluded in order to prevent Lewiston, west of both the Continental Divide along the crest of the Rockies and of the Bitterroot Range, from remaining the capital. The reasoning was that Lewiston sits on the western edge, across the Snake River from Washington. Montana stretches to North Dakota.
In the mid and late 1860s, there was a proposal centered on Lewiston in northern Idaho for a Columbia Territory to be formed in the Inland Northwest from parts of what is now eastern Washington, northern Idaho and western Montana. In 1901 another proposal was made, this time to combine the Idaho Panhandle with Eastern Washington to create the state of Lincoln. A third proposal was popularized in the late 1920s to consist of eastern Washington, northern Idaho and western Montana to the Continental Divide. From the Washington end, proposals have been made as recently as 1996, 1999 and 2005. Idaho saw a corresponding campaign for North Idaho, financed by the sale of T-shirts reading "North Idaho – A State of Mind".
Areas proposed for inclusion.
North Idaho.
While the disconnection between Western Washington and Eastern Washington is well known and documented, North Idaho has a similar dynamic in which its residents often feel disconnected from the state's political center in Boise. The Idaho Panhandle is most often considered to be the ten northernmost counties in the state—Boundary, Bonner, Benewah, Clearwater, Idaho, Kootenai, Latah, Lewis, Nez Perce, and Shoshone. These counties are separated from Southern Idaho by the Salmon River and observe Pacific Time, unlike the rest of the state, which uses Mountain Time.
Parallel suggestions of a "State of Kootenai" have been made, referring to a proposed union of the six northernmost counties of Idaho, and the six westernmost counties of Montana, creating a geographically, politically, and ecologically connected state of 524,888 residents, putting it ahead of other states such as Wyoming.
Eastern Washington and eastern Oregon.
Other conceptions of a potential "State of Lincoln" have been rendered, specifically a possible combination of eastern Washington and eastern Oregon.
The people of Eastern Oregon also often express the same frustration with being coupled with Portland and the region west of the Cascades that Eastern Washingtonians do with respect to Seattle. This proposed coupling would create one of the largest states by area in the country, stretching all the way from the eastern foothills of the Cascade Mountain Range to the border with Idaho in the east.
Proposals.
The state legislatures for Idaho and Washington have seen bills proposing secession or splintering. Idaho would not go along at the time as the Panhandle generated more tax revenue per capita than the south. If combined with the proposed State of Jefferson, which overlaps a proposed Oregon-Washington "State of Lincoln" in southeastern Oregon and is proposed for many of the same reasons, it would create a state that is even larger.
The Inland Empire region roughly corresponds to the area that might comprise such a State of Lincoln. The largest city would be Spokane, Washington, which is presently Washington's second largest and the greater Spokane area is the third largest population base in the northwestern US behind Seattle and Portland.
A Spokane proposal in 1907 called for a new state "Lincoln" to be created from eastern Washington, northeastern Oregon, and northern Idaho. Oregon and Washington's eastern boundary would have been shifted westward to 120° W, aligning with California's eastern boundary. Idaho's northern boundary would have been shifted southward to 45° N, aligning with Wyoming's northern boundary.
Alternative name for current states.
North Dakota.
It was proposed to split Dakota Territory into northern and southern halves while being considered for statehood in the 1880s. Republicans in the Senate suggested the name "Lincoln" for the northern half, despite objections from residents from the territory, which drew strong objection from the Democrats. Ultimately the territory was admitted in 1889 as two states, North Dakota and South Dakota.
Wyoming.
When the 1868 bill to form Wyoming Territory was first discussed in the U.S. Senate, an amendment was proposed that would have changed its name to Lincoln Territory after the assassinated U.S. president Abraham Lincoln. The new name was supported by the Senate Committee on Territories, however it started a debate that scrutinized both "Lincoln" and "Wyoming", with several members preferring local and Indian names. Multiple senators objected to naming a territory after a single man, acknowledging Washington Territory (named in 1853 for George Washington) as the sole exception. "Wyoming" was the simple English transliteration of the Lenape Indian tribe's word for "large plains", which was considered descriptive of the land but undesirable due to its distant origin in Pennsylvania. The bill eventually passed both houses of Congress with the name "Wyoming Territory", and the Wyoming name was retained when statehood was achieved in 1890.


Department of the Pacific

The Department of the Pacific or Pacific Department was a major command (Department) of the United States Army from 1853 to 1858. It replaced the Pacific Division, and was itself replaced by the Department of California and the Department of Oregon.
Formation.
The Department of the Pacific was created on October 31, 1853, at San Francisco, California, replacing the older Pacific Division, (1848-53) and abolishing the existing 10th (California) and 11th (Oregon) Departments, consolidating them within the new Department. The department reported directly to the headquarters of the Army in Washington, D.C.. It oversaw the military affairs in the country west of the Rocky Mountains (California, Oregon Territory, and Washington Territory), except for the Utah Territory and the Territory of New Mexico east of the 110th meridian west, (thus including most of modern Arizona and southern Nevada).
On September 2, 1854, the headquarters was moved to Benicia Barracks, in Benicia, California.
From 1855-57 the Puget Sound District was organized.
In January 1857, the headquarters again returned to San Francisco.
On January 14, 1858, the Utah Territory was placed within the Department but soon removed into the Department of Utah, in 1858, that remained until 1861.
Disbandment.
On September 13, 1858, the Department of the Pacific was disbanded, replaced by two new departments: the Department of California and the Department of Oregon. The Department of California included the territory west of the Rockies, the Umpqua and Rogue River districts in Oregon, Utah and New Mexico. The Department of Oregon included the Oregon and Washington Territories.
Reborn in the Civil War.
During the American Civil War the army again reorganized, and on January 15, 1861, the independent Pacific Department was reconstituted by consolidating the Departments of California and Oregon. The first commander of the new Department of the Pacific was Colonel (Brevet Brigadier General) Albert Sidney Johnston who was later to become a prominent General in the Confederate Army.
Districts.
The Department of the Pacific had six subordinate military districts during the Civil War:
Reorganized out of existence.
On July 27, 1865 the Military Division of the Pacific was created under Major General Henry W. Halleck, replacing the Department of the Pacific, consisting of the Department of the Columbia that now consisted of the state of Oregon and the territories of Washington and Idaho and the expanded Department of California that now consisted of the states of California and Nevada and the Territory of New Mexico and Territory of Arizona.
Philippine Expedition.
On 30 May 1898, Gen. Wesley Merritt established in San Francisco the Headquarters, US Expeditionary Forces and Department of the Pacific for the campaign to support Adm. Dewey's forces in the Philippines during the Spanish–American War.
At the end of March 1900, the complexities involved in dealing with the guerrillas and governing the islands led to the transformation of what had been the Department of the Pacific into the Philippine Department with four geographical departments, each of which was, in turn, divided into military districts. This step also brought an end to the Eighth Corps.


The Dayton Biltmore Hotel

The Dayton Biltmore Hotel is a historic hotel located at the junction of First and Main Streets in downtown Dayton, Ohio, United States. From construction in 1929 through much of the rest of the twentieth century, the Biltmore was a prominent hotel, while later renovations have converted it into apartments with space for smaller businesses. It was named a federal historic site in 1982.
History.
Opened on November 16, 1929, The Dayton Biltmore Hotel was designed in the Beaux-Arts style popular at the time. It features an applied masonry façade system, exhibiting both brick and terra cotta, resulting in a dark brown and white exterior. The architect, Frederick Hughes (of the architecture firm F.J. Hughes and Company), is also known for the nearby Commodore Apartments and the Centre City Building, which were designed in a similar style. One of the tallest buildings in Dayton, The Biltmore was considered one of the finest hotels in America, playing host to some of the nation's most powerful and celebrated men in the 20th century, such as John F. Kennedy and Elvis Presley.
The Dayton Biltmore was originally operated by Bowman-Biltmore Hotels. It was purchased by Hilton Hotels in 1946. The Dayton Biltmore became a Sheraton in March 1965 and was renamed the Sheraton-Dayton Hotel. It left Sheraton in 1974 and became the Biltmore Towers Hotel. In 1981, the Kuhlmann Design Group redeveloped the property into elderly housing, known as Biltmore Towers. On February 3, 1982, The Dayton Biltmore was added to the National Register of Historic Places, qualifying because of its historically significant architecture.
Apartments and commercial space.
The eighteen-story Biltmore has undergone a number of renovations over the years, the most recent of which was conducted in 1981, when the Kuhlmann Design Group redeveloped the property into elderly housing. Today, the building houses 230 apartments ranging in size from 500 sqft 1-bedrooms to 713 sqft 2-bedrooms. Known as "Biltmore Towers - Senior Living", it caters to residents 55 years and older. The building is situated alongside the Great Miami River, steps away from Riverscape Metropark, Victoria Theater, Cooper Park, and Courthouse Square. The property is currently owned and managed by Apartment Investment and Management Company (AIMCO).
In addition to the apartments, the property also contains seven retail spaces, totaling .
The current business tenants are China Royal Restaurant, Liberty Tax Services, and St. Mary's, resident services on the 4th floor. Previous tenants include Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers, Rock Star Sub Sandwiches, and a physician's office.


Profile Rock

Profile Rock (also known as the Old Man of Joshua's Mountain) was a 50-foot high granite rock formation located in Freetown, Massachusetts just outside Assonet village and near the Freetown State Forest. Local Wampanoags believe it to be the image of Chief Massasoit. The Wampanoags occupied the region of Rhode Island and Massachusetts bounded by Narragansett Bay to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and Chief Massasoit was a close friend to the early Pilgrim settlers.
Joshua's Mountain was named after Joshua Tisdale who was the first to settle near the site. It was privately owned for several years by former Freetown Selectman Ben Evans, who sold it to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to be used as a state park tourist attraction. In recent years, the site has been frequently vandalized with graffiti, despite an aggressive cleanup effort by the Bristol County Sheriff. On June 19, 2019 at approximately 9:22 am, the Freetown Police Department along with the Freetown Fire Department responded to the Freetown State Forest “Profile Rock” Park for a report of recent damages to the historic rock formation, Old Man of Joshua's Mountain. First responders and park officials discovered that a large portion of the rock formation had broken off.
State forest officials have closed the park until further notice due to the unsafe environment. The public is encouraged to stay away from the area.


Tressa May

Tressa May was a steamboat that was operated in the Yaquina Bay region of Oregon from 1883 to 1888.
Design and construction.
"Tressa May" was built in East Portland, Oregon in 1883. The boat was commissioned by Capt. Stephen B. Ives, and launched under the name Robert G. Ingersoll, as Capt. Ives was an admirer of that orator. Ives encountered financial difficulties and had to sell the new boat. The new owners renamed the vessel "Tressa May".
Dimensions and power.
The boat was long with a beam of and depth of hold of . "Tressa May" measured out at 48.84 gross tons (a measurement of carrying capacity, not weight) and 39.60 net tons. The official merchant vessel registry number was 145364.
"Tressa May" was the first steamer on the west coast to be fitted with a Westinghouse engine.
Operations.
In 1886 the home port for "Tressa May" was Portland, Oregon. The boat however had been operating in Yaquina Bay since August 1885, if not earlier.
On Saturday August 8, 1885, when "Tressa May" was under the command of Captain Dodge, the boat was making a landing at a dock when the vessel was backed into a scow, which broke the propeller. "Tressa May" was replaced on the route by the "Benton" for the day. The next Monday morning, August 10, 1885, Captain Dodge went to Portland for a replacement propeller.
In 1886 "Tressa May" was purchased by James T. Chatterton (b. 1851), who had earlier run the boat for a few months on a sea otter hunting expedition. One source reports that "Tressa May" had been built for sea-going work as Robert G. Ingersoll, but had been converted to a riverine freight and passenger service by Chatterton when he bought the boat in 1886.
On March 28, 1886, "Tressa May" was aground at Newport, Oregon.
In 1887, the home port for "Tressa May" was Yaquina City, Oregon.
In June 1887, D.H. Welch, owner of the sternwheeler "Montesano", raced against "Tressa May" on Yaquina Bay from Yaquina City to Newport. Both vessels arrived at almost the same time, with "Montesano" just a little ahead.
In December 1887, Chatterton, captain of "Tressa May", was fined $1,000 in U.S. District Court for carrying excessive passengers on the steamer.
Disposition.
John T. Chatterton operated "Tressa May" until 1888, when he built the steamer T.M. Richardson. "Tressa May" was dismantled. It was the practice to reuse machinery and other parts stripped from dismantled vessels in newer craft. The hull of "Tressa May" ended up being abandoned on the Yaquina River, and could be seen for many years at Dumpy Brown’s Landing across from Parker’s Mill, at Yaquina City.


Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway

The Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway, also known as the Big Four Railroad and commonly abbreviated CCC&StL, was a railroad company in the Midwestern United States. It operated in affiliation with the New York Central system.
Its primary routes were in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. At the end of 1925 it reported 2,391 route-miles and 4,608 track-miles; that year it carried 8180 million net ton-miles of revenue freight and 488 million passenger-miles.
History.
The railroad was formed on June 30, 1889, by the merger of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railway, the Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Chicago Railway and the Indianapolis and St. Louis Railway. The following year, the company gained control of the former Indiana, Bloomington and Western Railway (through the foreclosed Ohio, Indiana and Western Railway and through an operating agreement with the Peoria and Eastern Railway).
In 1906, the Big Four was acquired by the New York Central Railroad, which operated it as a separate entity until around 1930. The Big Four's lines were later incorporated into Penn Central in 1968 with the merger of New York Central and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Penn Central declared bankruptcy in 1970, and in 1976 many of Big Four's lines were included in the government-sponsored Conrail. Conrail was privatized in 1987 and in 1997 was jointly acquired by CSX and Norfolk Southern.
Notable facilities.
The railroad was headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, in the Chesapeake Building at 105 South Meridian Street. The building was constructed for the railroad in 1929 and was also known as the Big Four Building. In 1996, this multi-story structure became a Hampton Inn hotel.
Between 1904 and 1908 the railroad constructed a repair shop for steam locomotives and for passenger and freight cars in Beech Grove, Indiana. Amtrak purchased the facility, now known as the Beech Grove Shops, from the bankrupt Penn Central in 1975.
The railroad operated a terminal at Bellefontaine, Ohio, that included the largest roundhouse in use at that time between New York City and St. Louis, Missouri. Conrail closed the Bellefontaine terminal in 1983, and its roundhouse was dismantled.
A large yard facility known as the Big Four Yards is located in Avon, Indiana, along the line's tracks, now owned and operated by CSX.
In 1895, the railroad acquired what became known as the Big Four Bridge across the Ohio River at Louisville, Kentucky, thereby giving it access to that city. Use of the bridge for railroad purposes ceased by 1968, and it sat abandoned until work began by 2006 to convert it to use by pedestrians and bicyclists.


Social Democracy of America

The Social Democracy of America (SDA), later known as the Cooperative Brotherhood, was a short lived political party in the United States that sought to combine the planting of an intentional community with political action in order to create a socialist society. It was an organizational forerunner of both the Socialist Party of America (SPA) and the Burley, Washington cooperative socialist colony.
The party split into political and colonization wings at its convention in 1898, with the political actionists establishing themselves as the Social Democratic Party of America (SDP).
Organizational history.
Formation.
After being jailed in the aftermath of the 1894 Pullman Strike, Eugene V. Debs became interested in socialist ideas. Despite supporting William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 presidential race, Debs announced his conversion to socialism in January 1897. In June of that year, he held a convention of his American Railway Union (ARU) in Chicago, where it was decided to merge the ARU with a faction of the Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth (BCC) and other elements to create a new organization, the Social Democracy of America. The newspaper of the ARU, "Railway Times", was retitled to become official organ of the new organization, "The Social Democrat". The convention establishing the SDA was opened on June 15, 1897 in Uhlich's Hall in Chicago—the former headquarters of the ATU during the Pullman strike. The session was attended by 118 delegates, predominately from the Midwest and the Western United States. The keynote address to the convention was delivered by Gene Debs.
Among the elements that joined in forming the new party was a faction of independent Midwestern socialists centered around Victor Berger. This mainly German American group kept up a loosely organized "Social Democratisher Verein" and published the oldest socialist daily in the country, the Milwaukee "Vorwarts". This tendency emphasized electoral socialism, especially in local politics, in order to appeal to workers on issues of immediate, day-to-day importance. Prominent American adherents to this faction included Seymour Stedman and Frederic Heath.
While the SDA was being organized, there was some factional trouble within the older Socialist Labor Party (SLP). Some elements within the SLPs Jewish membership, concentrated in Manhattans Lower East Side, had objected to the party's dual unionism policy. As a consequence, the party's Yiddish language papers—the "Dos Abend Blatt" and "Arbeter-Zeitung"—were put under direct party control. When the dissidents responded by launching "The Jewish Daily Forward" and forming Press Clubs to influence party activity among Jewish members, the party leadership expelled the fourth, fifth and twelfth assembly district branches on July 4. The expelled branches held a convention July 31 to August 2, at which they decided to affiliate with the SDA. Among the prominent members of this faction were Abraham Cahan, Meyer London, Isaac Hourwich, Morris Winchevsky, Michael Zametkin, Max Pine and Louis E. Miller.
In St. Louis, the local SLP branch had published its own paper "Labor" in the early to mid-nineties, edited by Albert Sanderson and Gustav Hoehn, which showed independence from the SLP leadership and also opposed the dual union policy. This paper's editorial policy was condemned and the paper disaffiliated with the party at its 1896 convention, but ill feeling toward the party leadership continued. In January 1897, the St. Louis local readmitted a member named Priestbach into the party after he had left in 1896 to work for William Jennings Bryan's campaign. The vote for readmittance was 28 to 24 in Priesterbachs favor, which was less than the two thirds prescribed by the SLP constitution. On petition of loyal members the St. Louis local was reorganized and the dissident members went into the new SDA. This contingent was bolstered in August 1897 when the SDA was joined by the remnants of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), a predominantly German-language group headed by Wilhelm Rosenberg which had split off the SLP in 1889. From the very beginning there were divisions in the group between those who saw its main purpose as winning office and introducing socialistic legislation and those influenced by the BCC idea of trying to "socialize" a Western state by planting socialist colonies there and eventually taking over its government. Nevertheless, a three-man colonization commission criss crossed the country visiting possible sites, especially in Colorado and Tennessee.
Development.
The SDA began as a Chicago-centric organization. According to the published statement of Secretary Sylvester Keliher, during the organization's first month of existence there were 50 branches established, of which 11 were located in the city of Chicago. Keliher also indicated that more than 300 applications for the establishment of new branches had been received in the same period, of which 20 were located in this urban center of the midwest. Keliher also stated that there were another 75 local lodges of the ARU which voted to join the SDA "en bloc".
By the time of the SDA's convention on June 7, 1898, there was already a great deal of tension between the colonizationists and political actionists, the latter group accusing the former of trying to "pack" the convention with delegates from recently formed "paper branches" in the Chicago area. The divisions came to a head on June 10, when the convention heard the reports of its platform committee. The majority report, presented by Victor Berger and Margaret Haile, recommended the abandonment of the colonization scheme.
The minority report written by John F. Lloyd, but read to the convention by J.S. Ingalls, favored the two pronged approach adopted a year earlier. The platform question caused long and bitter debate, lasting until 2 am the next morning when a roll call vote showed 53 for the colonization platform and 37 against. With the defeat of the political action platform, Isaac Hourwich led a walk out of the minority to Revere House across the street, where the dissidents founded the Social Democratic Party of America (SDPA), which in 1901 would merge with other groups to become the Socialist Party of America.
Cooperative Brotherhood.
The majority attempted to carry out their colonization scheme and they published three more issues of the "Social Democrat", but financial difficulties made them halt the fourth issue while in type. Fearing that the organization might go under if a colony was not established immediately, they authorized Cyrus Field Willard to locate a colony and "do what in his judgment appeared the right thing to do". Willard went to Seattle to consult with SDA member J.B. Fowler, who pointed out the good harbors on southern Puget Sound, where they found Henry W. Stein, who was sympathetic to them politically and had just become the executor of some land in rural Kitsap County that was open for sale.
In September 1898, the SDA re-incorporated in Seattle as the Cooperative Brotherhood and on October 18 they purchased for $6,000. The first colonists arrived on October 20, 1898. A new organizational structure was put into place, with members paying a $1 initiation fee and $1 monthly dues—the intention being that such substantial dues would provide a constant monthly income to subsidize the initial phase of the colonization effort. In addition, a rather far-fetched prospectus was issued, proposing the generation of $5 million in operating capital though the sale of $10 shares of non-dividend paying stock, with additional funds raised through sale of low-interest bonds to supporters. National headquarters were established in Seattle.
While never reaching more than about 120 inhabitants, the colony thrived for a few years. Originally named Brotherhood, the inhabitants gradually began to refer to it as Burley after the nearby Burley creek. A colony scrip was created that included a $1 denomination for an eight-hour work day and smaller units, called minims, for minutes worker over or less than six hours.
Circle City was the informal name of a group of buildings near the water. The colony subsisted on agriculture, fishing and logging. They also made income selling cigars, jam, subscriptions of its magazines and membership in the B.C. It also rented out use of its mill, and rooms in its Commonwealth Hotel for visitors.
Colonization Commission Secretary Willard, who initially led the Washington colonization effort, departed in 1899 to join a Theosophist colony in Point Loma, California. The Brotherhood was later governed by a twelve-man board of trustees who were elected by mail vote each December for four year staggered terms. A board of directors managed the affairs of the colony itself, and was elected every January. Members of the Cooperative Brotherhood who were not residents of the colony organized in local chapters called Temples of the Knights of the Brotherhood in places like Chicago.
Its newspaper, the "Co-operator", stayed in publication from December 1898 to June 1906. Originally an eight-page weekly, it changed to a 32-page monthly in 1902 and to a 16-page magazine in October 1903.
The colony went into decline in the late 1900s. In December 1904, some members re-incorporated into the Burley Rochdale Mercantile Association and three months later the Cooperative Brotherhood itself re-organized into a joint stock company. By 1908, there were 150 members of the Brotherhood, only 17 resident of the colony. The trustees called a meeting of stockholders to dissolve the Brotherhood in late 1912, but it lacked the two-thirds majority, whereupon those who were in favor of disbanding took the company to court. On January 10, 1913, Judge John P. Young ordered the Cooperative Brotherhood dissolved and put its assets into receivership. The last of its properties were sold off in 1924.