History Pub  - Bigger, Better, Faster:  A History of Innovation in Seattle Presented by Dr. Lorraine McConaghy

Join us to explore Seattle’s exciting history of local inventiveness in technological, civic, artistic, and political change, characteristic of metropolitan Seattle residents. This program is richly illustrated with images from patent drawings, New Deal public art murals, Century 21’s Space Needle, and the Amazon business empire. Why is this place so uniquely innovative? Is it the rain, the Big Dark, the University of Washington, or the global position on the Pacific Rim? Find out how Seattle became a vanguard in creating our modern world.  

Dr. Lorraine McConaghy earned her Ph.D. in U.S. urban history at the University of Washington and has spent her professional career developing exhibits and programs for Washington State museums. She has published widely, and her recent work focuses on the antebellum, Civil War and Reconstruction periods in Washington Territory. Dr. McConaghy is the author of Warship Under Sail: The USS Decatur in the Pacific West and Free Boy: A True Story of Slave and Master. Currently, she is working on a collective biography of territorial deserters from the U.S. Army and Navy in the 1850s. Dr. McConaghy has been honored locally, regionally, and nationally for her work, including the Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History and the Robert Gray Medal from the Washington State Historical Society.