thedailyfeed:

In today’s history page, we bring you the story of the man who tried to correct the gender imbalance on the American frontier.

“In accordance with your request, and to satisfy many inquiring minds, I make a statement of the reasons why I have spent so much time and money in the endeavor to introduce a large female immigration into Washington Territory.” So wrote Asa Shinn Mercer to the New York Times on Oct. 23, 1865. His endeavor is a cheerful sidebar in the sooty, bloody story of U.S. expansion, an ambitious misfire that shines light on what young white women meant to a growing nation that had just lost too many of its men.

I can’t even imagine how awful this man was, for example the article says he is looking for “true women” to combat the uncivilized Salish women the settler men were marrying. Disgusting. I will always think of this every time I hear/see Mercer Street in Downtown Seattle.