Holly Miowak Guise headlines 2026 Pettyjohn Memorial History Lecture

The Washington State University Department of History and WSU Libraries are pleased to welcome Holly Miowak Guise (Iñupiaq) as the speaker for the 2026 Sherman and Mabel Smith Pettyjohn Memorial History Lecture. The lecture will be held on Monday, Sept. 14, at 12:00 p.m. in the Holland Library lobby.

Guise's lecture is titled "Alaska Native Resilience: Voices from World War II," the same title as her first book published in 2024. Her work centers oral histories from over 90 Alaska Native elders to cover the history of the Second World War and the multidimensional relationship between Alaska Natives and the US military.

While many Americans have learned about Japanese internment, particularly in the western United States, this year's lecture will discuss Native resistance and Indigenous military service in the Second World War. Guise is an independent scholar and is the creator of "World War II Alaska", a digital humanities project that centers the voices of Alaska Native elders and veterans by bridging institutional, federal and university archives, tribal archives, and oral histories.

"We have invited publicly engaged scholars to speak at the Pettyjohn Lecture, because that is at the heart of who we are as a land-grant university," said Ryan Booth, assistant professor of history at WSU. "Hearing from historians who are conducting respectful, engaged, and helpful scholarship, who then share those insights and help shape public discussions, is really important for our students and community."

The Pettyjohn Memorial Lecture Series aims to advance research and public engagement with the history of the Pacific Northwest and to amplify scholarship about the communities WSU serves. Guise is the fourth lecturer of the revised Pettyjohn Memorial Lecture Series, which has a storied past at WSU.

"I had heard about the Pettyjohn Lecture from former faculty who were here when it was active," said Lawrence Hatter, associate professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of History. "It was quite interesting to learn more about the Pettyjohn family and their fascinating pioneer history."

The series began in 1980 with an endowment from Margaret Pettyjohn in memory of her parents, Sherman and Mabel Smith Pettyjohn, who were early pioneers in Walla Walla County. The Pettyjohn family drove cattle for a St. Louis company which took them all over western Canada, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. They supported educational efforts in then-Washington Territory by establishing four different Pettyjohn schools around Prescott, WA, in the 1860s.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the Pettyjohn Memorial Lecture Series brought noted historians of the American West to both Pullman and Olympia, including Howard Lamar, Quintard Taylor, and Donald Worster. Additional speakers included U.S. Senator Daniel J. Evans, Washington Post White House Correspondent Lou Cannon, and American Heritage editor Alvin M. Josephy, Jr.

Many of the lectures provided the basis for a series of history anthologies about the American West published by WSU Press. These works include: "Panoramas of Promise: Pacific Northwest Cities and Towns on Nineteenth Century Lithographs" (1985); "The Changing Pacific Northwest: Interpreting Its Past" (1988); "Looking at the Land of Promise: Pioneer Images of the Pacific Northwest" (1988); "Spokane and the Inland Empire: An Interior Pacific Northwest Anthology" (1988); "Washington Comes of Age: The State in the National Experience" (1993); "Terra Pacifica: People and Place in the Northwest States and Western Canada" (1998); "Seattle's Historian and Promoter: The Life of Edmond Stephen Meany" (1998); and "Terra Northwest: Interpreting People and Place" (2007).

Reviving the Pettyjohn Lecture Series in 2023 was an opportunity for the history faculty to align the lecture's mission with contemporary considerations.

"As we restarted the series, it seemed like a good opportunity to reimagine the series not just as something focused on the American West, but also connecting it to the Indigenous history of the region," said Hatter. "We are hoping to build something collaborative that connects the community of scholars of the Indigenous Pacific Northwest."