Tagged portland

Screenshot image of digital exhibit featuring Microcosm's building and map of the surrounding area.

Celebrating Portland’s Hidden Landmarks of Black History

April 30, 2024

Have you ever wondered whether your neighborhood has hidden histories or radical roots? Our surroundings are the sites of rich cultural histories, whether or not prevailing systems of power deem them worthy of preservation. In our hometown of Portland, OR, an innovative new digital history project is bringing forth stories of community strength, vibrancy, and resistance—a legacy that even includes Microcosm’s headquarters!

Credit: Oregon Black Pioneers, “Hidden Landmarks of Albina’s Black Community”

“Hidden Landmarks of Albina’s Black Community” is a new, interactive digital exhibit and Storymap created by Oregon Black Pioneers, a Portland-based organization working to illuminate the over 400-year history of African American Oregonians across the state; and Moreland Resource Consulting, a community development firm founded by author and community leader Kimberly Moreland, who was granted an Oregon Heritage Excellence Award earlier this month. Both organizations worked on the project in partnership with Restore Oregon’s Albina Preservation Initiative.

The digital exhibit takes a close look at Albina, a historically Black neighborhood in Portland, documenting the cultural significance of thirty properties around the area. Some remain today, while others have been lost to intentional displacement and so-called development and urban renewal efforts over the past half century. Oregon Black Pioneers write that the exhibit “highlights structures hidden in plain sight, which together reveal the social, political, and entrepreneurial bonds of 20th-century Black Portlanders.”

Explore the map, and you might notice some familiar places, including Microcosm’s Portland office! This building was once the NAACP Credit Union, which provided loans and banking services to Black Portlanders who were denied services at other banks in the city. We love seeing our home base included in this project, and we take seriously the responsibility of our presence in this culturally and historically significant place. We are excited to see this property included in a project that could change the course of how preservation is approached on a much larger scale, and we’re grateful to our neighbors and these organizations for bringing this and other untold stories of our city to light. By celebrating the radical histories of the cities, landscapes, and communities we inhabit, we keep their liberatory spark alive, strengthening our coalitions across generations.

Take a closer look at the trailblazing work Oregon Black Pioneers have been doing since 1993!
Learn more about Portland’s civil rights history through Oregon Black Pioneers’s “Racing to Change” digital exhibit, which makes a great companion to The Enduring Legacy of Portland’s Black Panthers.

Host a Book Emporium!

October 08, 2018 — by Elly Blue

Remember those book fairs in elementary school? When your sterile school cafeteria or gym was briefly transformed into a book-y wonderland, where you could browse for a whole period and make your careful selections?

We still get a little dreamy remembering those days, so we decided to bring the book fair back, this time for grownups who need a break from work to get lost in books.

If you’re in the Portland area and have at least 30 workers, drop us a line (elly at microcosmpublishing dot com is your person) and ask us about bringing a Microcosm Book Emporium to your workplace for an afternoon.

Our books are mostly nonfiction and they all turn on self-empowerment. We have fun DIY projects, mental health power-ups, hard-hitting histories, inspiration for everything from cooking to bicycling to punk rock, and even books for kids.

We’ll be selling books, but there’s no cost to have us there—we just ask that you provide a few tables, let your staff know about the bookfair, and give them a bit of time to browse and shop. We’re happy to bring requested titles and topics from our catalog.

Here’s a testimonial from one of our hosts:
“Microcosm brought a Book Fair to our office and it was amazing! The expressions on a few staff faces were priceless – I think we all were expecting some books laid out on office tables, but the displays Microcosm brought in really made it feel like we stepped right into a book store. Their team was also great to work with logistically and made the event a breeze to set up.” -Stephanie Fudge, Zapproved

On The Podcast: Forest Avenue Press’ Laura Stanfill

November 23, 2016 — by Joe Biel

Laura Stanfill has built a movement of authors and publishers in Portland into a coherent force. Whether that’s a product of her own publishing efforts with Forest Avenue Press or working to demystify the reality of publishing and setting proper expectations, she’s smiling, shaking hands, and introducing new allies!

Indie Bookstore Love: The Powell’s Interview

May 31, 2016 — by Elly Blue

What can we say about Powell’s Books? It’s a huge, used-and-new, independent bookstore in downtown Portland that takes up a whole city block, plus a couple of smaller but still large and equally interesting outlying stores. It’s one of the best things about living in Portland, and any time we need inspiration—professional or otherwise—we head straight to one of their locations to get lost in the stacks. It never fails.

Powell’s has also been one of Microcosm’s longest running customers. Starting almost 20 years ago, when Joe moved the business from Cleveland to Portland (you can read about those early days in his new book, Good Trouble), and continuing to this month when we’re partnering with Powell’s to spread the indie bookstore love. All month, Powell’s is featuring our newest edition of The Zinester’s Guide to Portland at every register. And for a week mid-month, you can see a display of Microcosm books at their downtown store—keep an eye out for it.

For this month, we asked Kevin Sampsell, who we’ve long had the pleasure of working with during his 15 years and counting reign over the downtown Powell’s storied Small Press section. When not curating the zine rack and slinging books, Kevin’s writing, editing, and running his own small press, Future Tense Books.

1. What’s your history working with Powell’s? How did you become the Small Press guy?
I started working at Powell’s at the end of 1997 as a holiday temp but I dug my claws in and worked hard and passionately so they couldn’t let me go. In 1998, I became an events coordinator, which means I get to schedule and host author events at the store, which is a privilege and a thrill. I became the small press guy around 2001. My predecessors were the amazing Vanessa Renwick and the late great Marty Kruse. Running the small press section is almost like running my own store. It’s an amazing experience. I love my jobs.

2. Do you remember your first encounter with Microcosm? Do you have any embarrassing or hair raising stories about our early days in Portland?
I remember Joe riding his bike down to the store with his plastic buckets strapped on with all the zines and books crammed into them. A couple of times the zines would be a little rough around the edges or dirty from the rain or dirt. I’d have to flatten out things or wipe them clean before I put them out on the shelf.

3. What’s your favorite Microcosm book or zine?
I was a big supporter of the Zinester’s Guide to Portland, even in its first pamphlet-size format. I thought it was a good idea, and before Microcosm had bigger distribution, I’d be the one who had to email you guys and ask for more. Eventually, after the more polished paperback editions came out, our main book purchasers wised up and started buying them in chunks of hundreds. It’s been one of our most consistent best-selling books in the store for several years now.
Some of my other favorites over the years have been Coffeehouse Crushes, Indestructible by Cristy Road, Sarah Royal’s The Book Bindery, the About My Disappearance zines by Dave Roche, and Sarah Mirk’s Sex From Scratch.

4. You’ve been a mentor and something of a bellwether for Portland’s small press and zine culture. How have you watched those scenes change over time? What do you predict for the future?
Thank you. I have always enjoyed supporting small presses and individuals through my job. The scene here has grown just as the city has grown–very quickly and with a wide swath. I think we’re slowly getting more diverse and inclusive and there’s a beautiful synergy that can often be witnessed between established writers and authors and newer writers coming up. I think that’s one of the reasons writers keep moving here, because they know something special is happening here. But in the last couple of years, the rent problems are making it a challenge to stay here. It’s a trend (the higher cost of living) that I hope doesn’t continue because when you discourage the creative class—who often come from financial struggle–it results in the sad decline of artistic excitement in a city. I don’t want that part of Portland to be “over”—I want it to to stay a haven for artists and risk-takers.

Commute Diary #5: Takes One to Know One

May 17, 2016 — by Elly Blue

Last week, on whatever day it was in the nineties, I was riding home with our six foot long trailer attached to my already long cargo bike. On the trailer was another bicycle that I’d just picked up from the repair shop. It wasn’t the heaviest load, but I was cruising slowly to keep from jostling my load, enjoying the sun and my music.

As I went through the traffic circle in the center of Ladd’s Addition, I heard a roar behind me. It was a giant pickup truck, and as it passed me slowly, I saw a truly giant American flag waving in the wind behind the cab. I gave the driver a nod and a thumbs up, from one weirdo vehicle to another. He blushed bright red and almost smiled back as he continued on past, enjoying his own sunshine cruise.

On the next corner was the friendly woman who’s often there with a big red cooler, selling food to hungry passing cyclists. Instead of yelling “tamales” as usual, she was holding up her phone, filming the truck ahead of me. I saw her almost put the phone away, then spot me and keep filming, her commentary amping up a notch.

Was flag guy cruising around lefty southeast Portland to make a point meant to differentiate himself politically? Or was he like me, going home from work after picking up his flag at the flag repair shop, and making the best of the way people reacted to his rig? Either way, on our own we each looked like a different brand of freak; converging this way in the Ladd’s circle, we became something else entirely, either a set piece from Portlandia or just a couple people doing their own thing as they saw fit, and with an undeniable performative flair.

Exploring Ramona’s Portland: An Interview with Laura O. Foster

May 12, 2016 — by Elly Blue

One of the most charming, fun, and satisfying books we’ve had the pleasure of publishing here at Microcosm is Walking with Ramona, a very special and specific guide book that comes out this month. The book takes you on a 3-ish mile loop of the neighborhood where beloved kids’ author Beverly Cleary grew up, and set many of her bestselling novels; more than that, it connects you with the books’ characters and events and takes you into a very real Portland of the past, even if you never end up walking the same sidewalks as young Beverly.

Part of the joy of working on this book was getting to collaborate with the author, local guidebook writer Laura O. Foster. We asked her a few questions over email in preparation for the book’s May 31 publication date. She sent in satisfying answers—and, characteristically, a bunch of colorful photos to illustrate them—see below!

1. What is the story of Walking with Ramona, the tour and the book?
The tour
In 2009, Portland’s Hollywood Library asked me to create and lead a series of walking tours in honor of the neighborhood’s most famous actual resident, Beverly Cleary, and its most famous fictional resident, Ramona Quimby. I’d written three books about exploring Portland’s historic neighborhoods on foot prior to that.

So I read (or re-read) all Mrs. Cleary’s Portland-based books and her two autobiographies, taking notes whenever some site in the city or state was described: the pond where Ellen Tebbits steals Otis Spofford’s shoes, the park where Henry Huggins collects night crawlers, and of course the homes and schools of Beverly’s own childhood. I called the tour “Walking with Ramona.”

37th and Klickitat, a few blocks from Beverly’s home.

Mrs. Cleary is internationally famous. She’s sold over 90 million books, and was awarded the National Medal of Arts. So the tour was a big hit. Everybody had a warm memory of reading her books as a child. Over the years, demand for the tour didn’t go away, but I am primarily a writer, so except for some school groups and nonprofits, I led it infrequently.

In September 2015, Katrina Sarson, host of the television show “Oregon Art Beat,” called to ask if I’d lead the show’s crew on the tour, as they prepared a special half hour show in honor of Mrs. Cleary’s coming 100th birthday on April 12, 2016.

The book
A few weeks before the tour date, I met Joe Biel and Elly Blue at a book trade show. I was in the production phase of a self-published guidebook about the Columbia River Gorge. I went to their educational talk to learn about publishing from the other side of the fence—my other books had been published traditionally, and I didn’t know much about the business end of publishing.

You can learn about the history of Portland’s street numbering system in the book.

After learning a notebookful that morning, and liking Elly and Joe’s style, the next day I pitched them a book idea I called Walking with Ramona: Exploring Beverly Cleary’s Portland. Working with them seemed like it’d be fun, and finally I’d get the tour out of my files and into a format where more people could enjoy it. Plus my Beverly Cleary file bulged with a lot of other info I’d collected and wanted to share with readers that didn’t get included in the tour.

Send a proposal, they said. I did, and within a week or so we signed a contract. By December 31, Microcosm had the manuscript in hand. Everyone worked fast to shine it up, and with a Kickstarter campaign to fund a special, birthday-edition print run, we were able to have books available for Mrs. Cleary’s 100th birthday celebration in April.

The book is five chapters: an introduction to Beverly Cleary and her characters, a look at what life was like in pre-Portlandia Portland, the tour itself, a scavenger hunt of sorts—sites all over Oregon where Beverly fished, swam, hiked, raked crabs, shopped, worked, etc.—and a bit of wider history that surrounds these places. Plus it includes where to eat, drink and shop while you’re in her neighborhood.

A street in Portland's Hollywood neighborhood

One of the streets you’ll visit on the Walking with Ramona tour

2. How did you come to be a professional walking guidebook writer?
After college I wrote financial analyses of small businesses in Knoxville, Tennessee. I got to leave the plushly stuffy bank offices and ask a lot of questions of people who manufactured woven clothing labels, or repurposed fly-ash from coal-fired utility plants into a road-building material—not unlike how ancient Romans built roads with volcanic ash. Fascinating stuff! I wrote stories about these businesses and their financial histories, and made my pitch as to why their loan request would be (or not) a sound investment for the bank. It may seem irrelevant to a writing career, but my learning to tell a compelling tale with both technical and narrative info about a mundane topic brought me a lot of satisfaction. It was a good lesson.

By my late 20s, I’d left banking, studied ornamental horticulture, moved to Portland and soon took up contract writing, which ultimately led to book publishing. I worked at Beyond Words, a frisky company in Hillsboro, where anyone’s initiative to take on a job was rewarded with a show of confidence. Within a year I was its acquisition and developmental editor, working in adult nonfiction.

Velo Cult, a bike shop and bar along the tour route

With publishing demystified, it seemed to me I could write a book. The book I’d been wanting to read wasn’t out there: one that’d tell you stories while you wandered Portland’s hidden trails, side streets, overgrown staircases and wild/industrial beaches. I’ve always liked to get lost and work back to home using a AAA map, and I’d been poking around the city for years. And then I met my husband. Not only a born-here Portlander who knew the secret trails and stairs of the West Hills, he’s a geologist and engineer who taught me to look forensically at landforms and interpret what had taken place there. After a courtship of rocks and walks, I’d discovered a new layer of Portland. We got married and I had a book I knew would be fun to write, and fun to read.

That book, Portland Hill Walks, was the first of several Portland-based guidebooks.

3. In developing Walking with Ramona, you thoroughly explored Beverly Cleary’s old neighborhood in Northeast Portland, read all of her Portland books, and read her memoirs. What fact, place, or story did you learn that surprised you the most? What is your favorite historical spot on the tour? What is your favorite shop, cafe, or restaurant on the tour to take a break at?

A former Cleary family on NE 77th Avenue

Surprised and delighted me: that the places of Beverly’s childhood are still intact today. Combine that with her meticulous memories of one girl’s 1920’s Portland means you can escape your 21st century reality and get a sense, just by walking, of what life was like here 90 years ago, long before we were hip, famous, and running out of affordable housing. And it’s even better now: good coffee (Fleur de Lis Bakery and Cafe) and beer (Velo Cult) are along the book’s walking route, something not available during her Prohibition-era childhood. You can even buy a retro swimsuit along the route at Popina, one of Portland’s homegrown active wear manufacturers. It’s part of an industry that wasn’t even a glimmer when Beverly lived here. In her day, logging and milling were the state’s big economic engines.

In developing the book, I loved discovering esoteric bits of Portland life, like Beverly’s six-year orthodontia odyssey with kind Dr. Meaney, in downtown’s Selling Building at Southwest 6th and Alder. That building is still home to professionals, and has its own fascinating story that I tell in the book. As with Beverly’s train trip to Rockaway, on the Oregon Coast, prescribed as a cure for illness one summer, I use her life’s places and events as a way to weave in a larger Portland story—of what’s changed, and what hasn’t.

I loved the fact that Beverly learned to be a reader by going to the Roseway Theater during the silent movie era and reading the titles as they streamed by. That theater is still running films, talkies now, on historic Sandy Boulevard, an ancient road whose tale I tell in the book.

Beverly loves cats. This one has a good life.

I loved how she wrote that, the year she went to Gregory Heights School, she’d ride to school on the handlebars of a bike pedaled by her crush, an eighth grader. He earned her ire, though, when he offered gallantly to bury the family’s cat, but then carried it to its grave by its tail. With my book, you can gaze upon the house where the cat now reposes in peace, presumably somewhere in the back yard. In Beezus and Ramona, Beverly has her characters treat a departed cat with much more respect.

4. What other projects are you working on now? What’s next for you?
In May 2016, my company, Towns to Trails Media, is releasing its first book, Columbia Gorge Getaways: 12 Weekend Adventures, from Towns to Trails. As a set of multi-day itineraries that covers everything from picking cherries to paragliding, it’s the first complete visitor’s guide to the gorge, one of the nation’s few designated National Scenic Areas.

And of course I’ll be out there walking around. Join me on a “Walking with Ramona” tour! I lead the 3-mile walk as part of the free Ten Toe Express series of walks sponsored by the City of Portland. Meet at the Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden in Grant Park on Thursday, June 9, 6 p.m. or on Saturday, September 10, 9 a.m.

The outside of the YMCA where Scooter McCarthy took swim lessons

The YMCA where Scooter McCarthy took swim lessons