Faculty bio
 
Steven Beda an academic expert in Pacific Northwest history, labor history, and environmental history. His research specifically explores the history of workers in the Northwest’s timber industry and the ways rural communities have adapted to the region’s changing economy. He has also researched and written about the history of forestry, rural protest movements, and the rise of the Northwest’s militia movement.     

Recent Media:
Trump wants to revive the timber industry—but shot himself in the foot (The New Republic, March 21, 2025)
The activists sabotaging railways in solidarity with Indigenous people (The Guardian, July 29, 2021)
Did Biden’s pick to lead the Bureau of Land Management support eco-terrorism? (The Washington Post, July 14, 2021)
Tired of blue state life, rural Oregon voters eye new border (Yahoo News, Nov. 4, 2020)
US presidential election: The urban-rural divide on the West Coast (France 24, Nov. 2, 2020)
Bear meat-loving Washingtonians in historically blue county voted for Trump in 2016. Will they do it again? (KUOW Public Radio, Sept. 28, 2020)
Climate change and forest management have both fueled today’s epic Western wildfires (The Conversation, Sept. 16, 2020)
Fires Are Bringing Portland’s Summer Of Discontent To A Terrible End (BuzzFeed News, Sept. 11, 2020)
Protests after Floyd’s death reach rural America (Politico, June 6, 2020)
Climate legislation protests in Pacific Northwest spotlight activist trucking group (Freight Waves, March 6, 2020)
The Oregon timber worker’s truth (The Register-Guard, Feb. 23, 2020)
Why the massacre at Centralia 100 years ago is critically important today (The Washington Post, Nov. 11, 2019)
In a break from the past, Oregon sheriffs change their approach to gun laws (Oregon Public Broadcasting, June 21, 2019)
Why the Seattle General Strike of 1919 should inspire a new generation of labor activists (The Conversation, Feb. 6, 2019)
Collaboration, not fighting, is what the rural West is really about (The Conversation, Oct. 25, 2018)
Rural Americans unprotected by Endangered Species Act (The Register-Guard, Aug. 5, 2018)
Six charts that illustrate the divide between rural and urban America (The Conversation, March 16, 2017)
A war, the chainsaw and the 2nd great cutting of the northwest (Oregon Public Broadcasting, Dec. 1, 2016)
Julia Ruuttila, progressive crusader (Crosscut, Aug. 8, 2016)
This isn’t the first time armed ranchers have seized government land in Oregon (Time, Jan. 15, 2016)