Vivian Morgan Carkeek (November 23, 1879 - December 29, 1934) was an American attorney and businessman from

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...

. Born to Morgan and Emily Carkeek, one of the area's early pioneer families for whom

Carkeek Park Carkeek Park is a park located in the Broadview neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. The park contains Piper Orchard, Pipers Creek (and its tributaries Venema Creek and Mohlendorph Creek), play and picnic areas, picnic shelters, and hiking ...

is named, Carkeek graduated from the

University of Washington School of Law The University of Washington School of Law is the law school of the University of Washington, located on the northwest corner of the main campus in Seattle, Washington. The 2023 '' U.S. News & World Report'' law school rankings place Wash ...

's inaugural class in 1901 (a classmate of Walter B. Beals and Walter M. French, who later married Vivian's cousin, Bessie Westlake Carkeek), and was a partner at the firm Carkeek, McDonald, Harris and Coryell. From 1930 to 1931 he taught at the University of Washington School of Law. Carkeek was generally recognized as one of Seattle's powerful and influential civic personalities. Carkeek, like his mother and

sister A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a family, familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to r ...

, was passionately interested in the history of the Seattle area, and he served briefly as president of the Seattle Historic Society, which his mother had founded in 1911, and was a founding officer of the Associates of Eighty-Nine, which was established in 1919 to perpetuate remembrance of the

Great Seattle Fire The Great Seattle Fire was a fire that destroyed the entire central business district of Seattle, Washington on June 6, 1889. The conflagration lasted for less than a day, burning through the afternoon and into the night, and during the same sum ...

. In the early 1930s he financed the acquisition of theater historian J. Willis Sayre's private collection of 12,500 theatrical programs for the

Seattle Public Library The Seattle Public Library (SPL) is the public library system serving the city of Seattle, Washington. Efforts to start a Seattle library had commenced as early as 1868, with the system eventually being established by the city in 1890. The sys ...

. Carkeek also established the "Vivian Carkeek Prize" which is annually awarded "for the best student contribution to the ''Washington Law Review'' on a point of Washington law or any point of peculiar interest to Washington attorneys".

Photographs

Morgan and Vivian Carkeek seated in office, circa 1920s
University of Washington Libraries.
Vivian Carkeek
circa 1925, University of Washington Libraries.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carkeek, Vivian 1879 births 1934 deaths Lawyers from Seattle University of Washington School of Law alumni 20th-century American lawyers American people of English descent