Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land

by Walter R. Borneman

Alaskans declared that desire in November when they voted 9,630 to 6,822 for statehood, roughly 58 percent to 42 percent. It was hardly an overwhelming mandate, but critics of statehood looked beyond the percentages to the total number of votes themselves. How could a territory cast less than 17,000 votes in a general election—less than the population of Reno, Nevada—and still hope to become a state? Alaska’s entire population in 1940 was only 72,524. Nevada itself, the least populous state in the 1940 census, had a population of 110,247. That didn’t sit too well with some folks, especially U.S. senators from the more populous states who were concerned about diluting their influence in the world’s most exclusive club. Meanwhile, a Gallup Poll found 64 percent of the American public as a whole in favor of Alaska’s admission as a state and only 12 percent against it. The remaining quarter was undecided.30