Scrapbook and notes of a 19th c. San Francisco, California druggist.

James Gordon Steele was born in Boston and came to California in 1852. Early on he was employed by jeweler George C. Shreve, and by 1865 by Shreve’s uncle, Wm. H. Keith & Co., apothecaries in San Francisco. He studied botany under Dr. Kellogg, curator and librarian at the California Academy of Sciences. Steele was instrumental in the founding of the California Pharmaceutical Society in 1868, and in 1874 with other committee members formed the California College of Pharmacy. First occupying himself in the retail drug business, he later supplied Eastern and European markets with California crude drugs, and followed with opening a retail store as “druggists and dealers in California medicinal plants.” From 1880 to 1886 he worked out of a shop in the Palace Hotel. He held the position of City Chemist for the years 1895-1897.

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