Title: Bancroft, Hubert Howe Papers

Identifier/Call Number: C057708

Contributing Institution: Society of California Pioneers

Language of Material: English

Container: B001393

Container: C057708

Physical Description: 1.0 folder (47 documents)

Date (inclusive): 1877-1956

Abstract: This collection includes biographical accounts of Hubert Howe Bancroft’s life. One is written by his brother, Albert Little Bancroft, and the other by his nephew, W.B. Bancroft. This folder also includes numerous articles, mostly from San Francisco newspapers in the late 1880s and early 1890s. The articles discuss Hubert Bancroft, his business, his published books, and the ensuing controversy over his methods. The folder also contains as a work agreement for one of Bancroft’s apprentices and other correspondence detailing the life, works and business of Hubert Howe Bancroft.

creator: A.L. Bancroft & Company.

creator: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918

creator: Bowlen, Frederick J., d. 1945

creator: Society of California Pioneers.

Collection open for research.

There are no restrictions on access.

Hubert Howe Bancroft Papers. The Society of California Pioneers.

Written and collected by the members and staff of the Society of California Pioneers.

Hubert Howe Bancroft (May 5, 1832– March 2, 1918), an American historian, author and ethnologist, was born in Granville, Ohio. He attended the Granville Academy until he was sixteen, and he then became a clerk in a bookstore in Buffalo, New York. He is known to be one of the first pioneers to come out to San Francisco and establish a successful publishing house. He also accumulated a great library of historical material and eventually donated it all to what is now known as the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Bancroft is notorious for a controversy involving faslified and offensive accounts of Generals Fremont and Grant, for which he was expelled from The Society of California Pioneers during the late 19th century.

The Society of California Pioneers, 300 Fourth Street, San Francisco, CA, 94107.

This collection includes biographical accounts of Hubert Howe Bancroft’s life. One is written by his brother, Albert Little Bancroft, and the other by his nephew, W.B. Bancroft. This folder also includes numerous articles, mostly from San Francisco newspapers in the late 1880s and early 1890s. The articles discuss Hubert Bancroft, his business, his published books, and the ensuing controversy over his methods. The folder also contains as a work agreement for one of Bancroft’s apprentices and other correspondence detailing the life, works and business of Hubert Howe Bancroft.

Container List: 1 handwritten 1-page letter by Hubert Howe Bancroft dated 01/27/1885 concerning a library loan to The Society of California Pioneers; 1 handwritten 3-page letter addressed to the Society of California Pioneers dated 12/26/1901 from O.W. Nixon, Literary Editor; 1 typed letter dated 05/04/1887, addressed to Mr. Charles B. Turrill in San Diego, regarding a subscription to Hubert Howe Bancroft’s works; 1 typed letter dated 05/13/1887, addressed to Mr. Charles B. Turrill in San Diego, regarding an offer to act as a consultant for Mr. Bancroft’s works; 1 work agreement between A.L. Bancroft & Co. and Rowland Jay Greene for Greene’s son, John Jay Greene, to learn the art of being a book compositor, dated 1877 in San Francisco; 5 pages of handwritten notes by Richard D. Faulkner about Hubert Howe Bancroft, 1886; 2 pages handwritten notes; 1 eight-page biographical account of Hubert Howe Bancroft’s life, written by his brother Afred Little Bancroft in 1907; 1 ten-page biographical account of Hubert Howe Bancroft’s life, written by his nephew W.B. Bancroft in 1910 entitled "Hubert Howe Bancroft - His Methods, Character and Record"; 1 thirty-seven-page copy of the proceedings of the Society of California Pioneers in Reference to the Histories of Hubert Howe Bancroft, dated 02/1894 (loose-leaf, double-sided); 1 detailed 26-page paper about the Misrepresentations of Early California History Corrected, “Proceedings of the Society of California Pioneers in regard to certain misrepresentations of men and events in early California history made in the works of Hubert Howe Bancroft and commonly known as Bancroft’s Histories” (bound); 1 detailed 7-page description of the Bancroft building fire dated 04/30/1886, written by Frederick J. Bowlen; 1 printed notice listing all of Hubert Howe Bancroft’s work and their intended order of publication; 1 printed notice regarding Hubert Howe Bancroft’s book entitled Literary Industries, including press notices and vendor information; 1 three-page pamphlet of press notices describing Hubert Howe Bancroft’s work, “Some Cities and San Francisco”; 1 printed description of the Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, including press notices and information on ordering Bancroft’s works; 1 seven-page pamphlet regarding The Bancroft Company’s publications; 1 ten-page pamphlet titled “Hubert Howe Bancroft, Historian of Western America” by John Walton Caughey; 1 envelope containing 8 newspaper articles on the Bancroft “Conspiracy” and court case (The Daily Report 04/05/1893, The Daily Report 04/06/1893, The Daily Report 04/07/1893, 04/09/1893, SF Call 10/03/1893, SF Chronicle 03/15/1896, 03/31/1883); 17 newspaper articles on Hubert Howe Bancroft’s expulsion from the Society and events leading up to it (SF Call 07/06/1894, SF Chronicle 04/19/1893, SF Chronicle 02/06/1894, SF Examiner 10/13/1893, SF Report 05/19/1893, 02/07/1889, 09/07/1888, SF Examiner 05/24/1893, SF Examiner 09/06/1893, SF Call 05/19/1893, SF Examiner 06/12/1890, SF Examiner 08/07/1892, 01/28/1889, Los Angeles Weekly Express 06/26/1890, SF Examiner 01/22/1893, SF Examiner 06/12/1892); 1 article from the San Francisco Chronicle: “The General Picture of a Scholar, Businessman, High Pressure Salesman” on Hubert Howe Bancroft; 1 photocopied newspaper article from the Sacramento Daily Record-Union—“Hubert Howe Bancroft, Collector and Author: Some Account of the Literary Labors of a California Historian”; 1 newspaper article from Ghost Town News interviewing Hubert Howe Bancroft by Rockwell D. Hunt; 1 newsletter by Conference of California Historical Societies dated March 1956.