Consists chiefly of typescripts and manuscripts of Blake's speeches to San Francisco Bay Area social clubs and organizations, concerning California history and contemporary issues, including labor relations, the cement and asphalt business, Berkeley, and other topics. Includes papers relating to his participation with the California Historical Society and the Society of California Pioneers, and a small amount of personal correspondence, receipts, and miscellany. Also includes some material on Blake's father, Charles Thompson Blake and his travelling and business partners, Roger Sherman Baldwin, Charles T.H. Palmer, and Caspar T. Hopkins, who is represented by a [1932] typed copy of his autobiography, written in 1888-1889.

Anson Stiles Blake was born in San Francisco on August 6, 1870. He was the son of Harriet Stiles Blake and Charles Thompson Blake. His father, C.T. Blake was an early pioneer to San Francisco, arriving in 1849 from New Haven, Connecticut after a difficult voyage through Central America. Anson Blake attended Lincoln Grammar School and Boy's High School in San Francisco before moving with his family to Berkeley where he attended the University. Upon graduation in 1891 Blake went to work for the Bay Rock Company in Oakland, moving two years later to the Oakland Paving Company a macadamizing outfit run by his father and his father's associate C.T.H. Palmer. In 1899 he became president of that company. In 1894 he married Anita Day Symmes, a recent U.C. graduate.

1.5 boxes(0.75 Linear feet)

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Collection is open for research.