Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Register of the Harry D. Hubbard Papers, 1923-1950
Mss40
No online items
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title: Harry D. Hubbard Papers,
Date (inclusive): 1923-1950
Collection number: Mss40
Creator:
Extent: 4 linear ft.
Repository:
University of the Pacific. Library. Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections
Stockton, CA 95211
Shelf location: For current information on the location of these
materials, please consult the library's online catalog.
Language:
English.
Collection is open for research.
[Identification of item], Harry D. Hubbard Papers, Mss40, Holt-Atherton Department of
Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
Harry Dorris Hubbard (1889-1970) had an active, enquiring intellect, a fluent pen, and an
unlimited gift for self-promotion. He was both a huckster and a self-taught local
historian of some importance, whose work was produced (and remains in) virtual obscurity.
Hubbard spent his early years in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, where his mother had
gone to cure her tuberculosis. From age fifteen, Hubbard worked in steam laundries to
help support his mother and sister. In 1909, he moved the family to California, where he
entered the Mare Island Naval Electrician's Academy. Following graduation from the
Academy, Hubbard served in the U.S. Navy for some years. During the First World War he
was an inspector for Holt Tractor's tank engines. In 1918 he located in Stockton, Calif.,
where he worked first for Holt, then for Samson Seive-Grip Tractors.
In 1925 Hubbard opened a Stockton automotive electrical supplies store which he operated
until 1929. During this period of his life Hubbard became interested in psychoanalysis
and, through a correspondence course, earned a "doctorate" in psychoanalysis which he
parleyed into a regular advice column with a Stockton newspaper. In 1930 Hubbard began
teaching vocational education at Stockton High School. At about the same time, he
commenced the study of economics at the College of the Pacific. In 1935 Hubbard received
a B.A. from the College and took a job as a mainte-nance engineer with the U.S. Post
Office. From that year until his retirement (1955) Hubbard wrote copiously and promoted
his writings--in both printed and broadcast form--with indefatigable zeal.
His output included a general history of the San Joaquin county area, radio
dramatizations of portions of this history, a biography of Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, a
history of commerce on the San Joaquin River, a history of savings and loan institutions
in California, and numerous short stories. His published works are Building the heart of
an empire (1938), Vallejo (1941), and The Bobcat of Hell's Gulch (1968). Hubbard arranged
for a performance of part of his Building the heart of an empire at the San Francisco
International Exposition (1939-1940).
The Hubbard Papers consist of notes and drafts for most of Hubbard's published and
unpublished writings. His local history research is informed by a knowledge of economic
factors that was unusual for the day. His papers possess additional importance in that
Hubbard is probably the last historian to have interviewed Julia Weber, daughter of the
founder of Stockton, Charles M. Weber III, the founder's grandson, and Louisa E. Vallejo
de Emparan, the last surviving daughter of M. G. Vallejo.