Finding Aid for the Robert Ernest Cowan Papers, 1876-1942
Processed by Anne Caiger; machine-readable finding aid created by Caroline Cubé
UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections
Manuscripts Division
Room A1713, Charles E. Young Research Library
Box 951575
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575
Email: spec-coll@library.ucla.edu
URL: http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/special/scweb/
© 1999
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Finding Aid for the Robert Ernest Cowan Papers, 1876-1942
Collection number: 232
UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections
Manuscripts Division
Los Angeles, CA
Contact Information
- Manuscripts Division
- UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections
- Room A1713, Charles E. Young Research Library
- Box 951575
- Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575
- Telephone: 310/825-4988 (10:00 a.m. - 4:45 p.m., Pacific
Time)
- Email: spec-coll@library.ucla.edu
- URL: http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/special/scweb/
- Processed by:
- Anne Caiger, 20 April 1992
- Encoded by:
- Caroline Cubé
- Text converted and initial container list EAD tagging by:
- Apex Data Services
- Online finding aid edited by:
- Josh Fiala, June 2002
© 1999 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Descriptive Summary
Title: Robert Ernest Cowan Papers,
Date (inclusive): 1876-1942
Collection number: 232
Creator: Cowan, Robert Ernest, 1862-1942
Extent: 28 boxes (14 linear ft.)
3 oversize boxes
Repository:
University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections.
Los Angeles, California 90095-1575
Abstract: Robert Ernest Cowan (1862-1942) wrote bibliographies of California history and the Pacific Coast, and worked as a librarian
for William Andrews Clark, Jr. from 1919 to 1933. His collection of books and manuscripts form the nucleus of the UCLA Department
of Special Collections' holdings in Californiana. The collection consists of correspondence, catalog, bibliographic materials,
account books, an early diary, photographs, ephemera and memorabilia.
Physical location: Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact the UCLA Library, Department
of Special Collections Reference Desk for paging information.
Language:
English.
Administrative Information
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections. Literary rights, including
copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds
the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold
the copyright.
Restrictions on Access
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF: Open for research. Advance notice required for access. Contact the UCLA Library, Department
of Special Collections Reference Desk for paging information.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Gift of Robert G. Cowan, 1954-1982.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Robert Ernest Cowan Papers (Collection 232). Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young
Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
UCLA Catalog Record ID
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
964548
Biography
Robert Ernest Cowan was born in 1862 in Toronto, Canada; came to San Francisco in 1870; student at University of California
at Berkeley 1882-84; San Francisco bookseller from 1895-1920 and author of bibliographies of history of California and the
Pacific Coast; librarian for William Andrews Clark, Jr., 1919-33; moved to Los Angeles at Clark's request in 1926; Cowan's
collection of books and manuscripts form the nucleus of the UCLA Department of Special Collections' holdings in Californiana;
married Marie Margaret Fleissner in 1894; only child was Robert Granniss Cowan; died in 1942.
Extended Biographical Narrative
Mr. Cowan was born in Toronto and came to the United States in 1870. From 1882 to 1884 he was a student at the University
of California. He was a bookseller in San Francisco from 1895 to 1920 and beginning in 1919 was librarian for William Andrews
Clark, Jr. This position he held until shortly before Mr. Clark's death in 1934.
Cowan was not, strictly speaking, a historian, although he published articles from time to time. The work for which he remains
known was the compilation of several bibliographies. His contributions to the bibliography of the history of California and
the Pacific Coast are the foundations upon which all others have worked. His earliest comprehensive bibliography was published
in 1914; his finest work,
Bibliography of California 1510-1930 was published in 1933, printed in three volumes by Mr. Clark's printer John Henry Nash.
It appears that Cowan offered his personal library for sale late in 1933. In November of that year, the President of the University
of California, Robert Gordon Sproul wrote a note to the Librarian of the University of California at Los Angeles, John E.
Goodwin, asking for Goodwin's opinion of the worth of the library, both as a scholarly resource and investment. President
Sproul wrote: ...inquiries are made in the interest of the Library at the University of California at Los Angeles and should
be regarded for the present as strictly confidential. Goodwin's reply was practically immediate. His judgment was: We are
not often placed in a position where we are ready to declare that an offering is worth whatever may be required to secure
it for the University. The President and the Regents were not easily convinced. In a note to himself, written in October 1935,
Goodwin wrote: I have assisted in the purchase of libraries involving far greater cost but of less obviously demonstrable
worth, but I have never expended one half the effort that has been required to buy the Cowan Library. Fifty thousand dollars
was the price eventually paid for the 3,000 volumes, 5,000 pamphlets and numerous miscellaneous maps, newspapers and manuscripts.
The announcement of the purchase was made March 13, 1936. Articles appeared in the
Los Angeles Times on March 20 and the
Bruin March 26.
Included with the collection was the original manuscript
The Cruise of the Dale, 1846-1849, by Thomas Crosby Lancey. Hubert Howe Bancroft termed it the most important and valuable document relating to the conquest
of California. In addition to the manuscripts included with the sale of the library, a second group of manuscripts collected
by Cowan was sold to the Library in 1945 by his son, Robert G. Cowan.
There was controversy as to whether the collection of books should be housed in the Clark Library, which by that time had
been given to UCLA, or in the stacks. Goodwin felt that it was too far to ask students to travel. Goodwin, then, and faculty
members such as John Caughey with interests in using the materials for their work and their classes, prevailed. Thus, the
books were given the same treatment as any in the stacks. The valuable Cowan pamphlets were stapled into pam-binds and placed
on the shelves for circulation. This treatment was even more unfortunate, because, as J. Gregg Layne described the collection:
The Cowan books were in as fine condition as the most exacting collector might desire for they were collected by a fastidious
man who loved his books. With the beginnings of the Department of Special Collections, in the late nineteen-forties, steps
were taken to recollect the materials in an area of maximum protection and preservation.
There is no way of gathering together all of the Cowan items, but those which the Department has are marked in the copy of
the Cowan bibliography in the reading room. At the time of the sale, Cowan estimated that seventy-five per cent of the titles
in the 1933 bibliography were in the library. All Cowan items have bookplates so stating their provenance. Many books contain
Mr. Cowan's own distinctive bookplate, depicting the San Carlos.
Early cataloging of the Cowan manuscript collections was done by the staff of Special Collections: Andrew Horn, Neal Harlow,
Ed Carpenter - and primarily James Mink, now head of the Department of Special Collections. The bulk of the manuscripts was
given exhaustive descriptive cataloging. They were first cataloged as two collections, since they were acquired by the library
at two different times. With the changes in cataloging policy in the Department over the years and also changes in policies
of storage for security and preservation, it was decided to treat the manuscripts not as a Cowan collection, but as collections
or items of individual interest, retaining the Cowan provenance. The list on the next page gives the dispersal of all the
groups of manuscripts and individual manuscripts which came to UCLA Library
ex libris Robert Ernest Cowan. There is a list of the second collection of manuscripts in the Collections File, but there does not seem
to be a complete list of the first. It is to be assumed that those manuscripts not in the second list came with the first
purchase. The provenance of newspapers, prints and maps in less easily established. There seems to have been no note made
as to the disposition of the Cowan maps included in the first purchase.
Part of Goodwin's efforts when discussing the purchase of the Cowan Library with President Sproul involved justifying Cowan's
estimates for items in the Library. As can be imagined, it was no easy task. Many items were checked on an individual basis,
but at the same time, he noted, as a general appraisal, a quote from Mr. [presumably Ernest] Dawson: Nothing superior to be
had anywhere in the world. Could not be bought in ten years for a quarter million dollars. The Cowan has the very best items.
The number of booksellers' queries to UCLA which can be answered by saying Special Collections has is a belated vindication
of Goodwin's foresight. Though even Dawson, Goodwin and Cowan himself should be surprised at the increase in value. Cowan
estimated much of the pamphlet material at low prices. In quick checking, a pamphlet estimated by Cowan at five dollars was
recently offered by a bookseller at six hundred and fifty. A one hundred dollar item at the time of purchase was offered for
eighteen hundred. And so it would be with most items.
This, of course, is the worth to collectors. The value to scholars cannot be as easily noted, but as items disappear from
the market or simply disappear, their being together in this library in southern California is a unique resource of increasing
value to researchers. Because of the superb nucleus of Californiana of the Cowan Library, Special Collections has as its policy
continued collecting in this area, though now the emphasis is primarily on items of southern California interest.
Scope and Content
Collection consists of correspondence, including letters from John Henry Nash regarding the publication of Cowan's bibliography
and letters from William Andrews Clark, Jr. regarding early Clark Library policies and procedures. Includes catalog, bibliographic
materials, account books, an early diary, photographs, ephemera and memorabilia.
Organization and Arrangement
Arranged in the following series:
- Correspondence (Boxes 1-14, 19-20, 23, 26-27).
- Catalog of collection except for manuscripts (Box 15).
- Bibliographies (16-18).
- Manuscripts (Boxes 22-23).
- Personal records (Boxes 21, 24-25).
- Ephemera and memorabilia (Boxes 28, 31).
- Photographs (Boxes 29-30).
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Subjects
Cowan, Robert Ernest, 1862-1942--Archives.
Nash, John Henry, 1871-1947--Correspondence.
Clark, William Andrews, 1877-1934--Correspondence.
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library--Archives.
Bibliographers--California--Archival resources.
Librarians--California--Archival resources.
Private libraries--California--Los Angeles.
Genres and Forms of Material
Photographs.
Related Material
-
California bibliographers: father and son [oral history transcript] / Robert G. Cowan, interviewee. UCLA Oral History Department interview, 1979. Available at the
Department of Special Collections, UCLA.
-
Robert Ernest Cowan Library and Bibliographical Lists (Collection 2046)
. Available at the Department of Special Collections, UCLA.
- Robert Ernest Cowan, Californiana (Collection 2048). Available at the Department of Special Collections, UCLA.
Box 11
1939-1942 and miscellaneous.
Box 12
From named persons 1898-1928.
Box 13
From institutions, 1900-1937.
Box 23
1895-1940.
Scope and Content Note
Including from William Andrews Clark, 1919-32; copy out-letters from Cowan; manuscripts of his writings both typed & handwritten.
Box 19
Special correspondence, 1936-1940.
Box 26
Correspondence from Cowan to his wife, 1898-1922 & from various to Cowan, 1906-1934.
Box 15
Catalog, Cowan collection except for manuscripts, August 1904.
Physical Description: Typed and handwritten on slips.
Box 16
Bibliography, notes, correspondence & lists, 1900-1920; various book lists.
Box 17
Various book lists, bibliographics & biblio notes, including some relating to The California Bibliography.
Box 18
Notes & lists including 1 folder marked Bancroft Bibliography.
Box 20
[Unsorted].
Scope and Content Note
Clippings, miscellaneous correspondence, lists & 1 folder of book bills, 1925-1935.
Box 21
Printed items by & about Cowan (?) Financial records, bound volumes. 1876-1942.
Box 22
Manuscripts & related materials: various writings of Cowan.
Box 24
Various account books; book want list for UCB, 1893-1904.
Box 25
Diary, 1876; various printed works & chippings owned by / mentioning Cowan (?).
Boxes 27-28
Unarranged correspondence, manuscripts, emphemera & memorabilia.
Physical Description: (foldered)
Box 29
Photographs; Cowan's grammar school certificate.
Box 31
Metal plaque, apparently awarded to Cowan as an Honorary Member, by The Book Club of California, 1923.
Box 32
Certificate of hon membership of Society of California Pioneers. October 2, 1929.
Physical Description: (folder)
