Thomas Emory Atkinson papers
Finding aid created by San Francisco History Center staff using RecordEXPRESS
San Francisco Public Library. San Francisco History Center
2023
San Francisco Public Library
100 Larkin Street
San Francisco, California 94102
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Title: Thomas Emory Atkinson papers
Dates: 1866-1909
Collection Number: SFH 736
Creator/Collector:
Atkinson, Thomas Emory, 1853-1923
Extent: 1 folder
Repository:
San Francisco Public Library. San Francisco History Center
San Francisco, California 94102
Abstract: Correspondence and ephemera collected by a San Francisco certified public accountant, Republican Party member, and California
state assemblyman
Language of Material: English
The collection is available for use during San Francisco History Center hours, with photographs available during Photo Desk
hours. Collections that are stored offsite should be requested 48 hours in advance.
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the City Archivist. Permission
for publication is given on behalf of the San Francisco Public Library as the owner of the physical items.
[Identification of item]. Thomas Emory Atkinson papers. Collection Number: SFH 736. San Francisco Public Library. San Francisco
History Center
Gift, 1979.
Biography/Administrative History
Atkinson was born in New Jersey and came to California with his family in 1863. He opened a bookkeeping office in San Francisco
in 1876. He married Julia Etta Allen in 1877 and they had one son, Harold. Thomas worked for the federal government and the
California state government, as well as introducing the double entry bookkeeping system to the City and County of San Francisco
in 1893. Atkinson remarried in 1895; his second wife was Martha Staniar, and they had one daughter, Muriel. Atkinson became
a certified public accountant in 1901. He started his career with the California State Assembly in 1885 as a minute clerk,
and was engrossing clerk there in 1895. He was elected member of the Assembly in 1905, and was speaker pro-tem in that year,
as well as during the extra session of the thirty-sixth assembly in 1906. Atkinson was active in the relief work done in
San Francisco following the 1906 disaster. By 1910 he and his family had moved to Oakland, and he died there in 1923.
Scope and Content of Collection
Folder houses one blank book which includes correspondence, telegrams, certificates, licenses, calling cards, membership cards
and other ephemera pasted into it. Earliest material is a certificate of Promotion, Mission Grammar School, San Francisco,
1866, and latest a Certificate of Cancellation, San Francisco Registrar of Voters, 1909. The bulk of the volume is correspondence
from City and County of San Francisco departments and governmental boards, grand jury foremen, business firms, attorneys,
fraternal organizations and political figures. Atkinson was called as an expert for several San Francisco grand juries between
1884 and 1896. Letters from state government agencies and boards and some Alameda County assessor correspondence from 1896
is included.
Accountants
Legislators -- California -- Biography.
California. Grand Jury (San Francisco)
San Francisco (Calif.)
San Francisco (Calif.) -- Politics and government.