Description
The Westerners Foundation Records include: articles of incorporation,
by-laws, correspondence and manuscripts (1957-1975).
Background
Westerners Foundation was created (1958) by the Westerners, an
organization for study of the American West. The Foundation was technically an
entity apart from the Westerners with offices at the College of the Pacific
(Stockton, Calif.) and in Chicago. Philip A. Danielson of Chicago and Dr.
Robert E. Burns, Leland D. Case, and Dr. Reginald R. Stuart of the College of
the Pacific were the original trustees. The Westerners Foundation grew out of a
need to facilitate the publication of a collection of essays, This is the West,
written by Westerners, and to provide a repository for royalty funds. The
Foundation also planned to publish books and a newsletter, facilitate
communications and workings of the Westerners, help start new chapters, and
provide western history scholarships. The Westerners Foundation started with an
endowment fund of $10,000. By the 1970s most of the publication programs
planned by the Westerners Foundation were carried on by the Pacific Center for
Western Studies under its own name, or by Westerners International.