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.