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Guide to the Harry Everett Drobish Papers, 1917-1954
BANC MSS C-B 529
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Table of contents
Collection Title: Harry Everett Drobish Papers,
Date (inclusive): 1917-1954
Collection Number: BANC MSS C-B 529
Creator:
Drobish, Harry Everett, 1893-1954
Extent:
Number of containers: 13 boxes, 6 cartons, 2 volumes, and 1 oversize folder
Number of microfilm reels: 1
Repository: The
Bancroft Library
Berkeley, California 94720-6000
Physical Location: For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.
Abstract:
Part I: Letters, MSS and copies of his writings, drafts of speeches, reports, notes, scrapbooks, and clippings relating to his career
as agricultural economist with the State Emergency Relief Administration and U.S. Resettlement Administration and U.S. Resettlement
Administration, as California state senator representing Butte County, 1947-1950, and as consultant to the olive industry
in California and Jordan.
Part II: Microfilm of Drobish's legislative diaries, 1949-1950.
Part II: Microfilm of Drobish's legislative diaries, 1949-1950.
Languages Represented:
English
Collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to The Bancroft Library. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts
must be submitted in writing to the Head of Public Services. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Bancroft
Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which
must also be obtained by the reader.
[Identification of item], Harry Everett Drobish Papers, BANC MSS C-B 529, The Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley.
Materials Cataloged Separately
- Photocopies of covers of printed items have been removed from the collection.
Harry Everett Drobish was born in Decatur, Illinois, in 1893. He moved to Riverside, California, in 1905 and graduated from
high school there in 1912. After attending Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years, he transferred to the College
of Agriculture of the University of California at Berkeley, becoming an active member of the University YMCA, Alpha Kappa
Lambda and Alpha Zeta, the agricultural honor society. His first job following graduation in 1917 was itinerant assistant
farm advisor for the University's Agricultural Extension Service. Several years later he was promoted to farm advisor for
Butte County. In 1927 he resigned to accept an assignment as marketing investigator for the California Department of Agriculture.
From 1930 to 1933 he was an agricultural economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and from 1933-1934 worked for the
Farm Credit Administration. From Sept. 1934 to 1936 he was State Director of Rural Rehabilitation in the California Emergency
Relief Administration and then Chief of Farm Laborer Projects for the Resettlement Administration. As State Director he conceived
the idea of federally owned camps for migrant farm workers and built the first two camps at Marysville and Arvin. In 1937
the Drobishes returned to their ranch, Far View, near Bangor. The next ten years were spent purchasing and rehabilitating
abandoned olive groves and slowly developing olive growing into a profitable business. In partnership with a friend Drobish
bought and rebuilt an olive oil mill.
After an unsuccessful campaign for the State Assembly in 1946, Drobish was elected State Senator for Butte County in a special
election the following year. In the Senate he served on the Agriculture, Education, Institutions, and Public Utilities Committees
and was vice chairman of the Committee on Public Health and Safety. He was also a member of the Senate Interim Committee on
Statutory Salaries and the Joint Legislative Committee on Soil Conservation. After an unsuccessful campaign for re-election
in 1950 Drobish returned to his ranch to devote his attention to the improvement of his olive groves and the California olive
industry in general. In 1952 he was sent by the State Department to Jordan as consultant to their olive industry. His last
years, until his death in 1954, were also devoted to increased involvement in community interests, including the YMCA and
the Council for Social Action of the Congregational Church.
Senator Drobish's papers were given to The Bancroft Library by his widow, Faith Boardman Drobish, in 1954, with additions
in 1955. They relate to his various jobs, his term in the California Senate, the olive industry, and his community and church
activities. Photographs have been removed and cataloged separately.