![]() | This article needs to be updated. The reason given is: The California Historical Society has closed and their collection is being transferred to Stanford.(January 2025) |
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Abbreviation | CHS |
---|---|
Established | 1871 |
Founded at | Santa Clara, California |
Legal status | Official historical society of California |
Purpose | Preserving and promoting Californian history |
Headquarters | San Francisco, California |
Coordinates | 37°47′12.64″N122°24′5.33″W / 37.7868444°N 122.4014806°W |
Interim CEO | Jen Whitley |
Chief Operating Officer | Jen Whitley |
Publication | California History |
Website | Official website |
The California Historical Society (CHS) was the official historical society of California, until it dissolved and transferred its collections to the Stanford University Libraries in an agreement that was announced in January 2025. [1] Founded in 1871 by a group of prominent Californian intellectuals at Santa Clara University, [2] [3] the Society was designated as the California state historical society in 1979. [4] [5] [6] Although the Society was based in San Francisco, it hosted exhibits across California.
The California Historical Society was founded in June 1871 by a group of prominent Californian politicians and professors at the Santa Clara University (then the College of Santa Clara), led by Californian Assemblyman John W. Dwinelle (an influential founder of the University of California). [3] [2] The stated mission of the society was “collecting and bringing to light and publishing, from time to time, all information not generally accessible on the subject of the early colonization and settlement of the west coast of America, and especially Northwestern Mexico, California, and Oregon. [3] The society published 32 papers until 1901. From 1901 to 1906, the CHS temporarily merged with the California Genealogical Society. Following the devastation of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the society fell into dormancy until 1922. [3]
In 1922, the society was permanently reestablished by Templeton Crocker, famed expeditionary of the California Academy of Sciences. [7] In 1979 the organization was named the official state historical society, in a bill signed by Governor Jerry Brown. [4] [5] [6]
The Society maintained a collection of historical documents, photographs, art and other research materials, awarded the annual California Historical Society Book Prize, and published California History, an academic journal, in association with the University of California Press. [8] It occasionally hosted C-SPAN lectures on California history. [9] Exhibitions included a 2015 celebration at the Palace of Fine Arts of the centenary of the Panama–Pacific International Exposition, and the Society sponsored the 50th anniversary celebration of the Summer of Love in 2017. [6]
The Society hired Alicia Goehring as executive director and CEO in September 2019, after Anthea Hartig became director of the National Museum of American History. [6] [10] Following Goehring's death in August 2022, the Society named COO Jen Whitley as its interim CEO. [11]
Shortly after its recent refounding in 1922, the Society leased Room 508 of the Wells Fargo Building (at Second and Mission) as its headquarters. [7] Subsequently, the Society moved its offices to 456 McAllister (sharing the Pioneer Hall building near City Hall with the Society of California Pioneers) in 1938 [12] and the Flood Building as a temporary home in 1955 when the Pioneer society was expanding. [13] [14] : Note 10
The society bought the Whittier Mansion in Pacific Heights as its headquarters in 1956, subsequently adding an adjacent building. [6] In 1993, under director J.S. Holliday it sold both and bought the San Francisco Builders Exchange Building, at 678 Mission Street which had housed E. M. Hundley Hardware and served as headquarters for Nancy Pelosi's first campaign for Congress; the building was gutted and rehabilitated, and the Society moved in 1995. [15] In 2012, when the Golden Gate Bridge was 75 years old, the Society had its facade painted international orange, the color of the bridge. [5] [6]
For several years the Society studied the feasibility of moving to the Old San Francisco Mint building, which would be renovated to house a museum and a community center. [6] [10] [16] Although the society has hosted educational events as well as exhibitions at its San Francisco headquarters, in July 2020 the society announced that it was putting that building up for sale, to reduce costs, and that it planned to house its research library and store its collection in dispersed locations and organize touring exhibitions to appear at venues including local historical societies throughout the state. [6] In June 2024, the 20,000-square-foot headquarters building was sold for nearly $6.7 million, to the San Francisco Baking Institute. [17]
According to the Society, its "Collection represents the environmental, economic, social, political, and cultural heritage of the entire state of California, including materials from outside California that contribute to a greater understanding of the state and its people. [18] The collection includes 50,000 volumes of books and pamphlets; 4,000 manuscript collections; 500,000 photographs; printed ephemera, periodicals, posters, broadsides, maps, and newspapers; the Kemble Collection on Western Printing and Publishing; 5,000 works of art, including paintings, drawings, and lithographs; and numerous artifacts and costumes. [19]
The Historical Society houses an outstanding collection of over 5,000 works of art, including paintings, drawings, and lithographs. Artists represented in the Fine Art Collection include Albert Bierstadt, Maynard Dixon, George Albert Frost, William Hahn, Thomas Hill, Grace Carpenter Hudson, William Keith, Arthur Frank Mathews, and Theodore Wores. [20]
The Historical Society holds the papers of noteworthy organizations and businesses, including those of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, League of Women Voters, California Tomorrow, Stern Grove Festival Association, Peoples Temple, and the Heller Ehrman law firm. The Society also holds the papers of influential persons, including the Burr-Allyne Family, San Francisco Mayor James Rolph, Jr, Asbury Harpending, and Isaias W. Hellman. [21]
The ephemera collection consists of a wide range of ephemera pertaining to the state of California and each of its constituent counties.
Dating from 1841 the collection includes ephemera created by or related to churches; civic associations and activist groups; clubs and societies, especially fraternal organizations; labor unions; auditoriums and theaters; historic buildings, landmarks, and museums; hotels and resorts; festivals and fairs; sporting events; hospitals, sanatoriums, prisons, and orphanages; schools, colleges, and universities; government agencies; elections, ballot measures, and political parties; infrastructure and transit systems; geographic features; and other subjects.
In 1964, former Society president, printing historian, and collector George L. Harding founded the Kemble Collection on Western Printing and Publishing, named in honor of pioneer California printer and publisher Edward Cleveland Kemble. Dedicated to the history of printing and publishing in the West, this collection began with three major gifts—Harding's printing and publishing library, William E. Loy's typographical library, and the business archives of San Francisco printing firm Taylor & Taylor—and has since grown in size and scope. [22] [23]
The Historical Society holds documentary and fine art photographs by photographers such as Marliese Gabrielson, Arnold Genthe, Louis Herman Heller, Eadweard Muybridge, Anton Wagner, Carleton Watkins, Minor White and Willard Worden. [24] [ better source needed ]
Julia Morgan was an American architect and engineer. She designed more than 700 buildings in California during a long and prolific career. She is best known for her work on Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California.
The Panama–Pacific International Exposition was a world's fair held in San Francisco, California, United States, from February 20 to December 4, 1915. Its stated purpose was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, but it was widely seen in the city as an opportunity to showcase its recovery from the 1906 earthquake. The fair was constructed on a 636-acre (257-hectare) site along the northern shore, between the Presidio and Fort Mason, now known as the Marina District.
Sanborn maps are detailed maps of U.S. cities and towns in the 19th and 20th centuries. Originally published by The Sanborn Map Company (Sanborn), the maps were created to allow fire insurance companies to assess their total liability in urbanized areas of the United States. Since they contain detailed information about properties and individual buildings in approximately 12,000 U.S. cities and towns, Sanborn maps are valuable for documenting changes in the built environment of American cities over many decades.
The Bancroft Library is the primary special-collections library of the University of California, Berkeley. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retain the name Bancroft Library in perpetuity. The collection at that time consisted of 50,000 volumes of materials on the history of California and western North America. It is now the largest such collection in the world. The library's current building, the Doe Annex, is in the center of the university's main campus, and was completed in 1950.
Juana Briones de Miranda was a Californio ranchera, medical practitioner, and merchant, often remembered as the "Founding Mother of San Francisco", for her noted involvement in the early development of the city of San Francisco. Later in her life, she also played an important role in developing modern Palo Alto.
John Haskell Kemble was a professor of history at Pomona College and an influential American maritime historian.
The Society of California Pioneers, established in 1850, is dedicated to the study and enjoyment of California art, history, and culture. Founded by individuals arriving in California before 1850 and thriving under the leadership of several generations of their direct descendants, the Society has continuously served its members, the academic community, and the public.
The Chinese Historical Society of America is the oldest and largest archive and history center documenting the Chinese American experience in the United States. It is based in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco, California.
The Californian was the first California newspaper.
Bella Clara Landauer, born Bella Clara Fackenthal (1874–1960) was an American collector of ephemera, sheet music, and manufacturing trade cards who also became a self-taught historian of commercial art and printing.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of San Francisco, California, United States.
The following is a timeline of the history of San Jose, California, United States.
Carl Irving Wheat was a California lawyer and historian and a historical cartographer of the American West.
The San Diego History Center is a museum in Balboa Park in San Diego, California, dedicated to the history of San Diego.
Henry Raup Wagner was an American book collector, bibliographer, cartographer, historian, and business executive. He was the author of over 170 publications, including books and scholarly essays, mainly about the histories of the American frontier and the Spanish exploration and colonization of Mexico. He also assembled tens of thousands of books and manuscripts and formed several collections from them.
Charles Caldwell Dobie was a writer and historian in San Francisco. His novel The Blood Red Dawn was adapted into the movie The Inner Chamber in 1921. His stories were published in magazines and included in anthologies. He also received honors for his work. He wrote several novels. His work featured his hometown, San Francisco. The Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley has a collection of his papers.
Charles Peter Gabriel Moulin (1872–1945) was an American photographer. He took architectural photographs of building exteriors and interiors as well as views of San Francisco. He also took photographs of people and performances at the Bohemian Grove and was official photographer for the Bohemian Club. he photographed illustrator Harrison Fisher, sculptor Arthur Putnam, Edgar Stillman Kelley, James Thurber, and botanist Luther Burbank. His photographs are part of collections at The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley, the Oakland Museum of California, San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Clay Building, is a historical building in downtown Oakland, California. The Clay Building was built in 1901. The three-story brick building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 20, 1978. The Clay Building suffered major damage in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The Clay Building was a Levi Strauss factory, after the earthquake it was also the Levi Strauss headquarters. Later the Le Cheval restaurant and Tigrai Cafe opened on the ground floor. starting in 1909, Theodore Eliopolous's Eliopoulos Hellenic Company, an Egyptian cigar manufacturer was on the third floor, later moved to Webster Street by John Fisher. An auction house owned by David Bercovich operated out of the building for some years. Harry Bercovich opened a cigar shop in 1924 in the Clay Building. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the building and was repaired.
C. W. J. Johnson was an American miner, photographer, musician, and dance instructor. His photographic work is held in the permanent collections of the Monterey Museum of Art, Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History, and the J. Paul Getty Museum.