Bancroft's Book and Stationery Establishment.
It may appear like exaggeration to say that San Francisco contains the largest and most complete general Book and Stationery, mercantile and manufacturing business in the world. Yet, such is the fact. Not that the business, by any means, equals that of Harpers' and Appletons', of New York, Hachette of Paris, or the stationers of London. But, between these houses and Bancroft's, there is no comparison. The character of their trade is totally different. One publishes books, another manufactures paper, and so each is large in one thing, whereas the Bancrofts, collecting from the manufacturers of all the world, and manufacturing according to the requirements of their trade, cover under one management the ground occupied by all others combined. In older and larger cities, one house deals in law books alone; another, school books, etc., while this San Francisco house—besides a full stock of books in every department of literature, and stationery from the manufacturers of Europe and America, paper from the mills of New England, pencils from Germany, pen-holders from Paris—unite Printing, Book-binding, Lithography, Blank-Book Making, Engraving, &c., every thing, in short, comprised in all the business of all the others.
The detail is necessarily very great. They buy from a thousand sellers, and sell to many thousand buyers. Over one hundred employés, divided into nine departments, each under an experienced manager, ply their vocation like bees in a hive of six rooms, each 37 by 170 feet. To the latest improvements of the finest machinery, driven by steam, apply the highest order of skilled labor, and San Francisco can do anything as well and as cheaply as New York, London or Paris.
The retail department, occupying the first floor, has the most magnificent salesroom on the Pacific coast. Visitors are warmly welcomed, and strangers politely shown through the premises.