In some instances, the histories have lost standing because of the assumption that Mr. Bancroft was their author. Thus statements in the History of California supposed to be, but now known not to be from his pen, have been singled out as reckless, and argument has been made upon the principle "false in one thing, false in all," that the seven whole volumes of California history are unworthy of credence (pamphlet proceedings of the Society of California Pioneers in reference to the histories of Hubert Howe Bancroft, page 10). Following this lead an attempt has been made to discredit Bancroft's Oregon on the ground that his California is said to be unreliable.
Had Mr. Bancroft made public the fact that three persons besides himself wrote the History of California, that he was in reality the author of but sixty pages in the entire seven volumes of that set, that he had not the least claim to the authorship of the History of Oregon, and that the histories of the two states were in the main written by different persons, the fallacy of this argument would have been clear, estimates of the collections of matter in these volumes would have been made on their own intrinsic merit, and their value would not have been impaired by false assumptions concerning their authorship.
A third result of this neglect of Mr. Bancroft to make public acknowledgment of the extent of the writings of his assistants has been the accusation "that he is a purloiner of other peoples' brains," (Salt Lake Tribune, Feb. 16, 1893) and that he has made a reputation as an author at the expense of his assistants. Concerning this charge, the most remarkable ever made in the annals of American historical writing, the reader must be the judge after weighing all the facts.
The writer's apology for this article is his desire to give such facts as he has in the hope that they will do something to clear up mistaken ideas concerning the authorship of these histories, that they may aid somewhat in forming a correct estimate of the series, and that they may secure for the other authors as well as for Mr. Bancroft whatever credit is rightfully theirs. To these ends it is to be hoped that those who have any additional facts will make them public. The late Frances Fuller Victor, one of the Bancroft corps of writers, had long collected material on the authorship of the histories. In preparing this paper, the writer has depended largely upon information furnished by her correspondence and papers, and by explanations given by her in conversation.
The statement of Mr. Bancroft in the Literary Industries to the effect that his "assistants" merely wrote up minor topics which he then used in his own writing, must be taken as applying to the work as projected rather than as actually carried out. In a letter written in 1878 before the final division of labor was made, Mr. Bancroft said, "When all the material I have is gone over and notes taken according to the general plan, I shall give one person one thing or one part to write, and another person another part": (Letter to Mrs. Victor of August 1, 1878.) Here, it will be observed, the plan is for the "assistants" to do the actual work of writing history and not to prepare material for their chief to use in his writing. And it will shortly appear that it was the "assistants" who wrote the work and Mr. Bancroft who wrote the minor parts. To understand why the intended order was thus reversed, it is necessary to study the growth of the history project and to enter into the steps through which it was evolved.
Hubert Howe Bancroft, with whose name these works are linked, and who has been widely credited as their author, is a native of Granville, Ohio, where he was born May 5, 1832, a descendent of old New England families through both the paternal and maternal lines. In his own account of his life (Literary Industries, 47-244), he tells us that when but three years old he could read the New Testament without having to spell many of the words. At the school age, however, he found it difficult to learn, and after a winter at the brick schoolhouse under the tutelage of a brother of his mother, the latter became satisfied that he was not treated judiciously and fairly took him out of school.
A sister had married George H. Derby, a bookseller of Geneva, New York, subsequently of Buffalo, and at about the age of fifteen, the boy was offered the choice of preparing for college or entering the Buffalo bookstore. He at first chose the former course and spent a year in the academy of his town, but becoming discouraged in his study, entered the employ of Derby in August, 1848. Discharged from the store in six months, he returned to Ohio and acted as a sales agent for his brother-in-law's goods with such success that he was invited back to the store and became a clerk with the beginning of the year 1850. His father, influenced by the gold excitement, decided to go to California in February of that year, and with George L. Kenny, his closest friend, he was sent by Derby to handle books in the land of gold, setting out in December, 1851.
After their arrival in San Francisco, Sacramento was determined upon as a place of business, and young Bancroft worked in the mines until arrangements could be made with his brother-in-law. But Derby's death in the meantime ended the plan, and in 1853, he set out to try his fortune at the newly-boomed mining town of Crescent City. Here he was employed as bookkeeper and bookseller, and made six or eight thousand dollars, most of which he subsequently lost through investing in Crescent City property. In 1855, Mr. Bancroft made a visit to his old home in the East, and his sister, in return for his assistance in recovering the amount of Derby's California investment, let him have the sum, amounting to $5,500, with which to begin business. Obtaining credit in New York he shipped a ten thousand dollar stock of goods for San Francisco, and with Kenny organized the firm of H. H. Bancroft and Company about December 1, 1856.
From the first, Mr. Bancroft tells us, he had a taste for publishing, and it was but three years until the inception of what grew into the historical project. In 1859, Wm. H. Knight, manager of the Bancroft publishing department, while employed in preparing the Hand Book Almanac for the next year, asked for the books necessary to carry on the work. It occurred to the head of the firm that he would again have occasion to refer to books on the coast states, and he accordingly transferred to Mr. Knight a copy of each of the fifty or seventy-five books in stock that had reference to the country. Later he added to the number by purchases in second-hand stores, and when in the East secured from the bookstores of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, volumes which fell under his observation. By 1862, he had a thousand volumes, and upon a visit to London and Paris in that year, learned that much more remained to be done. In 1866, he started on a search throughout Europe, which resulted in increasing his collection to ten thousand volumes. As to the field covered by these works, he says:
"Gradually and almost imperceptibly had the area of my efforts enlarged. From Oregon it was but a step to British Columbia and Alaska; and as I was obliged from California to go to Mexico and Spain, it finally became settled in my mind to make the western half of North America my field": (Lit. Ind. 180). He now began the collection of Mexican works and the purchase of private libraries in the United States. In 1869, after ten years' collecting, the library numbered sixteen thousand volumes, about half of which were pamphlets. In May of the next year, these were placed on one floor of the Bancroft building on Market Street, and a young New Englander named Henry L. Oak, lately editor of a religious journal published by the firm, was installed as librarian.