Chapter M: M. McCARVER (10)

In 1872 was published Mrs. Victor's second book touching the Northwest, All Over Oregon and Washington. This work, she tells us in the preface, was written to supply a need existing because of the dearth of printed information concerning these countries. It contained observations on the scenery, soil, climate and resources of the Northwestern part of the Union, together with an outline of its early history, remarks on its geology, botany, and mineralogy, and hints to immigrants and travelers. Her interest in the subject led her at a later date to revise this book and to publish it again, this time under the title Atlantis Arisen.

In 1874 was published Woman's War With Whiskey, a pamphlet which she wrote in aid of the temperance movement in Portland. Her husband was lost at sea in November, 1875, and from this time, she devoted herself exclusively to literary pursuits. During her residence in Oregon she had frequently written letters for the San Francisco _Bulletin_ and sketches for the _Overland Monthly_. These stories, together with some poems, were published in 1877 in a volume entitled The New Penelope.

This last volume was printed by the Bancroft publishing establishment in San Francisco. The Bancrofts were an Ohio family of Mrs. Victor's early acquaintance. Hubert Howe Bancroft now laid before her his plan for writing the history of the Pacific slope, and asked her to work on the part concerning Oregon. In 1878 she entered the Bancroft library. Leaving the library at the completion of the work, in 1890 she returned to Oregon and was employed by the state in 1893 to compile her History of the Early Indian Wars of Oregon, a volume which was published by the State Printer the following year. She continued to write for the Oregon Historical Quarterly up to the time of her death. Her last published work was a small volume of poems printed in 1900, and selected from the many metrical compositions which she had written for newspapers and magazines through a period of sixty years. She was an able writer of essay, and possessed an insight into the evolution of civilization and government rare, not only for an author of her sex, but for any author. Combining the qualities of poet, essayist and historian, she occupied a position without a peer in the annals of Western literature. She died at Portland, Oregon, November 14, 1902).

Data on Alaska and the Russian Colony at Fort Ross, California, were being collected and translated during these years by Ivan Petroff, a highly educated Russian some time resident at Cook's Inlet. Material from Russia was furnished by the savant M. Pinart who had made a special study of Alaska, and Petroff prepared translations. In 1878 he visited Alaska in search of more material, and spent the year 1879 and part of 1880 in Washington extracting matter from papers, the existence of which he had discovered on the northern trip; (Lit. Ind., 551-561.) Petroff had begun the writing of this material and had done part of the Alaska volume when he left the library to become supervisor of the census of 1880 in the Northern Territory, leaving Mr. Bancroft and others to bring this part of the work to completion.

(The main facts of Petroff's life which had been a very eventful one are here taken from Bancroft's Literary Industries, 270-272. He was born at St. Petersburg in 1842, his father being a soldier. His mother died in his infancy, and at the age of five, he was placed in the military academy of the first corps of cadets at St. Petersburg. Left an orphan when but a boy by the death of his father at the battle of Inkerman, a remarkable talent for languages secured his transfer to the imperial academy of sciences for training as military interpreter. A serious illness caused an impediment in his speech which ended such prospects, but he was nevertheless permitted to continue his studies and became amanuensis for Professor Bohttink while engaged in the preparation of a Sanscrit dictionary. Attached subsequently to M. Brosset, who was making a study of Armenian antiquities and literature, he became so proficient in the language that he was chosen to accompany his superior on a two-year scientific expedition through Georgia and Armenia. He was then sent to Paris to St. Hilaire with part of the material obtained, thence sailing for New York in 1861. After working a short time on the _Courier des Etats Unis_, he enlisted in the seventh New Hampshire regiment. By hard study he mastered the language, after writing letters for the soldiers as a means of practice, and acquired a proficiency in the use of English such as one seldom meets with in a foreigner. From private he became corporal, then sergeant and color bearer, a rank which he held in 1864, when his company was sent to Florida. He took part in all the battles fought by Butler's army and was twice wounded. After the battle of Fort Fisher, he was promoted to a lieutenancy. Mustered out in July, 1865, he returned to New York, and accepted a position for five years with the Russian American Company at Sitka, believing that this region was sooner or later to pass to the United States. On the way to Alaska he was delayed and improved the time by making a horseback tour of Northern California, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. Finding his position filled when he arrived at Sitka, he was given charge of a trading post on Cook's Inlet until the transfer of the territory to the United States in 1867. Subsequently Petroff was appointed acting custom officer on Kodiak Island and was put in charge of the seized barkentine Constitution, with which he arrived in San Francisco in October, 1870. Mr. Bancroft at once sought his services as Russian interpreter for the library. After his return to the government service in the north, he distinguished himself both in 1880 and 1890 by his zeal in securing information concerning Alaska desired by the census bureau, and several times risked his life in this service. Returning to Washington he was subsequently employed both by the census bureau and the state department. With one exception, the Utah volume, this was the last of the series of history proper to the actual authorship of any considerable part of which Mr. Bancroft can lay claim.)

So great was the opposition created among Gentiles in Utah by a turn in the Bancroft history more favorable to the Mormons than they considered fair, and so many and so fierce the charges against Mr. Bancroft in consequence, that he has apparently been very careful to give, in the Literary Industries (pp. 631-640), an extended account of the manner of collecting the material for the History of Utah. Here he tells us that, at an early date in the development of the history project, he realized the difficulty of gaining data on Mormon history, an obstacle apparently so great as to be insuperable. For though the Mormon church have a regular historian, whose duty it is to preserve their archives, the director of the Bancroft project at once perceived the objections which would be made to the turning of this material over to be written up by one not in sympathy with their faith. But he must have seen very clearly that a Gentile history of Utah not unfavorable to the Mormons was the one thing they desired above all else. Accordingly, in 1880, he tells us that he succeeded in showing to their satisfaction that he was not prejudiced against them, and asked Orson B. Pratt, official historian of the Mormon church, for the desired information. John Taylor, president of the church, called a council of its twelve apostles, with the result that it was agreed to comply with the request, and Franklin D. Richards was sent to San Francisco as Professor Pratt's representative, to furnish the Bancroft library with such material as was desired from the official church records.

The year 1880 is an important one for the history project in another and more important respect also. The end of that year found definite plans made for the publication of the History of the Pacific States. Mr. Bancroft had long since decided that, unlike the Native Races, this work should be handled exclusively by his own house, and Mr. Nathan J. Stone was placed in charge of the publication department of the firm, now A. L. Bancroft and Company, to attend especially to this matter. The date of commencement of work by the printers Oak sought to have deferred that there might be no haste in searching out and digesting facts, but against his advice Bancroft determined to begin the publication of the series in 1882, impatient doubtless at the prospect of a deferred return from his large financial investment in the work, and somewhat fearful, as he tells us, lest through some calamity it might never come to publication.

This decision for an early beginning of publication with the general change in plan which it brought, rendered Mr. Oak's complicated tasks too severe, as he was now in failing health. The work of taking notes on the vast amount of material on California and the Spanish Southwest generally had been finished some time before, and, as Oak had now completed his preliminary researches, he determined to give up part of his duties that he might have time to write the volume covering his field. To Mr. Nemos, who up to this time had been employed chiefly on the Mexican volumes, was accordingly turned over the general direction of the half-dozen younger writers, together with the plans of writing, and the management of the note-takers, a change which gave him all interior supervision except over special departments attended to by Mr. Bancroft--such as the work of Oak and Mrs. Victor. Nemos had wonderful ability for drilling men into a common method and served as director of library detail "with remarkable ability and success."

(This was Oak's expression. All who speak of Nemos have much commendation for his ability. He was born in Finland, February 23, 1848, the son of a nobleman. German and piano lessons were first given him by his mother, who belonged to a wealthy family of good stock. After a year's study in a private school at St. Petersburg, he returned home to attend school, and later took a course at the gymnasium, or classic high school, at Stockholm preparatory to entering Upsala university, where a brother was at the time in attendance.

This ambition was not to be attained, however, for in his seventeenth year, family matters compelled him to give up his studies, and a place for him was found in a London commission and ship-broker's office by a family friend who believed that the acquisition of English and a business experience would be of the greatest advantage to the young man. Rather than drag the family title into the by-ways of trade, he laid it aside and assumed the name of Nemos.

Evening and leisure hours were now devoted to the study of philosophy and kindred higher branches under an Upsala graduate. After a business training of eighteen months, he was transferred to a responsible position in a house trading with India. When five years had been spent in this capacity, the fear of consumption induced him to take a long sea voyage, and in the spring of 1870 he left Liverpool by sailing vessel for Australia, arriving at Melbourne in the third month out. A venture at mining resulted disastrously through the dishonesty of his partners, and after a stop at Sydney, he came to San Francisco, where he landed in the summer of 1871. He had completed an engagement as assistant civil engineer on a proposed railroad in Oregon when he returned to California and accepted a position in the library. Nemos is described as retiring in all his tastes and enthusiastic as a student. He was especially fond of philosophy and languages, and had a knowledge of all the principal tongues of Europe.)

Oak, although he now considered himself chief only in name, still acted as librarian, business agent for most of the intercourse with the printing house, and reviser of the final proofs of all the volumes.

For protection against fire, the library was in October, 1881, moved to a building constructed for its reception on Valencia Street. At the same time, the printers began work on the first volume to be published, Central America I, which was immediately followed by Mexico I. After that time Mr. Bancroft (Lit. Ind., 585,) gave out for the press whatever was most convenient, so that frequently parts of several volumes were in type at one time. When the printing began, material aggregating fifteen volumes was ready. These included manuscript for Mexico and Central America, the field assigned Savage and Nemos, matter prepared by Oak for California, by Mrs. Victor for Oregon, by Bancroft for Popular Tribunals, Literary Industries, and The Northwest Coast, and by Petroff for Alaska. Bancroft estimated at this time that the notes were also taken for three fourths of the works which were yet to be written.

Material upon which to base the remaining fourth was collected in the same way as previously, Mr. Bancroft visiting the country to be written up, ascertaining the nature and location of the materials, collecting what could be had conveniently, and then leaving the further ingathering in the hands of agents. A visit to Mexico in 1883 furnished him with some material on social conditions in that country which he tells us was utilized in the last volume of the Mexican history: (Lit. Ind., 701). More extensive collections remained to be made in the regions farther north.

After the completion of the two volumes on Oregon, Mrs. Victor's attention was next directed to the volume on Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming. In the carrying on of this work, a greater number of suggestions as to manner of treatment were made by Mr. Bancroft, we may believe, than was usual in the preparation of a volume, for the reasons that it was hurried more for publication than earlier works, that it was written under his immediate direction, and that he himself collected and forwarded material from the field as required. The record of the progress of the work, as it occurs in Mr. Bancroft's letters to the writer of the volume, is of unusual interest in that the methods followed, though in some ways exceptional, may perhaps be taken as fairly typical of those employed by Mr. Bancroft in the preparation of the later volumes of the series which he immediately supervised.

In August, 1884, shortly before the completion of the second volume of the History of Oregon, Mr. Bancroft went to Salt Lake City, where he left with Franklin D. Richards a memorandum to guide him in extracting material on the Mormons in Nevada which, he said, would be about the first material needed. Pending the arrival of this, on September 11th, he advised Mrs. Victor to familiarize herself with the history of Wyoming and Colorado, he himself having done the same for Nevada.

A letter written a few days later presents the idea of making a plan of the volume "as the men do on Mexico, etc.," and says, "By so doing you can give each section its due proportion and by working to the plan save unnecessary labor." As to the method of treating early expeditions to Colorado and Wyoming, he says to consult the History of Utah, and the two opening chapters which he himself had already written on Nevada. When these chapters were prepared, it was the intention to devote an entire volume to this state. In planning the work as recommended in this letter, Mrs. Victor ascertained that these chapters were out of proportion for the volume as now planned, and wrote to Mr. Bancroft to this effect. On September 21st, however, he advised her that he recognized the fact, but that they would "have to do." On the same date he forwarded the dictations of three of the first Mormons in Nevada, requesting that when the material had been used for this volume, they be turned over to Mr. Bates, then at work on the History of Utah. He also suggested a perusal of Benton's City Saints and other Utah books for light on Nevada, and directed that Mr. Newkirk search the library thoroughly for Nevada material.

From Colorado Springs on October 7th he wrote announcing that a package of material on Colorado had been sent, though evidently with more thought of pleasing those who furnished the dictations than of affording material for the history of their state. Said he, "Some of the dictations don't amount to much, but I would like them used for all they are worth, and more too, putting them in list of authorities, quoting them freely, and giving biographical notice, etc." On October 11th, he wrote that he would go to Denver in a few days to finish gathering what material for Colorado he could procure. With reference to this he says, "I am told that there is no file of the _Rocky Mountain News_, or any other early paper I can get. Possibly I may obtain access to one. Still I think we will have stuff enough, all there will be room for. I will then go to Cheyenne to get what I can on Wyoming, and that will finish up the business of gathering for that volume, or any other volume except what the canvassers bring in."

He calls attention to the fact that in the Colorado dictations there is frequently material on Montana, and in the Utah dictations, material on Idaho and Nevada. The reason for this he gives in the typical Bancroft sentence:

"If I strike a man here, as I frequently do, who has been to these other places in early times I follow him up there for all it is worth of course, the same as here."

At Colorado Springs Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson, author of a Century of Dishonor, asked Mr. Bancroft to adopt her views on the Colorado Indian wars. With reference to this matter, he wrote on October 13th, the day of his departure for Denver, as follows:

"She wishing a thing done would be the very reason I would not do it if I could help it. I speak of it that you may get the work and use the information. I do not care about mentioning her name one way or another in the whole work. She has been polite enough here, although she has a broken leg, but I don't care for her politeness. I should have had fair recognition for the service I did her in the matter of her California articles in the _Century_ which I never got."

Writing subsequently from Denver on November 2d, he says: "Everybody in Colorado, nearly, is against Mrs. Jackson on what some call the Chevington massacre. That side don't call it a massacre, but a fight. I should give their side in full, then say some few took exception to this action, and there let it stand on its merits--that is, I think so now."

In the same letter Mr. Bancroft announced that he was going over the _Rocky Mountain News_ with Mr. Byers, the founder and former editor, "a man of remarkable ability and memory," whose dictation to a shorthand reporter was given, he said, in such a way that it was almost pure history and could be taken from his manuscript as fast as one could write. This he advised Mrs. Victor to take as a basis for Colorado history, building upon it and giving it the preference in regard to discrepancy of statement. He also called attention to the fact that "a lot of people" had in one way and another wandered over the region before white men settled there, and said he supposed that what Coronado did should first be considered. As to the wanderings of Spaniards in Colorado, a schedule sent about this time refers Mrs. Victor to all Oak had written on the subject, to the first few pages of the History of Utah, and to the original authorities upon which the latter was based. After calling attention to some works of travel, such as Fremont's writings and Renton's Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, he asked Mr. Nemos to see that the material for Mrs. Victor's use in preparing the volume be taken out more thoroughly than had heretofore been the case, and upon this point directed him to consult the early volumes of the series and make this correspond. Mrs. Victor subsequently asked that she be permitted to take out her own notes, and the request was granted as Mr. Bancroft had now decided to reduce the number of his force as fast as possible and bring the work to a conclusion. Already on October 25th, he had given as his opinion that Colorado should make about half of the volume, at the same time inquiring what laws of Colorado and Wyoming were desired, and recommending a study of "Hepworth Dixon's work on the Great West, Bonneville's Adventures, and Bayard Taylor's Travels."

Writing from Cheyenne on November 8th, Mr. Bancroft announced the shipment of a small package of Wyoming stuff, all that he had been able to secure, and also his intention to have some one take matter from the office files of the newspapers of that place, the _Sun_ and _Leader_, the latter of which was very complete. Though returning himself to Denver, that day, he promised to have more Wyoming dictations taken.

In a letter dated the next day, he expressed the opinion that a proper division of the work would be made by devoting three hundred and fifty pages to Colorado, two hundred and twenty-five to Nevada, and one hundred and seventy-five to Wyoming, and requested that the writing be done on that basis until some change should be found necessary. In closing, he suggests another line of research to be carried through the volume in the words: "And all the way from the Gulf of Mexico to British Columbia, I want to pay special attention to the cattle interest and cattle men, the origin and development of the industry, one of the most marvelous and important of modern times."

The last letter dealing with the manner of treatment of material dated October 9, 1885, asks Mrs. Victor to do the best she can with Mackey and the silver question in order to satisfy Mr. Stone, the publishing agent, whose work, Mr. Bancroft said, was hard enough at best.

It thus appears that three leading objects were kept constantly in mind at this time: one, the handling of the various subjects in such a way as not to displease the people in the district written up, that the work might be popular and the work of the canvassers easy as they went about soliciting subscriptions for it; another, the writing of the various chapters in such a way that the first draft would constitute finished history and take up no more space than that assigned in the volume; and finally, and really at the bottom of the preceding, a desire to have the history written as soon as possible. Evidence that Mr. Bancroft wished to have the work done in the least possible time and with the least possible cost is abundant in these letters.

In October Nemos had been set to counting the pages which Mrs. Victor had written since entering the library, a proceeding which she resented, believing that it afforded no just basis for judging her historical work. The next letter from Mr. Bancroft, on October 20th, brought the request that she bring the work "at first writing within the requisite compass so as not to make it so terribly costly." An intimation that greater haste would be pleasing was again conveyed on November 1st, when Mr. Bancroft expressed the confidence that if Mrs. Victor were to write three volumes more, they would be done in three years instead of six, a view of the case most contrary to hers, since before entering the library she had already worked out many of the problems in Oregon history, and now that she was entering upon another field, found more time necessary. That Mr. Bancroft did not make allowance for this, however, is shown by a letter written on November 17th. Here he begins the subject by stating that it would be a great mistake to suppose that he was dissatisfied with Mrs. Victor's work, or that any one had in the faintest degree criticised it, and says that all he wants is to practice such economy of time and money as will enable him to complete the work before he is dead or has failed in business. Then he proceeds to reckon up results thus:

"I do not know when the present volume will be finished ready for the printer. But six years have already passed, and, calling this volume done, it would be two years to a volume. About fifteen hundred of your pages make a volume, I believe, and counting three hundred days to the year, would be two and a half pages a day. When you first came, you started off with ten pages, which we all thought rapid, but the outcome makes it exceedingly small. This, with what other work has been done on your volumes, would make every page of your manuscript ready for the printer cost me considerably over two dollars a page."

After a denial that this is intended as a complaint about the past, he says:

"Go on and do the best you can. I have written equivalent to six volumes during the last six years besides devoting my time to revising and outside matters. But I don't expect any one to work as I do. I am not satisfied with old hands now, however, who do not give me say, four or five pages a day all ready for the printer."

According to the printed rules of the library, the hours were from 7.15 sharp to 6 o'clock in the evening, with half an hour for lunch. When we recall the complexity and minuteness of research and thought necessary in historical writing, we must consider three hundred such days a year heavy work. The requirement of an average of a certain number of pages a day was therefore one which would naturally tend to increase the worry of the writer. This requirement was also exacted of Mr. Oak, and we may well conclude that if such pressure were brought to bear on the two most experienced writers in the library, upon the junior writers it must have been intense indeed.

The writing of the volume on Colorado, Nevada, and Wyoming, so far as the material at hand permitted, was completed at the end of the year 1885. With all of the precautions taken, however, the pages on Colorado had to be condensed nearly a third to bring them within the space allowed. This was done, as was frequently the case, by throwing matter into fine type and printing as footnotes, instead of making many changes in the manuscript.

The system of biographical footnotes as it appears in the history, Mrs. Victor claimed as her contribution to the general plan of the work. The idea was followed with excellent results in her own volumes as well as those written by others, the object being to make biographical mention for the benefit of posterity of every man who took a prominent part in the building of a Pacific state or territory. For carrying out such a purpose, the time of writing during the lives of at least part of the same generation that founded these commonwealths, offered unusually good advantages.

The original intention, Mrs. Victor has told us, was for her to prepare the volume on Utah, since before coming to the coast, she had had occasion to make a study of early Mormon history through coming in contact with some refugees from Nauvoo. But so much work had already been assigned her that when the time came to do the writing, this was impossible. Mr. Bancroft had already made a study of the early Spanish history of the territory, and had written this part when he assigned the work on the bulk of the remainder to Mr. Alfred Bates, a writer of polished English and a man of scholarly attainments who had previously assisted Mr. John S. Hittell in his work on The Commerce and Industries of the Pacific Coast. (From Literary Industries, 267-68, we learn that Bates was a native of Leeds, England, born May 4, 1840. His father was a wool stapler who lost his fortune in the panic of 1847. Compelled at an early age to earn his own livelihood, he began teaching at the age of fifteen, and later taught at Marlborough College of which the dean of Westminster was then head. To him young Bates became private secretary in 1862. While preparing for Cambridge the following year, he accepted a lucrative position in New South Wales, where he suffered much from ill health, at one time being given up by three doctors. An offer of a position as teacher in California took him thither and he continued at this work for a year. During the two years spent with Mr. Hittell, he was the most valued of his assistants.) Those acquainted with the circumstances and the men have accordingly held that certain incidents in Utah history unfavorable to the Mormons could not have been toned down by Bates as they are in the printed volume, and that the Mormon turn to the work was therefore given by Bancroft in the pages which he wrote and in his revision of Bates' work. (See article by Frances Fuller Victor in _Salt Lake Tribune_ of April 14, 1893.) This seems probable from what Mr. Bancroft tells us of his efforts to secure material for the volume from the Mormon church, as well as his natural desire to please subscribers to the work.

Mr. Nemos, who was a foreigner, had no preference as to the field in which his writing was done, and it was consequently scattered through different volumes. Besides collaborating with Mr. Savage and others on the Mexican and Central American volumes, he wrote part of the material on British Columbia and Alaska. By the time Mrs. Victor's third volume was completed at the end of the year 1885, Oak had completed his work on the North Mexican States and the five volumes on California under Spanish and Mexican rule. The writing of the two volumes containing the American portion of California history was thereupon assigned to Mrs. Victor and Nemos, the former assuming responsibility for the preparation of the political chapters, a field in which her work had been pronounced especially good, and the latter taking up the institutional chapters, a part which he had largely fulfilled toward all the Spanish volumes of the history.

The introduction of the institutional feature is to be accredited to Nemos. The writing done by Oak was in the form of annals, a form in general suited admirably to the provincial records which he worked up; but against such a style throughout the series, Nemos tells us that he presented suggestions and arguments to Mr. Bancroft for introducing material which should tell the history of the people, and that in this he prevailed.

In April, 1886, the burning of the Bancroft business house threatened temporarily to bring the history project to an abrupt termination at a time when only the first volumes had been published, but the enterprise soon recovered from the blow. Under the leadership of Mr. Bancroft, both business and history writing went on as before, the firm of Bancroft and Company being organized for the conduct of the former, while the publication of the history previously carried on as a department of the general book concern was now turned over to The History Company, a corporation organized by Mr. Bancroft for the purpose of handling the work.

At the completion by Oak of his volume on New Mexico and Arizona in May, 1887, he retired from the library with health very much shattered, leaving Mr. Nemos at the head of affairs. After spending some time on a new work now undertaken by Mr. Bancroft, the latter also severed his connection with library matters in August, 1888.

At the time of Oak's departure, Bancroft was planning a biographical work to be issued at the conclusion of the task which was then engaging the attention of the library force. This work, at first called Chronicles of the Kings, but published under the title Chronicles of the Builders of the Commonwealths, was to present in detail the lives of wealthy and influential men who had borne a prominent part in the affairs of the various Pacific Coast states. For such notice they were charged from a thousand to ten thousand dollars according to the length of the published sketch. (This is according to the printed schedule, the minimum price being paid for three pages print, the maximum for thirty. This included also the printing of a portrait engraved on steel.) The attempt to burden the prestige gained by the histories and their projector with such a load could result only in crippling both. The volumes printed subsequent to the inauguration of this scheme could not be received with the same open-mindedness as former works. The information subsequently made public that money was accepted for notice in the Chronicles lost for Mr. Bancroft the regard of the press of the coast, caused grave doubts to be expressed concerning his disinterestedness as an historian, called out an expression of many bitter--in some cases utterly false--statements concerning his work, and sadly damaged the literary reputation he had been for nearly twenty years building on the work done under his direction.

While it was inevitable that the publication of the Chronicles as a parasite upon the history should result thus disastrously and deplorably for the fame of the latter work, we must not fail to recognize the fact that the labors of the writers upon both works were not a whit less conscientious and painstaking than they had always been. After the sixth and seventh volumes of the California history were completed in 1888, the volume on Washington, Idaho, and Montana was written. In 1890, the final volume on California was published, followed in the next year by the supplementary volumes, Essays and Literary Industries, which ended twenty years of library work for Hubert Howe Bancroft and his assistants.

The History of the Pacific States, we have seen, was an evolution, passing through the stages of handbook and encyclopædia before it became a history. But when the last idea had been reached, the development of the project was by no means complete, but rather just begun. The necessity of the Native Races was demonstrated before work had proceeded for a twelve-month. As late as 1878, Mr. Bancroft estimated that the history proper would comprise but fourteen volumes at the outside.

In his letter to Mrs. Victor, dated August 1st of that year, we get an interesting glimpse of the plan in an earlier stage. The work is to be divided, he says, somewhat in the following manner: Conquest of Darien, one volume; Conquest of Mexico, one volume; Mexico under the Viceroys, two volumes; Mexican Revolution and Modern History, one or two; Explorations Northward and the History of California, three or four; the Northwest Coast, Oregon and British Columbia together, two or three; Alaska, one. Under the head of California history was to be included somewhere the histories of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada, and the history of Oregon was likewise to include Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Oregon and British Columbia he thought could be written in a year. Not until six more years had passed was it finally recognized that natural expansion as the work proceeded would necessitate devoting to the series of history proper a number of volumes exactly double that which was then contemplated. To this series were added as a supplement an even half dozen volumes.

If we find that the outline grew from that of a few volumes in 1872 to one of almost forty in 1884, and that the work expanded fourteen volumes after it had been definitely laid out, we are not at all surprised that the part of the whole which Mr. Bancroft intended to write grew relatively less as time went on, and the part assigned to others became correspondingly greater. There is some evidence to show that when writing began on the first volume of the Central American History in 1873, the director of the project actually had in mind the plan which he gives in the Literary Industries, that of writing with the aid of assistants who were to be responsible for "the study and reduction of certain minor sections" which he was to "employ" in his own writing. Thus we find, according to the information left by Nemos, that Bancroft actually wrote half of the volume, that Oak at first took out notes, and that Nemos prepared his work in the rough, leaving a considerable part of it to be rewritten. For the next volume undertaken, the first of the six on Mexico, we see that the chief was unable to prepare so much material in its final form, and rested with but two chapters completely to his credit, together with the rewriting of part of Nemos' work on the remainder. In four or five years, he expresses the determination of writing what he can himself and leaving the rest to his aids. This as we shall see amounted in the end to his doing about one seventh of the history, slightly revising the work of the other authors, often by the aid of critics in his employ, and preparing most of the material for the supplementary volumes.

Thus it came about that the original plan, the plan as published, was exactly reversed, and instead of Mr. Bancroft's doing all the work in final form, except some minor sections assigned to those whom he called his assistants, it was the so-called assistants who really wrote the History of the Pacific States, and Mr. Bancroft who did a few minor, or at any rate less difficult parts. Nor is it at all true, as one authority has said (Appleton's Encyclopædia of American Biography, I, 156), that Mr. Bancroft wrote the most important chapters. Of course, the surprising thing about this is that Mr. Bancroft should have stated in the Literary Industries that he had followed a plan for the division of labor originally intended, but not followed at all. Especially unfortunate is this, in view of repeated charges of absorbing the literary reputation of his collaborators and aids, and appropriating the credit for their work.

It has long since been recognized that the name of Hubert Howe Bancroft can not be placed in the ranks of great American historical writers. In the first place, he wrote only parts of volumes. It will be observed, too, that as a rule he wrote simpler parts, consisting of synopses of early voyages, or annals easy to handle, such as the rovings of Spaniards in Utah, or the rise of a provincial government among the fur-traders of British Columbia. But Mr. Bancroft, as founder of the library and organizer of the history, has rendered a real and lasting service to historical literature.

The first great end subserved by his undertaking was the preservation of a great mass of invaluable historical material, which would otherwise have been lost. In 1880, he wrote:

"There are men yet living who helped to make our history, and who can tell us what it is better than their sons, or than any who shall come after them. A score of years hence few of them will remain. Twenty years ago, many parts of our territory were not old enough to have a history; twenty years hence, much will be lost that may now be secured": (Lit. Ind., 635).

It is thus for the timeliness of his labors in collecting his library that the Pacific Coast, and the whole world as well, is indebted to Mr. Bancroft. For this work his qualifications as a successful business man experienced in handling books were exactly those required.

A second great end which Mr. Bancroft attained was the founding of a history of Western North America on the original sources which he had collected in order that it might constitute a foundation upon which future histories would be built.

"He who shall come after me," says he in the letter quoted above, "will scarcely be able to undermine my work by laying another and deeper foundation. He must build upon mine or not at all, for he can not go beyond my authorities for facts. He may add to or alter my work, for I shall not know or be able to tell everything, but he can never make a complete structure of his own."

That the volumes supervised by Mr. Bancroft should contain imperfections is in the nature of the case inevitable. Perfect historical estimates of contemporaries can not as a rule be made, and history based largely on personal reminiscence must contain errors of refraction which can be corrected only in the clearer light of later years. The handling of material by a writer who did not collect it, and who is likely to find the places and conditions dealt with strange to his experience, inevitable though it be in so large an undertaking, results in the writing of faulty history. The hastening of the work and the editorial revision of manuscripts by a manager desirous of pleasing subscribers, and impelled by various other motives of his own, are not circumstances likely to increase the accuracy of the work. But after allowance has been made for all inaccuracies which have crept in through these various avenues, we still have the fact that the histories are based upon sources which may be supplemented but can never be displaced. No greater mistake could be made, therefore, than to say that because they contain errors they are worthless. All must agree with the practical argument made by a thoughtful old pioneer of the writer's acquaintance that, in spite of all criticisms which may be passed upon the Bancroft histories, they contain a great fund of information which is nowhere else to be found in print.

A third result of the history plan, and one which is of importance to historical writers everywhere who have large fields to cover, was the devising of a coöperative method for organizing the vast collections in the library. Mr. Bancroft makes the claim of having been the first to resort to such a division of labor; and points out (Literary Industries, 767) that his method avoids the repetition of details and insures a more thorough working up of the field than does the coöperative method as the term is usually understood, under which the writers work independently of each other after the field is divided. Such a claim might indeed be granted had Mr. Bancroft announced himself as editor and reviser instead of author, and had he designated the part of the work written by each of his collaborators in accordance with the usual custom in coöperative works. The printing of his name as author on the title page, and his general recognition as such in accordance with press notices following those of the Native Races, have, of course, largely lost for him the credit of originating a coöperative method for the organizing of large quantities of material.

Concerning the understanding Mr. Bancroft had with his corps of writers generally as to the public acknowledgment of their work which he would make, information is not at hand. Only one had ever before written and published a book, and perhaps the majority gave no thought to the rights which would be theirs as authors. Certain it is that when the greater number of the more prominent writers entered the library, the work was planned on a much smaller scale than that upon which it was carried out, and, as they did not know that they were to become the authors of entire or consecutive volumes, the question was not then of the importance which it assumed with the later growth of the series. What the understanding was with those who first entered the library we can not say definitely, but his ideas on that subject seems to have been a survival of the encyclopædia project. To Mrs. Victor, just prior to her entering his service, he wrote on August 1, 1878:

"The work is wholly mine. I do what I can myself, and pay for what I have done over that; but I father the whole of it and it goes out only under my name. All who work in the library do so simply as my assistants. Their work is mine to print, scratch, or throw in the fire. I have no secrets; yet I do not tell everybody just what each does. I do not pretend to do all the work myself, that is, to prepare for the printer all that goes out under my name. I have three or four now who can write for the printer after a fashion; none of them can suit me as well as I can suit myself. One or two only will write with very little change from me. All the rest require sometimes almost rewriting."

He further adds that it gives him pleasure to acknowledge his obligations to his assistants, but that this acknowledgment is always voluntary on his part and not claimed as a right by them, and says that while he is not sure of mentioning certain persons in connection with certain parts as he had done in the introduction to the Native Races, he will certainly not do more than that. The only mention which he promises definitely to his writers is a biographical notice in the Literary Industries.

"The work in the library," says he, "good or bad, is mine; were it not so, I would simply do what I could with my own fingers, or do nothing."

It is easy enough to see why Mr. Bancroft should wish to have absolute control of manuscripts to insure good work, and a complete covering of the field, but it is difficult to see how he could justly make the claim before the world that manuscripts turned out by other persons were his writing.

Not only was the myth of Mr. Bancroft's authorship repeated on the title page of each volume of the history, and in the reviews which built upon the prestige gained by him as supposed author of the Native Races, but not a word was printed to show that any one else wrote the least part of the work. When asked to indicate in the preface the part done by each person, according to the evidence of a number of his writers, he always declared that this was just the one thing he wished to avoid. The only approach to an acknowledgment is the statement in the preface in words which apparently refer only to indexers and note-takers, that he has been "able to utilize the labors of others," among whom as the most faithful and efficient he mentions Oak, Nemos, Savage, Petroff, and Mrs. Victor. (History of Central America, I, preface viii). The promise is made that he will speak of these and others at length elsewhere, and this promise is redeemed by the printing of their biographies in the Literary Industries without indicating who was engaged in writing and who in purely routine work connected with the library, much less designating what parts of the work each had done. From a popular edition of this volume subsequently issued for wider circulation, even these were stricken out.

While the real authors of the history never agreed to keep silence concerning their right to recognition, it was very well understood that they would remain in Mr. Bancroft's employ only so long as they acquiesced in his claiming the work as solely his own and made no individual claims for themselves. This bread and butter argument for silence proved effective in all cases. An example of the method in meeting claims made for any of the library writers occurs in connection with the publication of the History of Oregon. A notice of the work just before it was issued was sent to the Oregon press and the statement made that Mrs. Victor was the author. (Emma H. Adams in Portland _Oregonian_, October 5, 1886, under the title, "Mrs. Victor and Her Latest Literary Work.") This was met by Mr. Bancroft with a letter for publication in the paper printing the notice, in which he asserted that no entire volume of the series had been written by Mrs. Victor. Of course the significance of this statement is in the word "entire," which simply meant that he had interpolated a line here and there as he went over the manuscript. A note to Mrs. Victor under date of October 16th explains this apparent denial of her authorship thus:

"I do not want for myself the credit due to my assistants. At the same time, I do not deem it necessary to explain to the public just what part of the work was done by each. Everybody knows that you have been at work on Oregon, and that is all right, although I have done considerable work on your manuscript for better or worse, or at all events to make it conform to the general plan."

In view of Mr. Bancroft's persistent refusal to give "assistants" anything like credit for their work in accord with general custom and literary ethics as well, and in view of the fact that this refusal meant that the public would credit him solely as the author, it must have been a difficult matter for him to convince his corps of writers that he did not want the credit due them.

The process of making Mrs. Victor's manuscripts conform to the general plan, which is here regarded as the principal source of alteration, according to Oak, meant nothing except the condensation of her work, mainly by the omission of considerable portions, in order to bring it within the space assigned. That such revision did not affect her claims to authorship, is of course apparent.

It is sufficiently clear, from what appears above, that Mr. Bancroft's public justification of himself for publishing under his own name all the work done in the library is the fact that he reserved the right to alter all manuscripts and make what changes he saw fit. This made him managing editor, however, not author. The comparatively few additions he made to the manuscripts can not justify such a claim. That the revision of Mrs. Victor's work consisted in the main of nothing more than leaving out parts appears from two cases already cited, one in connection with the History of Colorado, Nevada, and Wyoming, the other with the History of Oregon, as well as from the direct statements of those who supervised library work. As we have seen he demanded that his writers turn out a certain number of pages a day "all ready for the printer," so he could have had little occasion to revise their work. The writers who Mr. Bancroft said in 1878 wrote with very little change from him were of course Oak and Nemos. Now Oak wrote seven and a half volumes of the history, and Nemos and Mrs. Victor five each, while Bancroft wrote four--a total of at least twenty-two volumes out of the twenty-eight to the authorship of which no serious claim could be made on the ground of altered manuscripts. Moreover, Savage says in his autobiography that, while Bancroft made additions and amendments to the three volumes which he wrote, in some of his pages only a word or two was changed and that others remained intact. What rewriting was occasionally done on the remaining volumes, was apparently done as often by other persons as by Mr. Bancroft. His relation toward the work was therefore exactly the same as that of a managing editor toward the matter printed in a newspaper. The latter could never claim the authorship of the articles written by his staff, although altered to a considerable extent by him or by his direction.

It should be stated here that Mr. Bancroft justified his course to those in the library by insisting that they furnished him merely with rough notes, and that it would be necessary for him to rewrite the work, or at any rate, considerable portions of it. This, had it been done, would have been strictly in accord with the account of his connection with the work as printed in the Literary Industries. But it was not done, and the account as printed is incorrect.