Stanford University Libraries, the Bill Lane Center for the American West and the California Historical Society have announced that Stanford will assume permanent stewardship of the California Historical Society Collection following the society’s board of trustees’ resolution to wind-down the organization after decades-long financial challenges and a lack of regular operating support from the state.

The collection will become known as the California Historical Society, or CHS, Collection at Stanford and will continue to be accessible to the public and academics.

Stanford University Libraries, or SUL, said it is committed to carrying on the California Historical Society’s core mission of preserving and sharing the history of California and the West.

“In partnership with the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford, Stanford University Libraries are honored to curate and expand the CHS Collection,” said Michael A. Keller, the Ida
M. Green University Librarian at SUL. “From its origins, the California Historical Society has focused on collecting and preserving the history of the West and has amassed a remarkably rich and diverse archive over the years. Its collections of books, journals, letters and postcards, maps, photographs, newspapers, and more form an enormous, relatively untapped resource for historical research, for teaching, and for understanding the history of California and the western region.”

“The transfer of the CHS Collection to Stanford University Libraries is a watershed moment for the California Historical Society, as it marks a path forward to continue engaging both the public and scholars in discovering our history. The California Historical Society was established in 1871 for this very purpose — preserving, studying, and making accessible the history of California — at a time when the study of history was not yet recognized as a profession or academic discipline. At the time, the organization’s main focus was on research, writing, and publishing, with the ultimate goal of making California history accessible to the general public. Today, CHS’s mission will continue through the efforts of Stanford University Libraries and the Lane Center which will provide students and scholars with access to this extraordinary collection for their research projects, support researchers in their study of California history, and over educational programs for the public to better understand and appreciate our past,” said Tony Gonzalez, chair of the Board of Trustees for CHS.

David M. Kennedy, the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Emeritus at Stanford and founding Faculty Director of the Lane Center, said that the acquisition of this collection “will make Stanford the premier place for historical research about California and the broader North American West. It will also confirm the Lane Center’s reputation as the most vibrant and important facility for teaching and research about the region.”

“It is not just the past, but the new past we are creating,” said Bruce E. Cain, current director of the Lane Center.

Cain believes that greater accessibility and visibility of the CHS Collection will help to uncover and elevate the voices and experiences of groups that have been historically marginalized.

Referencing the Lane Center’s different areas of research — from arts and culture to environment and energy — Cain looks forward to the diversity of perspectives that the CHS Collection will bring to studies in the humanities and social sciences.

Added Richard Saller, Stanford’s twelfth President and the Kleinheinz Family Professor of European Studies, “At a time when historical perspective is so critical, the California Historical Society Collection will provide a treasure trove of information about long-term trajectories over the past two centuries. The addition of this collection will serve Stanford’s core mission of research and education.”

Items from the CHS Collection date back to the early eighteenth century and span approximately 16,000 linear feet. It is estimated to contain more than 600,000 items and is renowned for its rare and diverse range of materials, making it one of the most significant collections of California state and local history.

The CHS Collection is held in high regard alongside those of other esteemed institutions such as the Bancroft Library, the California State Library, and the Huntington Library.

The CHS Collection includes original material from significant events such as the Gold Rush, statehood, and the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. It also features unique collections, such as the Peoples Temple Collection, which houses organizational records, government documents, social and personal correspondence, newspapers, publications, photographs, film and video tapes, audio recordings, and three-dimensional artifacts.

The collection has grown considerably since its establishment in 1983, thanks to the generous donations from former Peoples Temple members, family, and friends, as well as journalists
and scholars. It now stands as the most comprehensive archival record of the organization, spanning from Peoples Temple’s beginnings in Indiana in 1955 to the aftermath of the tragedy in Jonestown on November 18, 1978.

Other noteworthy collections include the records of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which date back to the early 1900s. These documents provide a comprehensive look at the establishment and activities of the Northern California branch, including the full run of its newsletters, from 1936 to the present.

The Kemble Collections on Western Printing & Publishing are among the largest and most comprehensive collections on printing and publishing in the western United States. This collection spans nearly 200 years, from 1802 though 2001, and includes books, manuscript collections, trade catalogs, and type specimens, as well as ephemera related to printing practices, culture, and history in the Western Hemisphere.

The most recent sizable addition to the CHS Collection was donated by the California Flower Market, Inc., which consists of materials that document the history of the flower market
and industry in California from 1890 through 2014.

Throughout its 150-plus year history, CHS has consistently faced financial challenges. In its earlier years, operating deficits were often resolved through generous year-end contributions from its members and donors. In 1979, legislation was signed by Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr., designating CHS as the state historical society.

However, despite this status and ongoing efforts to lobby the California Legislature for financial support, CHS is one of only a few state historical societies that does not, and has never, received general operating funds from its state government.

Additionally, unlike other large, well-established collecting institutions, CHS’s early benefactors did not leave sufficiently large endowments to help provide in perpetuity for all the ongoing operational costs of maintaining its sizable collection.

By early 2020, CHS was already in a vulnerable financial position due to nearly a decade of annual budget deficits. As a result, the Board and incoming Executive Director Alicia Goehring decided to sell CHS’s building at 678 Mission Street in San Francisco in order to fund a new vision and attain financial sustainability.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic, subsequent collapse of the city’s commercial real estate market and the unexpected passing of Ms. Goehring in 2022 thwarted these plans, ultimately leaving the organization in a financially dire and unsustainable position.

With no other viable path forward, the board of trustees elected to explore potential collaborations and even mergers to safeguard the CHS Collection and mission.

“It was never an option to deaccession and sell any part of the collection in order to stay afloat. The board was fully committed to its sacred duty of preserving the integrity of the collection,” Gonzalez explained.

The board considered several leading research and public institutions in California and ultimately decided that SUL was the best choice to manage and grow the CHS Collection.

“SUL brings a strong infrastructure that spans a network of twenty libraries across Stanford’s campus and an expansive team with knowledge and expertise in collections development, digitization and preservation, and technologies development,” said CHS Interim CEO Jen Whitley.

“Through SUL's partnership with the Bill Lane Center for the American West, the CHS Collection will continue to increase our understanding of California and the Western region,” said Whitley. “The center conducts research, teaches, and reports on a wide range of contemporary issues, including projects that explore visual arts, traditional customs, historical events, and diverse communities in California and the West. Its mission is to broaden both public and academic understanding of the region, bringing awareness to its rich history and current social issues. This aligns with the mission and past programs of CHS, which has long been dedicated to preserving and sharing the stories of California and the West.”

The agreement between CHS and SUL, which was unanimously supported by the CHS Board of Trustees and reviewed by the California Attorney General’s Office as part of the California nonprofit dissolution process, provides that the collection will remain intact under the expert care of SUL’s extensive preservation and archives staff. This ensures that the CHS Collection will continue to be publicly accessible for future generations to appreciate.

Noted Keller, “The California Historical Society’s collection, which is complemented by Stanford’s own extensive collections on California and the American West, will be preserved and made available for scholars, students, and citizens once its many constituent parts are ingested into the Stanford collections, this probably requires some years.”

Gordon H. Chang, professor of History and the Olive H. Palmer professor in Humanities, knows well the importance of having access to California’s rich history. “The Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project at Stanford devoted considerable attention to mining the CHS archive and found material never used by previous railroad scholars,” said Chang.

His research shows the depth of the CHS Collection and its synergy to SUL’s own holdings on the history of Asian Americans, African Americans and Mexican Americans with the Chinese American Citizens Alliance Papers, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund records, and the Huey P. Newton/Black Panther Party Papers.

“For me the CHS Collection is one of the most valuable, and underutilized collections in California,” said Richard White, the Margaret Byrne professor of American History, emeritus at Stanford and author of Railroaded and California Exposures. “It will augment SUL’s holdings in the American West, helping to fill in gaps from the nineteenth and early twentieth-century California. This is an incredibly rare opportunity to bring an archive of this significance to Stanford.”

“We firmly believe that Stanford University Libraries is the most suitable institution to steward the CHS Collection. Its state-of-the-art library will provide the highest level of preservation and protection for the collection in its entirety, and its capacity for digitization via in-house services and its ability to host researchers at its many facilities far exceeds what we have been able to do at CHS,” stated CHS Interim CEO Jen Whitley. “Furthermore, SUL will be able to proactively expand the collection, which CHS has only rarely had the resources to do throughout its history,” added Whitley.