Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/107



The address before the ninth annual meeting of the members of the Society, held on December 21, 1907, was given by Professor H. Morse Stephens of the University of California. Professor Stephens has charge of the Hubert Howe Bancroft collection of Pacific Coast history material. It will be remembered that the Bancroft Library was acquired by purchase by the University of California. The address was devoted to giving an account of the wide range and the richness of the collection and of the methods being used in the organization and calendaring of the manuscripts it contains.

An Academy of Pacific Coast History has been organized to secure support for the publication of the most valuable of its documents and to supervise the editing of them. Professor Stephens' statement of his aims to make available to historical students the rare sources of history contained in the collection elicited great interest among the members of the Society, as much prime Oregon material was taken out of the State by Mr. Bancroft. The Society responded heartily to Professor Stephens' request for co-operation. Professor Joseph Schafer of the University of Oregon was named by the Society as the Oregon representative on the board of editors to direct the publication of the documents.

The archives both of the State and of the National governments are beginning to receive the attention that their value as historical sources warrants. The whole of volume two of the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1906 is devoted to the report of the Public Archives Commission. It presents a summary of the present state of legislation of States and Territories relative to the custody and supervision of public records; inventories and bibliographies of the public archives of many of the States are also given. The main activities of the Department of Historical Research