Bancroft, Herbert Howe

Herbert Howe (1832-), an American historian. He was born at Granville, Ohio. At the age of twenty he established a bookstore in San Francisco. He became interested in Spanish-American history and began the collection of books. He purchased a large part of the library of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico and the library of George Squier, an archaeologist who had conducted extensive explorations in Central America. In all, Mr. Bancroft collected over 60,000 volumes. He reduced this vast mass of material into something like a system by preparing an elaborate index. He then set about the preparation of a history of the Pacific coast from Alaska to Central America.

From twelve to twenty accomplished linguists, we are told, have been constantly employed in Mr. Bancroft's service since 1869. Secretaries have all this time been reading, translating, summarizing, cataloguing and indexing the whole collection. The result attained at the cost of half a million dollars, is a mass of systematized information, such as must make the users and the desirers of historical materials elsewhere deeply envious.... Mr. Bancroft has prepared from these materials, and published, a gigantic History of the Pacific States of America in thirty-four unusually large volumes.- J. F. Jameson.