Talk:Hubert Howe Bancroft

No Self Promotional Links Please
Article edited to remove self promotional links to websites.

Appropriate link
Any ideas on why this link is attached to the article? WBardwin 11:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The California Birthday Book

The California Birthday Book contains three quotes and a brief biographical sketch of Bancroft.

Further Work
What's here so far seems good, except for the statement limiting the scope of Bancroft's work to the "Pacific coast," which hardly includes Colorado, Utah, Nevada and Wyoming.

There needs to be consideration of Bancroft being charged, as I understand/recall the matter, with giving favorable historical verdicts to people based on their support of his work. Did the AHA take away his membership? I think so, but I can't be sure at the moment. Regardless, that needs to be investigated.

Terry J. Carter (talk) 16:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Terry, if this is any kind of complaint then Bob Woodward of the Washington Post would have been a pariah decades ago. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vertex11 (talk • contribs) 15:35, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Contradiction?
In the section 'Biography', there is the statement:
 * "He employed collaborators for the preliminary work, and then revised it all, and wrote the most important chapters himself."

In the following section, 'Critique of production methods', is the statement:
 * "...he then employed research and writing assistants to organize and produce statements of facts for large sections of a proposed general history. Originally he seems to have intended to use these statements of facts as the basis of a narrative which he himself would write; but as the work progressed he came to use the statements as they stood, with only slight changes."

Do these two statements seem contradictory, or is it just me? WCCasey (talk) 22:55, 29 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, they are contradictory, and the first statement is inaccurate. It is sourced to a one-paragraph encyclopedia entry from 1900. (cough...republished press release?...cough) Just a couple years later, one of his assistants, William A. Morris, published the article Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 4/The Origin and Authorship of the Bancroft Pacific States Publications: A History of a History (part 1). Since then, it's been well understood that Bancroft's characterization of his role was inaccurate, and came at the expense of his uncredited "assistants," most significantly Frances Fuller Victor. This is a major error in this Wikipedia article, and should be corrected. I'm happy to do so myself, but am still doing a bit of reading to make sure my understanding is thorough enough. I welcome efforts by anybody else in the meantime... -Pete Forsyth (talk) 22:00, 20 May 2018 (UTC)