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THE 
 HARVARD COMMISSION 
 
 ON 
 
 WESTERN HISTORY 
 
 CHARLES ELLIOTT PERKINS 
 FOUNDATION 
 
 HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 1912 
 
COMMISSION 
 
 Archibald C. Coolidge, Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 Andrew McFarland Davis, Chairman, Cam- 
 bridge, Mass. 
 
 Horace Davis, San Francisco, Cal. 
 
 Charles G. Dawes, Chicago, 111. 
 
 Frederic A. Delano, Chicago, 111. 
 
 Grenville M. Dodge, Council Bluffs, la. 
 
 Howard Elliott, St. Paul, Minn. 
 
 Charles Moore, Detroit, Mich. 
 
 Frederi(^J, Turner, Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 Edgar H. Wells, Secretary, Harvard Uni- 
 versity Library, Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 Communications concerning the work of the Commission, 
 and material, whether printed or documentary, may be sent 
 to the Secretary. 
 
 Gift 
 ^^^•^0 1CB29 
 
^ The Harvard Commission on 
 Western History 
 
 (Reprinted from the Harvard Alumni Bull etin } 
 
 The Corporation has established the^ 
 Harvard Commission on Western History 
 on the terms suggested in a letter, dated 
 January 27, 1912, which reads in part as 
 follows : 
 
 "In the last few years the Department 
 of History, the College Library, the Al- 
 umni Association, and a number of 
 friends of the College have been making a 
 strong effort to build up a great collection 
 on the history and development of the 
 West, broadly interpreted. We have as 
 a teacher of Western History the best 
 known authority on the subject, and his 
 appointment to Harvard has excited gen- 
 eral satisfaction and enthusiasm among a 
 number of Western graduates. We are 
 also receiving from Mrs. William Hooper,, 
 in memory of her father, the late Charles; 
 Elliott Perkins, of Burlington, Iowa, a, 
 considerable annual sum for the purchase 
 of books dealing with the West, and we 
 hope in course of time to build up such 
 a collection on this 'subject' that Harvard 
 
will be generally regarded as the best 
 place in this country for the study of 
 Western History. We can only accomplish 
 the purpose in view, however, if we have 
 the cooperation of a number of people in 
 the West who can interest themselves in 
 the matter and pick up for us on the spot 
 various important items of local his- 
 tory and literature in manuscripts or in 
 ^vhatever form they may appear. There 
 is a great deal that may be accomplished 
 in this way, but it can only be done by 
 systematic effort reaching a large terri- 
 tory and many people. 
 
 "It is respectfully urged, therefore, 
 that the Corporation appoint a commis- 
 sion to be kndwn as the Harvard Commis- 
 sion on Western History, the Charles El- 
 liott Perkins Foundation, and appoint the 
 following members thereto: A. McF. 
 Davis, '55, of Cambridge, chairman; 
 Horace Davis, '49, of San Francisco; 
 '-General Grenville M. Dodge, of Council 
 Bluffs; Mr. Charles G. Dawes, of Chicago: 
 ^Charles Moore, '78, of Detroit; Howard 
 Elliott, '81, of St. Paul; F. A. Delano, 
 "'85, of Chicago; Professor F. J. Turner; 
 Professor A. C. Coolidge, '87; and E. H. 
 Wells, '97." 
 
 The purpose of this Foundation is to 
 
establish, at the most ancient University 
 of America, a monument to the West and 
 to its importance both past, present and 
 future in shaping the character and the 
 destinies of this country. If the Founda- 
 tion fulfils the conception of the founder 
 and of the Commission, it will aid in col- 
 lecting material which will in the future 
 make possible adequate study of the ful- 
 filment of the great faith of the East in the 
 "West from the early decades of the 
 nineteenth century on; and it will be a 
 place where all students of American His- 
 tory will find gathered together for con- 
 venient use a great mass of books, pam- 
 phlets, newspapers, and manuscript mater- 
 ial showing the embodiment of this faith 
 in the growth of the West. There will thus 
 be collected in Harvard University Li- 
 brary, as a single storehouse, the means 
 necessary for defining the part played in 
 the making of the West by the foresight 
 of Eastern men in the past, and at the 
 same time of the growth of a new Ameri- 
 ca west of the Alleghenies in which the 
 ideals of all parts of the East have been 
 brought together and reshaped by set- 
 tlers not only from the East but from 
 the best of the races of Europe. 
 
 The scope of the plan is large. It aims 
 
to collect all the material possible, books, 
 pamphlets, newspapers, reports of socie- 
 ties or railroads or other business con- 
 cerns, and manuscript material whether 
 letters, old accounts or business reports. 
 Such collections would not only exploit 
 the development of the "West, but also 
 make it possible to trace out more exactly 
 and comprehensively the many ways in 
 which the East has participated in the 
 building up of the West. 
 
 Even as early as the early decades of 
 the nineteenth century the East had a 
 great and enthusiastic faith in the possi- 
 bilities of the West and in the part which 
 it would play in the Nation before the end 
 of the century. This faith was shown in 
 many ways. Besides the pouring out of 
 capital and of large individual gifts there 
 were various societies founded in the first 
 half of the nineteenth century to pro- 
 mote education in the West, which drew 
 largely on the funds of Eastern men and 
 women who had a vision of the future in 
 the great states beyond the AUeghenies. 
 They helped in the founding and support 
 of western colleges and seminaries and 
 of public schools. Besides these contri- 
 butions for the support of education and 
 religion, there was a great investment of 
 
capital in many enterprises in the West. 
 The railroads made possible the founda- 
 tion of the new states, and great lines like 
 the C. B. & Q. and the Atchison, Topeka 
 and Santa Fe were founded and financed 
 by Eastern capital, largely contributed by 
 great numbers of people who invested 
 their savings in the bonds and stock of 
 such railroads. Thus, it was not merely 
 the great capitalists but the people of 
 moderate means who contributed their 
 share toward the development of the 
 Western country. 
 
 In order to make it possible to write 
 the history of the growth of this great 
 new country of the West, with its strong 
 individuality and its high level of educa- 
 tion and morals, it is necessary to collect 
 an enormous mass of material. The main 
 interest in the West has not been in its 
 historical episodes, but in the development 
 of society. This fact makes the task of 
 writing the history more difficult. It is 
 none the less striking and romantic, how- 
 ever, to a historian who has the eye to 
 see things in the large way; but this ca- 
 pacity to see the large outlines must be 
 supported by the exact knowledge of an 
 enormous mass of small facts, and the 
 gathering of many scholars to work on 
 
the material. To make this study possi- 
 ble, then, is the aim of this Foundation. 
 If there can be gathered together the 
 great quantities of books, pamphlets, news- 
 papers and manuscript material which 
 are necessary, the history of the United 
 States as a whole can be written with 
 adequate sources. 
 
 To carry out this purpose it has seemed 
 wise to establish this Commission on 
 Western History composed of men whose 
 knowledge of the West and whose posi- 
 tion will be a guarantee of the largeness 
 of the aim and the value of the object to 
 be achieved. Of members of the Com- 
 mission, Andrew McFarland Davis, the 
 chairman, as a young man helped in the 
 survey for one of the first railroads in 
 Wisconsin and afterwards lived in Cali- 
 fornia for several years. He has written 
 on the West and on Canadian affairs in 
 Winsor's Narrative and Critical History 
 of America. His special subject has been 
 the history of banking and currency in 
 the United States. His brother, Horace 
 Davis, '49, of San Francisco, was at one 
 time president of the University of Cali- 
 fornia and is now the senior trustee of 
 the Leland Stanford, Jr., University. 
 General Grenville M. Dodge, of Council 
 
Bluffs, is the only surviving general of 
 the Civil War, on the Northern side at 
 least, who had an independent command. 
 He was chief engineer of the Union Pa- 
 cific Railroad from 1866 to 1870 and chief 
 engineer of the Texas and Pacific Railway 
 from 1871 to 1881 ; he was president of 
 the President's commission to inquire inta 
 the management of the war with Spain 
 and was commander-in-chief of the Mili- 
 tary Order of the Loyal Legion in 1907- 
 8. Charles G. Dawes, now president of 
 the Central Trust Company of Illinois in 
 Chicago, was comptroller of the currency 
 1897-1902. Howard Elliott, '81, is presi- 
 dent of the Northern Pacific Railway, a 
 railway which is still carrying on the 
 process of opening up the further regions 
 of the West and filling them with settlers. 
 F. A. Delano, '85, is president of the Wa- 
 bash Railroad, which traverses a great 
 portion of the nearer West. Both Elliott 
 and Delano were trained under Mr. Per- 
 kins, in whose memory the Foundation is 
 named. Professor F. J. Turner, formerly 
 of the University of Wisconsin, is recog- 
 nized as the leading authority on the his- 
 tory of the West. Prfessor A. C. Cool- 
 idge, '87, is Director of the University 
 Library. E. H. Wells, '97, is General Sec- 
 
retary of The Harvard Alumni Associa- 
 tion. 
 
 There is already at Cambridge, or 
 within practicable reach of it, one of the 
 largest collections to be found anywhere 
 of material for the study of the history of 
 America. The College library has an al- 
 most unequalled collection of the national 
 documents; it has great masses of material 
 on the anti-slavery movement which spread 
 so largely in the West ; it has its Parkman 
 collection which includes maps and books 
 used by Mr. Parkman for his great series 
 of histories; it has the Arthur Lee manu- 
 scripts, the Gage manuscripts and Sparks 
 manuscripts, with much unpublished ma- 
 terial; it has an exceedingly strong col- 
 lection of maps, and early newspapers, 
 and the material used by Justin Winsor 
 for his great histories. It is therefore 
 in American History undoubtedly the 
 strongest university library in the coun- 
 try. Besides these collections in the Col- 
 lege library, there is the Law School li- 
 bra;:'y which has an unequalled collection 
 of reports and statutes of the various 
 states, and in the Divinity School library 
 there are great quantities of early church 
 material. 
 
 Then in Boston, there are the coUec- 
 
 10 
 
lions of the Massachusetts Historical So- 
 <?iety and of the New England Genealogi- 
 cal Society and the special collections of 
 the Boston Athenaeum and of the Boston 
 Public Library. At Worcester, only an 
 hour away, there is the Library of the 
 American Antiquarian Society which is 
 especially strong in early newspapers. At 
 Providence, an hour away in another di- 
 rection, is the John Carter Brown Li- 
 brary which is unequalled in early and 
 rare Americana. No other single univer- 
 sity in the country affords such facilities 
 for the study of American History. 
 
 Thus it is aimed to maintain at Harvard 
 an eastern centre where undergraduates 
 and advanced scholars can study the West, 
 the part it has played in American life, 
 and the experiences and ideals that have 
 accompanied the march of the American 
 people into the new lands. This, it is be- 
 lieved, will conduce to a more adequate 
 conception of America in general, and of 
 the forces of national development. 
 
 The establishment of the Commission 
 on Western History which is announced in 
 this number of the Bulletin has high 
 promise in various ways. To begin with, 
 the Commission will strengthen the schol- 
 
 11 
 
arly resources of the University in a sub- 
 ject where it is part of the tradition of 
 Harvard to be strong. We have already 
 great collections of materials in American 
 history; and when these are increased by 
 a mass of material for the special study of 
 the West they may easily become unsur- 
 passed and perhaps unsurpassable. More- 
 over, such a collection will increase the 
 usefulness of the University to scholars in 
 other institutions by bringing under a 
 single roof material which will be at the 
 service of all scholars. The fact noted on 
 another page that 1210 volumes from our 
 collection of historical sources were loaned 
 to scholars outside the University in a 
 single year shows the possibilities of this 
 service. A large collection of books, 
 pamphlets, newspapers and manuscripts 
 showing the growth of the great states be- 
 yond the Alleghenies will be a boon to 
 every earnest delver in American history. 
 Even more stimulating to the imagina- 
 tion, however, are the possibilities of the 
 influence on students of the new impulse 
 to the study of American history and the 
 increased breadth of vision which this 
 study must take on in the presence of so 
 wide-ranging a collection. For any ade- 
 quate study of this history the accumula- 
 
 12 
 
tion of a vast mass of details is essential, 
 for tke impressive thing about America is 
 the high level of the average of citizen- 
 ship and the way it is shot through and 
 through with ideals and strong moral pur- 
 pose. Far greater masses of population 
 have here hitched their wagons to the stars 
 than ever felt any relationship to the stars 
 before. A large and increasing collec- 
 tion on the history of the West, the region 
 of the country where this peculiar dis- 
 tinction of America is most strongly dis- 
 played, will be a constant feeder of faith. 
 * ^ * 
 That the work of the Harvard Com- 
 mission on Western History should spring 
 from seed sowed in a memorial to Charles 
 Elliott Perkins is eminently fitting, for he 
 was a leader among the men who, born of 
 New England ancestry, on the other side 
 of the Alleghenies, devoted their lives to 
 the building of new commonwealths and 
 to the transformation of the prairies from 
 feeding grounds for great herds of buifalo 
 to farms and villages and humming cities 
 populated by men from the East and the 
 South and the countries across the sea. 
 These builders of states knew that man- 
 kind cannot live by bread alone, and the 
 multiplication of schools and colleges and 
 
 13 
 
the planting of churches were tangible 
 witnesses to their faith in the intangible 
 spirit. They were sound and energetic 
 business men, and made money for them- 
 selves and the stockholders they served, 
 but their sense of the practical demands 
 of life did not cloud the visions of the 
 future empire they were helping to cre- 
 ate. All through the states of the Central 
 West the name of Mr. Perkins is still fra- 
 grant with honor. It is a good thing for 
 the University and for the young men 
 who live and study in it to have the 
 memorial of such a man form a part of 
 the greater monument to the growth and 
 the living aspirations of the West. 
 
 Graduates throughout the country can 
 be of the greatest aid to the Commission 
 in its undertaking, for it desires to col- 
 lect material of the most varied sort. It 
 aims to gather not only books and pam- 
 phlets containing descriptions of the West 
 in the early days, but also reports of cor- 
 porations and other business enterprises 
 which were making investments in the 
 AVest, old books of accounts, now stored 
 away perhaps in attics and lofts, and es- 
 pecially letters and old newspapers from 
 every section of the West. Graduates are 
 
 14 
 
strongly urged to bring any such material 
 to the notice of the Commission, whether 
 it is in their own possession or that of 
 other people. Great masses of documents 
 are constantly burned which would be in- 
 valuable to future historians in their ef- 
 forts to restore the lineaments of the 
 past. 
 
 In many cases where there are family 
 papers or small collections of material the 
 owners may be brought to see that this 
 great collection is the most fitting place 
 in which they can rest. A small collection, 
 no matter how valuable, loses much of its 
 value to scholars if it be isolated. Here 
 will be a great memorial to the spirit and 
 the ideals of the West which can be built 
 up by a multitude of small collections, and 
 the small collections will take on a new 
 value and importance from the largeness 
 of the whole enterprise. 
 
 15 
 
■ 18 
 
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 Sept Oct 1988