The California Historical Society.
The society, a private nonprofit organization established in 1871 and designated the state’s official historical society in 1979, is one of California’s oldest historical organizations. But unusually among state historical societies, its leadership said, it received no regular state funding, which left if vulnerable to the vagaries of private donations.
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The society’s treasures include the Kemble Collections on Western Printing and Publishing, which features books, pamphlets, product labels, trade catalogs and other items produced in the American West between 1802 and 2001. The society also holds the archives of many organizations, like the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the California Flower Market, Inc., founded by Japanese American flower merchants in 1912.
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In 2016, it was tapped by the city of San Francisco as its lead partner for a potential restoration of the Old United States Mint in downtown San Francisco, one of the few structures to survive the 1906 earthquake and fire. But restoration of the building, which had been largely unused for decades, was deemed prohibitively expensive.
I think that would have been a very cool thing to tour. But I understand the cost.
In early 2020, the group announced a new strategic plan that involved selling its 20,000-square-foot building near Union Square and using the proceeds to support traveling shows and partnerships with smaller organizations around the state. But that effort was thwarted by the pandemic and downturn in San Francisco’s real estate market, as well as the unexpected death in 2022 of Alicia L. Goehring, the executive director and chief executive who helped formulate the plan.
It might have been smarter to build a dedicated historical museum in some place like the state capital. But that’s just my opinion.
In 2022, Gonzalez said, the group requested a one-time grant of $12 million to support a partnership with the University of California, Riverside, which would have involved collaborating with Native American tribes to bring historical projects to underserved parts of the state.
The request was rejected. “The legislature gave us the same answer we heard from philanthropic organizations: This sounds like something a university should be doing,” Gonzalez said.
Wait, wait: the California legislature rejected a proposal to spend taxpayer money?
This actually makes me kind of sad. I like state historical societies, and I hate to see one fall apart like this.
But: their collections and archives are being transferred to Stanford University. I guess the school is now the de facto historical society, and that may not be such a bad thing overall.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 28th, 2025 at 5:07 pm and is filed under California Über Alles, History, Museums, Obits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Of course they rejected it. None of them were getting payoffs or graft from it. It’s impossible to renovate a building and San Francisco, and virtually impossible to build a new one anywhere in the state.