A Taste of Bancroft

At 100: A Celebration 1906–2006, occupies an entire floor of the museum. But while enchanting to anyone with a bent for history—it includes, for example, the Wimmer Nugget, which is said to have kicked off the Gold Rush—the exhibition gives only a hint of the library’s massive holdings. If you are aware that its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, set out to—and did—compile the largest collection of western Americana on earth, it will not surprise you to learn that it contains drawings and reminiscences of the region’s European explorers, or a diary, on view and chilling to read, by a Donner Party survivor. Likewise, the collection of Mark Twain’s papers fits easily within Hubert’s self-ascribed mission. But sheaves of Egyptian papyri? To understand that requires knowing of Berkeley philanthropist Phoebe Apperson Hearst’s love for the art of the pharaohs, which so inspired the work of her Arts-and-Crafts crowd.

The Bancroft is full of such historical quirks, driven by the diverse enthusiasms of its librarians and patrons, themselves as colorfully varied as Eldridge Cleaver and King Juan Carlos of Spain. Distilled from the collections by the Bancroft’s Jack von Euw, the BAM exhibition is perhaps best considered as an exquisite, and rare, tasting menu of the library’s prodigious offerings. The Bancroft itself is temporarily displaced from its campus home because of retrofitting and renovation, while its friends are raising a centennial fund to sustain and expand the treasure for another century.