HISTORY OF THE WEST

The Harvard Commission on Western History recently established by the Corporation has commenced its work of making a collection of books and documents on the history and development of the West, broadly interpreted. Professor Hart has been advertising the project on his tour through the West, and Dean Wells, secretary of the commission, is sending out letters to graduates and undergraduates living in the western states asking individuals to aid in the work by reporting to him any material, such as books, pamphlets, newspapers, reports, letters, etc., bearing on the history of their own section of the country.

Personnel and Purpose of Commission.

The commission is composed of the following men: A. McF. Davis '55, of Cambridge, chairman; Professor A. C. Coolidge '87; H. Davis '49, of San Francisco, Cal.; C. G. Dowes, of Chicago, III.; F. A. Delano '85, of Chicago, III.; General G. M. Dodge, of Council Bluffs, Ia.; H. Elliott '81, of St. Paul, Minn.; C. Moore '78, of Detroit, Mich.; Professor F. J. Turner H. '09; E. H. Wells '97, secretary.

The purpose of this foundation is to establish, at the oldest 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 Foundation fulfils the conception of the founder and of the Commission, it will aid in collecting material which will in the future make possible adequate study of the fulfilment 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 History will find gathered together for convenient use a great mass of books, pamphlets, newspapers, and manuscript material showing the embodiment of this faith in the growth of the West. There will thus be collected in Harvard University Library, 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 America west of the Alleghenies in which the ideals of all parts of the East have been brought together and reshaped by settlers not only from the East but from the best of the races of Europe.

A Plan of Large Scope.

The scope of the plan is large. It aims to collect all the material possible, books, pamphlets, newspapers, reports of societies or railroads or other business concerns, 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.