Bancroft, HUBERT

Bancroft, HUBERT, an industrious North American historian, born in the state of Ohio in 1832, settled at San Francisco in 1852, where he started a bookshop, and soon amassed a large fortune. He formed at a vast expense a library of 40,000 volumes, mainly on old American history and ethnography. A part of the books collected for Maximilian of Mexico came into his possession. One result of his studies is The Native Races of the Pacific States (5 vols. New York, 1875-76), forming the first portion of his colossal undertaking, a History of the Pacific States of North America (40 vols. 1882 et seq.). Other works are Chronicles of the Builders of the Commonwealth (7 vols. 1891-95), and a book on Mexico (1894).