First, the bad news: the California Historical Society (CHS), announced that it had gone out of business. Now the good news: while the society has closed, it has transferred its collection to the Stanford University Library.

CHS, a private non-profit, was founded in 1871 and based in San Francisco. Its collection includes over 600,000 items, from books and newspaper archives to photographs and videotapes. It contains original material from events like the 1848 Gold Rush and the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, as well as archives on business, political and social organizations from the Northern California ACLU and California’s floral industry to the Peoples Temple.

While CHS was designated as an official state historical society in 1979, it suffered over the decades from a lack of state support as well as lagging support from private benefactors. To their credit, the society’s leaders always chose ways to keep their collection open and accessible rather than to shut it down. Thankfully, their efforts to save history have succeeded.

Here’s a link to the press release from the Stanford University Libraries on their acquisition of the collection: