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Finding Aid to the Anson Stiles Blake Papers,
1882-1959
MS 204
MS 204
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Title: Anson Stiles Blake papers
Date (inclusive): 1882-1959
Collection Number: MS 204
Creator:
Blake, Anson Stiles, 1870-1959
Physical Description:
1.5 boxes(0.75 Linear feet)
Repository:
California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA, 94105
415-357-1848
reference@calhist.org
URL: http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/
Physical Location: Collection is stored onsite.
Language of Materials: Collection materials are in English.
Abstract: Consists chiefly of typescripts and manuscripts of Blake's speeches to San Francisco Bay Area social clubs and organizations,
concerning California history and contemporary issues, including labor relations, the cement and asphalt business, Berkeley,
and other topics. Includes papers relating to his participation with the California Historical Society and the Society of
California Pioneers, and a small amount of personal correspondence, receipts, and miscellany. Also includes some material
on Blake's father, Charles Thompson Blake and his travelling and business partners, Roger Sherman Baldwin, Charles T.H. Palmer,
and Caspar T. Hopkins, who is represented by a [1932] typed copy of his autobiography, written in 1888-1889.
Collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to The North Baker Research Library. All requests for permission to publish or quote from
manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Library Director. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The North
Baker Research Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright
holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.
[Identification of item], Anson Stiles Blake Papers. MS 204, California Historical Society, North Baker Research Library.
Photographs shelved as MSP 204.
Anson S. Blake Business Records, MS 203 Charles Thompson Blake Letters and Miscellany, 1849-1865, MS 204A
This entry replaces NUCMC number 75-235.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Blake, Charles Thompson, 1826-1897
Hopkins, Caspar T. (Caspar Thomas), 1826-1893
Businessmen.
California--History.
Industrial relations--California.
Quarries and quarrying--California.
Agriculture--California
Folder 26
American Federation of Labor
Folder 14
Art--San Francisco Bay
Folder 32
Berkeley, California, 1875-1900
Folder 8
Berkeley, California--Transporation--Railroads
Folder 9
Berkeley, University of California
Folder 8
Bidwell, John
Folder 18
Botany
Folder 16
California--Emigration
Folder 17, 18
California--History, 1861-1865
Folder 11
California--Politics and government, 1849-1879
Folder 21
Chapman, Charles E.
Folder 15
Cleland, Robert G.
Folder 15
Collective bargaining
Folder 14, 21
Congress of Industrial Organizations
Folder 14
Conservation
Folder 30
East Bay Municipal Utility District--History
Folder 17
Kensington, California
Folder 22
Labor--California
Folder 29
Labor disputes
Folder 21, 34
Mines and mining
Folder 25
Palmer, Charles T.
Folder 24, 35
Prohibition--California
Folder 27
Race relations
Folder 28
San Francisco--Politics and government, 1846-1848
Folder 31
San Francisco--Social life and customs, 1846-1848
Folder 31
San Francisco Bay
Folder 31, 32
Street-cars--Berkeley, California
Folder 9
Sutter, John A.
Folder 24
Sutter's Fort
Folder 24
Trade-unions
Folder 23, 29
Wine and winemaking
Folder 27
Source unknown.
No additions are expected.
Processed by California Historical Society staff.
Consists chiefly of typescripts and manuscripts of Blake's speeches to San Francisco Bay Area social clubs and organizations,
concerning California history and contemporary issues, including labor relations, the cement and asphalt business, Berkeley,
and other topics. Includes papers relating to his participation with the California Historical Society and the Society of
California Pioneers, and a small amount of personal correspondence, receipts, and miscellany. Also includes some material
on Blake's father, Charles Thompson Blake and his travelling and business partners, Roger Sherman Baldwin, Charles T.H. Palmer,
and Caspar T. Hopkins, who is represented by a [1932] typed copy of his autobiography, written in 1888-1889.
Anson Stiles Blake was born in San Francisco on August 6, 1870. He was the son of Harriet Stiles Blake and Charles Thompson
Blake. His father, C.T. Blake was an early pioneer to San Francisco, arriving in 1849 from New Haven, Connecticut after a
difficult voyage through Central America. Anson Blake attended Lincoln Grammar School and Boy's High School in San Francisco
before moving with his family to Berkeley where he attended the University. Upon graduation in 1891 Blake went to work for
the Bay Rock Company in Oakland, moving two years later to the Oakland Paving Company a macadamizing outfit run by his father
and his father's associate C.T.H. Palmer. In 1899 he became president of that company. In 1894 he married Anita Day Symmes,
a recent U.C. graduate.
Blake's interest in such businesses arose from his father's and grandfather's own mining and mine-equipment backgrounds. (His
grandfather patented the Blake Rock Crusher in 1858.) In 1904 he helped to form the San Pablo Quarry Company which supplied
materials to the city of San Francisco for its rebuilding after the earthquake. In 1914 the company, which later became Blake
Brother's in Richmond, was created and this business was in Blake's control until 1954. Rock from this company helped to keep
islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin from flooding in addition to supplying the bayside rock edges of Treasure Island for
the 1939 Fair there.
Throughout his life, however, Blake's interests diversified far beyond those of the quarrying concern. He took an interest
while still at Berkeley in the University YMCA - Stiles Hall - (donated by his grandmother,) and helped to support it throughout
his life. He was a member of many clubs including the Berkeley City Club, the Claremont Country Club the Athenian Club and
others. He wrote prolifically on a wide variety of subjects and was a frequent speech-giver. Speech topics covered such subjects
as, Racial Contrasts on the Southwestern Frontier, to the effects of Prohibition on California grape growers. Usually, though,
they dealt with history. He was president of both the Society of Calif. Pioneers and the Calif. Historical Society, the latter
from 1945-48. He was on the Board of Trustees of CHS from 1924-1959 and was made a fellow in 1958. He did extensive research
on his father, concentrating on the years Charles Blake spent mining in the Sierras during the Gold Rush. Among Anson Blake's
papers are letters written by his father's traveling and business partners describing their trip to California and the Gold
Rush.
In 1953 the California State Legislature bestowed upon him the title of Grand Old Man of Stiles Hall in honor of his 50 years
of service. In 1958 he was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree by the University. He died on August 17, 1959, eleven
days after his 89th birthday.