Glen Cameron Adams (1912-2003), the founder of Ye Galleon Press, graduated from Fairfield High School in 1931. He first became involved in printing as an undergraduate at the Eastern Washington College of Education, now known as Eastern Washington University, in March of 1935. Glen Adams founded Ye Galleon Press in 1937 when he acquired his own printing press. It would be another two years before Ye Galleon’s first printing in 1939. It would be a further twenty-five years following Adams’s retirement from the local post office before the press began publishing and selling books in 1964 out of Fairfield, Washington. With the addition of some contemporary books, Ye Galleon Press mostly reprinted and published historical works in relation to Americana, the West, and Pacific Northwest History. Ye Galleon would publish well over 500 books up until its closure shortly after the passing of Glen Adams in 2003. Adams was named an honorary faculty member in the Department of History at Eastern Washington University in 1983. He was among the 100 people selected for the Washington State Centennial Hall of Honor, and he received an honorary doctorate in Letters from Gonzaga University in 1990, all in recognition for his work in publishing primary sources related to Pacific Northwest history.
The collection contains records from Fairfield, Washington resident and owner of Ye Galleon Press, Glen Adams, and is made up of four series. The first and largest group is correspondence. It consists of letters between Glen Adams and his friends, acquaintances, customers, and business partners. The annotated envelopes at the end of the series that accompanied Adam’s letters were scanned and copied by archivist. All original envelopes have been discarded. The second major group consists of book proofs, a product of the printing process created before the final version of the publications are made. They show last minute corrections or changes made to the format or content of the book. Receipts, customer orders, and other financial records are the third major group of the collection. They are ordered chronologically. The fourth and final major group consists of pamphlets, articles, clippings, booklists, and unsorted materials, various items that did not fit into the existing groups and were not numerous enough to warrant creating a new series.
There was no discernable original order within these accessions apart from the existence of different boxes or folders for separate accessions. As a result, in order to facilitate easier research, the correspondence is sorted either into a general category, or into specific files for certain individuals. Each of these files were then in turn sorted chronologically. The financial records were also sorted chronologically. All undated materials were placed at the end of each series.
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions apply.
[Item description]
Glen Cameron Adams Papers and Ye Galleon Press Records, 1962-2003 (Cage 126)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
The collection consists of materials from six accessions:
Glen Adams donated papers in four accessions to the Washington State University Libraries in 1961-1967 (no accession number), 1984 (MS.1984.60), 1992 (MS.1992.54), and 1995 (MS.1995.11).
E. W. Giesecke donated papers to Washington State University Libraries in 2014 (MS.2014.12).
Jim Catley donated papers to the Washington State University Libraries in 2020 (MS.2020.08).
This collection was originally processed by Terry Abraham in August, 1973. Ryan Minton reprocessed this collection in 2024 to incorporate an unprocessed group of accessions, the Ye Galleon Press records (MSSM.063), as well as the E. W. Giesecke Papers (Cage 5064).
Elizabeth Marion Saunders Papers, 1933-1989
Mildred Bissinger Letters, 1955-1981
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.