Oregon Imprints collection, 1845-1981

Acquisition Information

The bulk of this collection was acquired in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly during the years 1899-1908. Later additions to this collection include: 1864 issue of McCormick's Almanac, gift of Walter R. Bailey, January 1960 (Lib. Acc. 8483); selected issues of the proceedings of the Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, gifts of Robert E. Dodge in April and May 1970 (Lib. Acc. 11482; Lib. Acc. 11501).

Preservation Note

Due to fragility, many items in this collection require assistance to view. Contact library staff.

Processing Note

Unless an item's description is prefaced with the word "Untitled," item titles are taken verbatim from the items themselves, including spelling, abbreviations, punctuation, and outdated or offensive language. Where known, the original use of capitalization was also retained in titles.

In his work "Oregon Imprints, 1845-1870," George Belknap assigned dates based on when items were printed, meaning that blank forms that were printed in 1845 but filled out in 1846 would be dated as 1845, and legislative bills proposed in 1854 but not officially printed until 1855 would be dated 1855. For this reason, for any item where the date of contextual creation and the date of printing differ, and the difference is not already clear from the verbatim title of an item, it is explained in the title in parentheses.

Collection was designated as Special Collection 1, Belknap Imprints prior to 2016. The item "A Review of Mandeville's Series of Readers for the Use of Common Schools" was removed from the collection in 2022 after it was determined to be out of scope.

Related Materials

Additional copies of some items in this collection are in Government Documents and Serials Collections, Oregon Historical Society Research Library. An additional original of James W. Nesmith's broadsheet "To the World!!" (Item 7) at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library is designated Coll 464.

Repositories that hold either additional copies of items in this collection or items otherwise listed in "Oregon Imprints, 1845-1870" include: University of Oregon Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, Eugene, Oregon; City of Portland Archives and Records Center, Portland, Oregon; Oregon State Archives, Salem, Oregon; Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon; the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, California; the Huntington Library, San Marino, California; and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale, Connecticut.