The Atlantic Bookshelf: A Guide to Good Books

A VERMONTER by birth, Archer Butler Hulbert followed Greeley’s advice and went West. Graduating from Marietta College in 1895, he lost little time in staking his claim as a historian. The Western plains lay before him an open and largely unread book. He began by tracing the ancient Indian trails; he edited the Crown Collection of American Maps; he studied the migrations that came down the Ohio. As Professor of History at Colorado College and director of the Stewart Commission on Western History, he has devoted much of the past seven years to the study and identification of the California and Oregon Trails. He traveled every foot of the way; from six hundred township surveys he adduced the authoritative maps; from two hundred and fifty journals and diaries he assembled the mass experience of the Gold Rush. Such were the sources of his book which in June was awarded the Atlantic Prize.