California Historical Society applies to jurisdiction California
The California Historical Society (CHS) is the official historical society of California. It was founded in 1871, by a group of prominent Californian intellectuals at Santa Clara University. It was officially designated as the Californian state historical society in 1979. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, though it hosts exhibits and collections across California.History
The California Historical Society was founded in June 1871 by a group of prominent Californian politicians and professors at the Santa Clara University (then the College of Santa Clara), led by Californian Assemblyman John W. Dwinelle (an influential founder of the University of California). The stated mission of the society was “collecting and bringing to light and publishing, from time to time, all information not generally accessible on the subject of the early colonization and settlement of the west coast of America, and especially Northwestern Mexico, California, and Oregon. The society published 32 papers until 1901. From 1901 to 1906, the CHS temporarily merged with the California Genealogical Society. Following the devastation of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the society fell into dormancy until 1922.In 1922, the society was permanently reestablished by Templeton Crocker, famed expeditionary of the California Academy of Sciences.  In 1979 the organization was named the official state historical society, in a bill signed by Governor Jerry Brown.The Society maintains a collection of historical documents, photographs, art and other research materials, awards the annual California Historical Society Book Prize, and publishes California History, an academic journal, in association with the University of California Press. It occasionally hosts C-SPAN lectures on California history. Exhibitions have included a 2015 celebration at the Palace of Fine Arts of the centenary of the Panama–Pacific International Exposition, and the Society sponsored the 50th anniversary celebration of the Summer of Love in 2017. It hosts educational events as well as exhibitions at its San Francisco headquarters. After offering that building for sale to reduce costs, it plans to house its research library and store its collection in dispersed locations and organize touring exhibitions that will appear at venues including local historical societies throughout the state. However, it remained in that location, with a new exhibition, as of January 2021.
The Society hired Alicia Goehring as executive director and CEO in September 2019, after Anthea Hartig became director of the National Museum of American History.Following Goehring's death in August 2022, the Society named COO Jen Whitley as interim CEO.