Collecting Western Americana.

The article presents an overview of the study of Western Americana in the first half of the 20th century, particularly in the collection of manuscripts, monographs and other printed materials in U.S. libraries. Profiles are given of several special libraries with dedicated collections of Western material including the Bancroft Library of the University of California, and the libraries of Princeton University and Yale University. An in-depth discussion of the collection at Yale is particularly highlighted, describing a diverse range of materials from the 1810s to the 1950s under the curatorship of William Robertson Coe.