BANCROFT 



BAND 



GEORGE BANCROFT 



BANCROFT, GEORGE (1800-1891), an Amer- 

 ican historian whose best-known production, a 

 history of the United States, is a standard work 

 on that subject. He was born at Worcester, 

 Mass. After his graduation from Harvard Col- 

 lege in 1817, he 

 went abroad and 

 devoted several 

 years to the 

 study of history 

 and philology in 

 Germany and to 

 '. elsewhere 

 in Europe. On his 

 return to Amer- 

 ica, in 1822, he 

 became a teacher 

 of Greek in 

 vard, but feeling 



icted by the 

 conventional at- 

 mosphere of the Cambridge school, he joined 

 a friend in the organization of a high school 

 at Northampton, Mass. While teaching in this 

 school he was elected to the state legislature on 

 the Democratic ticket, but declined to serve. 



He had become well known in Democratic 

 politics by the time of Martin Van Buren's 

 election to the Presidency (1836), and was 

 appointed by that official, collector of the port 

 of Boston. Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of 

 his appointees while he was filling this position. 

 Bancroft became President Polk's Secretary of 



Xavy in 1845, and served until 1846, when 

 he was sent as minister to London. For a 

 short period in 1846 he also acted as Secretary 

 of War. During the time he was in the Cabinet 

 he lent his influence toward the establishment 

 of the Naval Academy at Annapolis and had 

 much to do with shaping its policies. In the 

 same administration, while acting as temporary 

 Secretary of War, he gave the order for the 

 American forces to inarch into Texas (see 

 MEXICAN WAR). 



Bancroft's first published work was a collec- 

 tion of poems and translations, issued in 1823, 

 and from that time on he gave much of 

 energies to writing. The first volume of 



'try of the United States was published in 

 1834, and at intervals other volumes were 

 issued, the last revised edition of the completed 



k appearing in 1884-1885. This work stamps 

 him as one of America's leading historians, and 



ils painstaking preparation, breadth of 

 scholarship and imaginative insight into the 

 affairs of nations. He was also the author of 



numerous orations and political addresses and 

 magazine articles. His services to his country 

 continued into his latter years, for he was 

 selected by Congress in 1866 to deliver a spe- 

 cial oration in honor of Lincoln, and in 1871 

 was appointed minister to the new German 

 Empire. On April 27, 1886, he delivered at 

 Washington, D. C., his last public oration. 



BANCROFT, HUBERT HOWE (1832-1918), an 

 American historian, whose voluminous History 

 of the Pacific States represents a collection of 

 manuscripts, pamphlets and books to the num- 

 ber of 60,000. He was born at Granville, O., 

 and in 1852 went to San Francisco, where he 

 became a bookseller. His deep interest in the 

 history of the Pacific coast region led him to 

 devote himself to the work of compiling a com- 

 plete and original history of the Pacific states, 

 and the results of his labors, begun in 1856, 

 were turned over to the University of Cali- 

 fornia in 1905. Some of the material was dic- 

 tated to him by prominent pioneers of the 

 West. Bancroft is also the author of the West 

 American Historical Series, in thirty-nine vol- 

 umes. His latest writings include The Book of 

 Wealth, and Retrospection, Personal and Polit- 

 ical. 



BAND, a combination of musical instru- 

 ments that may be played in harmony, com- 

 prising drums and such wind instruments as 

 can.be played while the players are marching. 

 In theory, no device that cannot be carried by 

 a man on foot can enter into a grouping of 

 band instruments, although in the development 

 of this kind of music many great bands now 

 seldom play except when seated, and some of 

 these have added several instruments too cum- 

 bersome to carry. 



There had been no attempt at musical organi- 

 zation of any kind until after the middle of the 

 thirteenth century, when wandering pipers and 

 trumpeters joined together in guilds. The 

 first of these was probably that of the Brother- 

 hood of Saint Nicholas, organized in 1228 in 

 \ < nna. From these guilds town bands devel- 

 oped throughout Germany and Austria. \:\ 

 which the trumpets and kettledrums were 

 reserved only for the nobility. At first these 

 musicians played no written music, in order 

 to make their order seem more secret, but at 

 the close of the seventeenth century their 

 music began to be noted down and its mo- 

 notony was relieved by the introduction of 

 upets tuned in nthor keys. 



In addition to the fife and drum corps which 

 is a popular form of band in America, bands 



