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=                           Solon_J._Buck                            =
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                            Introduction
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Solon Justus Buck (August 16, 1884 - May 25, 1962) was the Second
Archivist of the United States.

His academic career, never straying very far from his interest in the
history of agricultural communities, started with a brief appointment
to Indiana University followed by two years at the University of
Illinois, which he left for the University of Minnesota in 1914,
becoming also superintendent of the Minnesota State Historical
Society. During his long tenure in Minnesota he fought hard for the
state's history, helping organize county historical societies,
founding a quarterly periodical, and moving the Historical Society
from the basement of the State Capitol to its own building.

In 1931, Buck was appointed professor of history at the University of
Pittsburgh, and when the U. S. National Archives were established in
1935 he was tapped to be Assistant Director, then in 1941 the second
Archivist of the United States. In 1948, he joined the Library of
Congress as chief of the Manuscript Division, then as Assistant
Librarian until his retirement in 1954. He also served as the seventh
president of the Society of American Archivists, from 1949 to 1951.

As might be expected from such a career, Buck's gifts lay in
organization, with a particular talent for bibliography; he became an
international authority in archival economy. His obituary in the
'American Historical Review' says of him: "He was a perfectionist with
an infinite mastery of detail. He held all his associates to his own
high standards of perfection. He was merciless on incompetents, but
held the respect of those who worked with him."

His works include 'Illinois in 1818', a sort of preamble to the
Illinois Centennial History series; 'The Granger Movement, Travel and
Description 1765‑1865' (Ph. D. thesis, Harvard, 1911), which at his
death was still considered the classic treatment of the subject; 'The
Agrarian Crusade' (1919); and, with his wife Elizabeth Hawthorne Buck,
'The Planting of Civilization in Western Pennsylvania' (1939).

He married Elizabeth Hawthorn on June 20, 1919. They had three
children: Roger Conant, Mary Margaret, and Stephen Farrington.

He had been in poor health the last few years of his life, and he died
soon after a fall in which he broke his hip, in Washington, D.C.


                             References
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* 'Incorporates text from Bill Thayer's site, by permission.'


                           External links
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* [https://www.archives.gov/about/history/archivists/ Archivists of
the United States, 1934 - Present]
* [http://lccn.loc.gov/mm77014274 Solon J. Buck papers] at the Library
of Congress
* [http://www.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00794.pdf Solon J. Buck
papers] at the Minnesota State Historical Society
*
*
*
[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/America/United_States/Illinois/_Texts/Centennial_History/Illinois_in_1818/home.html
'Illinois in 1818'] (on Thayer's American & Military History site)


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