Fairchild to take up his post as high school principal. He was twenty-one and only two years out of high school, yet now he taught pupils who were nearly as old as himself, managed the school, and oversaw teachers who were far older and more experienced than he was.53 Of course, he taught his own classes, so preparation was part of his day. As always, he worked at night for as long as the light and his energy held out. In addition to his myriad duties Herbert prepared himself to enter the University of Wisconsin, where Fred was now a student. Herbert would maintain this demanding schedule for two years, sending Fred whatever money he could spare.
It should come as no surprise that Herbert managed to do all of this work. By then discipline and labor were ingrained in him, but there was more to the principal's job than work. The management of older teachers who must have resented a mere youth as their new chief required sound judgment. Before long one of the teachers began to give him trouble, but he stood firm and eventually forced her to resign.54 “The one who wears the slipper can kick hardest and hurt most,” he observed.55 Despite his youth Herbert was willing to take charge, give orders, and insist that they be carried out. He did not like subordinates who challenged him. In his world, even in little Fairchild, status and authority went hand in glove. For the most part Herbert wore authority lightly, but he wielded it without compunction.
Principals had to deal with superiors as well as subordinates. The state school superintendent, Oliver E. Wells, had to approve the work done at Wisconsin high schools. He also had something to say about who taught summer institutes and was an ex officio member of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents. Wells's win was something of a surprise in the 1890 election that swept him and other Democrats into office.56 Needless to say, getting along with Superintendent Wells was crucial for high school principals. Wells, however, was not well liked by the Bolton brothers. He hoped to revamp the University of Wisconsin to emphasize practical subjects that would better serve the people of Wisconsin, or so he believed. Fred wrote a critical newspaper article about Wells. “Good for you!” wrote brother Herbert. “I endorse your sentiment…exactly.”57
Herbert disliked Wells, but he had to cultivate him while he was in office. When finally he met Wells, Herbert ingratiated himself with pleasantries and good humor. In November 1892 Herbert voted against Wells, but the superintendent won reelection.58 Herbert had little choice but to go along cheerfully with a superintendent whom he happened to despise. This small incident foreshadowed a lifetime of pleasing the men who held authority over him. When in charge, Herbert expected to be obeyed; to his betters, he returned the favor with a smile on his face.
Success at Fairchild High School was important to Herbert, but it was a means to an end. He studied hard for the university and kept asking Fred for advice about his studies. The brothers were dreaming big dreams for farm boys with two-year teaching diplomas. They began to consider the doctorate as the consummation of their educational and social advancement. Herbert drew a figure at the bottom of a letter to Fred. At the left margin a fingerpost pointed to the right, followed by five arrows that ended at “Ph.D.” on the opposite margin. “I will follow in your wake, or break a road for myself,” he told his brother.59
The same letter contained another foreshadowing. Herbert asked Fred about bringing Wisconsin history professor Frederick Jackson Turner to Fairchild for a lecture. There is no reason to suppose that Herbert wanted to study with Turner, but the brothers probably knew enough about him to regard the young history professor as a role model. Turner was also a small-town Wisconsin boy, who was only five years older than Fred and nine years senior to Herbert. If Turner could do it, there was hope for the brothers.
Herbert was beginning to take more than a perfunctory interest in history. With a friend he read Prescott's Conquest of Mexico.60 He selected an assortment of histories for his school and hoped to read them, but feared he had “more good works” than he could “get time to read.”61 The little library included books about Hannibal, Alfred the Great, Peter the Great, William the Conqueror, Rome, and Greece. He also had Parkman's Pontiac, Fiske's history of the American Revolution, and miscellaneous books about U.S. history. This was not a bad little library, considering the state of historical scholarship in 1892. Dipping into it would have given him a broad education in history.
While at Fairchild Herbert found time for romance with a local woman, but she threw him over for someone else. The experience left him wounded and a little discouraged about women. “I would not trust any of them with my heart if I wanted it to remain whole. They would bust it, sure!”62 Fred was probably in no mood for Herbert's dreary philosophy about women and love, for he planned to marry his fiancee after he graduated from Wisconsin in June 1893.63 But Herbert continued with his casually misogynistic ramblings. “It is well for me that there is no danger of female eyes gazing on some of my charges made against their sex,” he wrote; “otherwise I should be doomed to lifelong celibacy.”64
Permanent celibacy was not the sort of life sentence that Gertrude Janes had in mind for Herbert. He had come to respect her educational and professional goals, although in the fall of 1892 he regarded her merely as an old friend. Nevertheless, his respect for Gertrude was growing. When he told someone that Gertrude “ought to be at the U.W.,” his friend replied, “Yes, nice thing—lots of money,” referring to the Janes family's comfortable circumstances. “I suppose that's as far as he sees,” Herbert thought.65 But Herbert now saw Gertrude as someone with serious mental ability, a likely prospect for the state university, where he was headed himself. In the spring of 1893 his feelings for her would deepen.
During the Christmas holiday Herbert went home to his family and likely saw Gertrude. Whatever transpired then, their relationship took a turn in the new year. In early February Gertrude visited Fairchild, and it was not because she was looking for a job. Herbert, who usually wrote long, detailed letters to his brother, resorted to breathless stabs of information. “Janes is here to spend Sat & Sun[.] Dance last night.” It must have been a big night. “Still in the ring, though slightly disfigured,” he told Fred.66 Gertrude had him now and Herbert was a willing captive.
In the fall Herbert went to Madison, while Fred and his new wife, Olive, moved to Kaukauna, Wisconsin, for a principalship at the high school. Once again the brothers traded places, now with Fred gaining practical experience and subsidizing Herbert's education. At last Herbert stood at the door of the institution that he had dreamed about since high school, an institution that he hoped would grant him the keys to the kingdom of professional recognition and social advancement. The professors he met there would change his life.
T W O · A Gathering at Lake Mendota
The University of Wisconsin was less than fifty years old when Herbert Bolton arrived in 1893. The student body of nearly three thousand was small by today's standards, but it had grown rapidly from only five hundred in 1887. Located on College Hill along the shores of Lake Mendota, the university's environs were nothing if not scenic, but its political geography was as important as its physical location. Madison is the state capital, and the state house is within walking distance. Politicos had only to cast their eyes westward to see the fruits of the state's investment in higher education. Most Wisconsinites judged the university approvingly; some thought otherwise.1
The University of Wisconsin was poised to become a great institution of higher learning. Funding from the sale of public lands under the federal Morrill Act had enabled the expansion of faculty, student body, and curriculum. By the 1890s Wisconsin was recognized as one of the emerging progressive centers of higher education.2 Thousands of working-class urbanites, villagers, and farm boys like the Boltons were among the beneficiaries of this magnificent public donation.
Two young professors in the history department when Bolton arrived in 1893 would influence his development as a historian: Frederick Jackson Turner and Charles Homer Haskins. Turner, at age thirty-one, was a rising
