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IN MEMORIAM
HERBERT E. BOLTON
Herbert Eugene Bolton, retired professor
of history and a major pioneer in Spanish borderlands studies, died
on January 30, 1953. He was 82.
Professor Bolton was born on July 20,
1870, in Wilton, Wisconsin. He received a bachelor's degree from the
University of Wisconsin in 1895. He was awarded a PhD from the University
of Pennsylvania in 1899. He was a Harrison Fellow while at Pennsylvania.
Professor Bolton taught at Milwaukee
State Normal School from 1899 to 1901. He joined the faculty of The
University of Texas at Austin in 1901, remaining until 1909, when he
accepted a position at Stanford University. He later taught at the University
of California at Berkeley, retiring from that institution in 1940.
Professor Bolton began his pioneering
work on the Spanish Borderlands—an area that begins in Florida
and extends along a "crescent shaped" land mass between Georgia and
California—while a professor at UT Austin. Starting in 1902, he
undertook several research trips to Mexico to examine archival materials
relating to the United States. In 1913, under the sponsorship of the
Carnegie Institute, he published a report on the availability of research
sources on American history in Mexico, "Guide to Materials for the History
of the United States in the Principal Archives of Mexico." While at
UT Austin, he also served as associate editor of the Quarterly of
the Texas State Historical Association (later the Southwestern
Historical Quarterly).
His first significant publication was
a textbook coauthored with Eugene C. Barker, With the Makers of Texas:
A Source Reader in Texas History (1904). After studying the history
of native peoples in Texas for the United States Bureau of Ethnology,
he wrote more than 100 articles for the Handbook of American Indians
North of Mexico. He continued to publish works about Texas after
he left the region for California. Among these were Athanase de Mézières
and the Louisiana-Texas Frontier, 1768-1780 (1914) and Texas
in the Middle Eighteenth Century: Studies in Spanish Colonial History
and Administration (1915). Professor Bolton's research resulted
in nearly 100 works, including approximately 24 books he either wrote
or edited.
He was offered the presidency of the
University in 1914 but declined it. He remained at the University of
California at Berkeley for the rest of his career, developing the case
for studying United States history in the context of both American continents.
Professor Bolton was president of the
American Historical Association in 1932. His presidential inaugural
speech to the group—"The Epic of Greater America"—reflected
his thesis for the study of American history.
<signed>
John R. Durbin, Secretary
The General Faculty
Biographical sketch prepared by Teresa
Palomo Acosta and posted on the Faculty Council web site on January
18, 2001. Additional biographical sources can be found in the Barker
Texas History Center and the New
Handbook of Texas, Texas State Historical Association, 1996.
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