McMaster began writing the History of the American People as a diversion from teaching Princeton boys the art of surveying. He intended his multivolume work to be a story about ordinary people that was entirely unlike the accounts of political affairs that dominated historical writing at that time. When the first volume appeared in 1883, it became an instant best seller. Almost overnight McMaster had become one of the nation's leading historians. Two months after his book appeared, a representative from Penn offered McMaster a new chair in American history.64
McMaster's enthusiasm for Penn was matched with a deep hatred of Princeton. He detested teaching the surveying courses, and was certain that he would never be promoted or allowed to teach history at Presbyterian Princeton, because he was not a church member. Thus, when he headed for Pennsylvania, McMaster penned in his diary, “Left Princeton, Thank god forever.”65
Bolton found that McMaster was a very different sort of teacher than Turner or Haskins. McMaster was a poor lecturer and inattentive mentor. Although he demanded much from his graduate students, his mentoring style is best described as benign neglect.66 but McMaster had connections and used them to benefit his students. He arranged for Bolton to attend a dinner for Herbert M. Friedenwald, superintendent of manuscripts in the Library of Congress and formerly McMaster's doctoral student. “The party was very select, only the club and three history Fellows,” but it was costly at $1.50 per plate.67 Bolton bore the expense so that he could make the connection with Friedenwald. To Herbert, fresh from the western provinces, Penn must have seemed the center of a social and scholarly world he had only dreamed of in Wisconsin.
Brother Fred had also moved east, to Worcester, Massachusetts, where he won a fellowship at Clark University. The Clark faculty had already accepted the thesis he had written in Germany for a doctorate in psychology, although he had yet to pass his exams.68 Fred was developing a specialty in educational psychology. He soon arranged to publish his thesis as a book and began submitting articles to professional journals. Once again, Fred proved to be Herbert's role model.
By the end of October Herbert had decided on a thesis subject, the “status of negro as a slave in 1860; changes effected in his status by emancipation, reconstruction, and the attempts of the south to make these laws inoperative.” This was his general plan, “but think a doctors thesis may be written on the first chapter.”69 His interest in slavery seems to have developed over a period of a year or so. He began studying slavery intensively in 1896 before returning to Madison for graduate work with Turner.70 Within weeks he could report that he had already written the first few pages of his thesis after going through “at least 100 vols of state statutes and digests,” demonstrating the prodigious capacity for primary source investigation that would distinguish Bolton's career ever after.71 By the end of the fall term he had written forty pages for McMaster's seminar and hoped to finish the dissertation in six months.72
Thesis writing did not go as smoothly as Herbert had hoped. In late December the meeting of the Federation of Graduate Clubs in Chicago took a week out of his crowded schedule.73 Family life had its satisfactions, but “you know the difficulties of studying with small babes in small quarters,” he groused to Fred. Gertrude was nearly worn out. She had been reduced “to a mere nurse and kitchen maid,” he said. To make matters worse, Herbert caught a winter cold. On top of all those distractions he had to write “reports—reports—reports” for every graduate seminar, which were “fatal to thesis work.”74
In February 1898 the explosion of the USS Maine in Havana harbor added the prospect of war with Spain to Herbert's list of distractions. The catastrophe was widely believed to be an act of Spanish sabotage, and war fever was at a high pitch. One week after the explosion President McKinley tried to cool public passions against Spain with a temperate speech to a huge crowd at the University of Pennsylvania. Herbert may have been at the event; he sent the program to his brother without comment.75
Herbert was “no jingo,” he told Fred. Nevertheless, he concluded that the united States was “not to be wholly condemned for interfering in Cuban affairs,” citing “disorder at our doors,” “un-Christian barbarities,” and the “Commercial interests of the united States.” Herbert thought that the United States would ultimately prevail if war came and that Spain should lose its last colonial possessions as a result. Current events compelled him to take a historical view of Spanish America, perhaps for the first time in his career. “At the opening of the century [Spain] was in possession of the whole American continent from the headwaters of the Missouri to Terra [sic] del Fuego.” But now “most of her possessions have been lost by revolution, all by incompetency.”76 No one could accuse Herbert of Hispanophilia in 1898.
Bolton's ruminations about the Spanish Empire show a distinct lack of interest in what would become his chief field of study. He emphasized his disinterest in things Spanish when he speculated about “learning a language (Not Spanish)” and preferred picking up Italian so that he could master Renaissance history.77 The days when he would defend Spanish civilization still lay far in the future.
Herbert's opinions about the war and Spain were influenced by McMaster, who thought the sinking of the Maine reason enough to go to war. McMaster's newspaper and magazine articles and speeches were widely publicized. Territorial expansion had been a good thing for the United States in the past, he analogized, and it would be a good thing now. McMaster thought that war would stimulate patriotism and might quiet social discontent in the United States, a position that eventually helped to convince historian Charles beard to conclude that the Spanish-American War was launched to quell domestic unrest. McMaster gave visual reinforcement to his bellicose ideas by decorating his office with Frederick Remington's “savage paintings,” as McMaster's biographer styled them.78
McMaster's choice of art and his high-blooded rhetoric must have impressed Herbert. His prominence as a public intellectual was impossible to miss. Politicos who found academic support for their views deeply appreciated McMaster. As Henry Cabot Lodge said, McMaster's ideas about expansion and the war were significant because he spoke “with the authority of an historian.”79 At Penn Bolton found a new model for professional success: a professor of history who wrote for popular audiences about the historical origins of the important issues of the day.
By the end of the school year Bolton's dissertation was not finished but Penn had renewed his fellowship. Bolton's work pleased McMaster, so one more year of effort would bring the degree if all went well. Fred's success brought renewed encouragement. He passed his examinations and secured the doctorate. Then came the perfect culmination of events when Wisconsin Normal in Milwaukee hired Fred. This justified everything that the Boltons had invested in higher education. If anyone doubted their wisdom, they had only to consider the esteemed professor, Dr. Frederick Bolton, the published scholar who lectured in Milwaukee. “I shall be glad when I have accomplished as much,” Herbert averred, and who could doubt his sincerity?80
With another summer behind him and Fred's gleaming success before him, Bolton plunged back into his work at Penn. Hoping to alleviate the distraction of having a toddler in the house, he rented a three-room, third-floor flat with a living room that was arranged as a study for Herbert. “Herbert is so nicely shut off from us that he is quite certain that he will be able to accomplish a good deal,” Gertrude wrote.81
It was time to finish the