21. The final Bolton residence on Buena Vista
22. The Boltons’ living room
23. Bolton in the 1940s, working in the Bancroft with his assistants Virginia Thickens and Margaret Walker
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This project began on the patio outside the snack bar at the Huntington Library in the summer of 1987. Wilbur Jacobs, my doctoral advisor, asked me if I would like to be part of an OAH roundtable on Frederick Jackson Turner that Robert E. Smith was organizing. I allowed that I did not know much about Turner but that I would like to do something on one of Turner's students, Herbert Bolton. I suggested a paper on Bolton's ethnocentric view of history, which I would contrast with Turner's ideas. Wilbur and Bob agreed. I thank them for setting me on this accidental journey.
I have worked on this project off and on ever since my first foray into the Bolton Papers at the Bancroft Library in 1987. Along the way I accumulated the usual personal and professional debts that I acknowledge here with gratitude. The National Endowment for the Humanities funded a summer seminar on the Spanish Borderlands that David J. Weber convened in 1986. Arizona State University provided a series of grants that funded research at the National Archives and the Bancroft and Huntington Libraries between 1987 and 1998. Since that time the endowment of the Paul H. and Doris Eaton Travis Chair, which I hold at the university of Oklahoma, has generously provided research and travel funds.
The bulk of the research was done at the Bancroft Library. The Bancroft staff has been unfailingly helpful and supportive of me and this project for the more than twenty years that I have been going to and fro. My old friend Walter Brem's knowledge about Bolton, Berkeley, and the Bancroft Library added immeasurably to the pleasure and joy of researching this book as well as to its substance. Theresa Salazar arranged for me to see Bolton's famous classroom maps and has helped in other ways. Bancroft director Charles Faulhaber gave me the opportunity to present a paper on Bolton at the celebration of the library's 150th anniversary.
I am grateful to several of Bolton's grandchildren for their assistance. Robert Brower offered help, but sadly, did not live to see the book completed. Steven Johnson gave me his sketch of Bolton and other materials. Thomas Johnson reminisced about Bolton when Johnson was a student at Berkeley and about other matters relating to the Bolton family. Gale Randall graciously invited me into her home and shared photographs and memories of her grandfather. She also provided copies of family letters and other helpful information.
A host of colleagues and friends have suffered through my telling of hundreds of gossipy tales about Bolton back in the day. Some of them were actually interested, or kindly pretended that they were. My friend and mentor Kenneth N. Owens heard my first seminar presentation on Bolton in 1974, when I was a master's student. Consider this book my final response to the criticism you offered then. Sorry it's late. At Arizona State University my friend Peter Iverson encouraged me to write this book. He also arranged for me to interview his mother, who was a student at Berkeley in Bolton's time. David A. Hollinger helped me with a few details about the history department after Bolton's time and sent me History at Berkeley: A Dialog in Three Parts, which he coauthored with George A. Bruckern and Henry F. May.
Several of Bolton's graduate students have shared their reminiscences with me. Donald Cutter, Woodrow Borah, Engel Sluiter, and Earl Pomeroy were especially helpful. Edward Von der Porten and Robert J. Chandler were kind enough to read the chapter on the Drake Plate. My university of Oklahoma colleague Donald J. Pisani, who happens to be the son-in-law of Bolton student Engel Sluiter, arranged for me to meet with him. Don is also a Cal alum with a lively interest in his alma mater. Consequently he has been a willing and informative conversationalist about all things Berkeley and Bolton.
My friend and student William Carter sent me the Alfred Barnaby Thomas—Bolton correspondence from the university of Texas Pan American Library. Fellow Bolton scholar Russell Magnaghi generously sent me Bolton materials gleaned from the Georgia State Archives. Martin Ridge and Steven Hackel invited me to present papers about Bolton at the Huntington Library that helped me to sharpen my arguments.
David Wrobel and two anonymous readers carefully read the first draft of this book and made helpful suggestions. Thanks to them, the book is more succinct and readable. My graduate assistants David Beyreis, Matt Pearce, John Rhea, and Ryan Sturdevant helped me to prepare the final version of the manuscript. Jean Barman, Rose Marie Beebe, Iris Engstrand, Richard Etulain, Pamela Herr, Paul Hutton, W. Turrentine Jackson, William P. MacKinnon, and Samuel Truett have helped along the way. Steven Baker's copyediting of the manuscript added precision and polish to the finished product.
And as always, my wife, Jean, has been a willing listener and a knowing critic. Without her, where would I be?
By 2007 I had finished almost all of the research for this book and was ready to write. Then came an unexpected gift. Robert C. “Roy” Ritchie, W. M. Keck Foundation Director of Research at the Huntington Library, offered me the one- year Los Angeles Times Distinguished Fellowship in American History. So I crated up eight file drawers of documents, notes, and my computer database and hauled them to San Marino. I conceived of the fellowship as an opportunity to write without distractions, and so it was. I had already reviewed the correspondence between Turner and Bolton held by the Huntington, but the collections there proved to be far more helpful after I looked more deeply into them. The Frederick Jackson Turner Collection, Max Farrand Papers, and the Institutional Archives provided important new information not available anywhere else. Because of the Times fellowship the book is significantly different than it would have been otherwise. At the Huntington, Peter Blodgett helped me in myriad ways with his incomparable knowledge of the collections. While I did not quite finish the manuscript at the Huntington, most of the first draft was written there. It is fitting that the book ended more or less where it began, under the spreading trees of that most wonderful place for scholars. Thank you, Roy.
This book is dedicated to David J. Weber. More than any other historian David deserves credit for revitalizing the Spanish Borderlands as a respected field of study. Over the years he helped me and many others to achieve our professional dreams while building his own superlative record of scholarly achievement. I had hoped that this book would be in print before he died, but it was not to be. In his last few months of life I sent him some bits and pieces that I thought he would enjoy, and I trust that he did. David personified the scholar's life well lived. I hope this book is a fitting tribute.
A NOTE ON LANGUAGE
In most cases I have used the words that Bolton and his peers used. Their language included sometimes objectionable racial slurs, although these words and phrases are rare in Bolton's voluminous correspondence. I have quoted them in order to reveal as much about him and his views as possible.
I have used the terms “Anglo” and “Anglo-American,” although these categories are usually not accurate representations of actual ethnic identities. Anglophone would perhaps be a more accurate way to describe the mass of non-Hispanic white people. In Bolton's time “Anglo” was often used as an ethnic identifier. There was a Crocker Anglo National bank (where my parents had an account), as well as a Hibernia bank. The bank of America, as all Californians know, got its start as the bank of Italy. I use the term “Anglo” because in the American West it is commonly understood as a means to distinguish Hispanic from non-Hispanic people; it should not be understood to indicate a precise ethnic identity.
I sometimes use the terms “America” and “Americans” to refer to the united States and its citizens. Bolton must be spinning in his grave. He strenuously argued that everyone who lived in the Western Hemisphere was an American. Indeed they are, but it is awkward to use the phrase “United States citizens,” so I have used the commonly accepted “American” instead.
For the sake of variety and to avoid the repeated use of cumbersome institutional names (Leland Stanford Junior university, for example), I often use shortened names of universities or their common nicknames. “Cal” and “berkeley” are used interchangeably. When unpunctuated initials (UCLA and USC) are commonly understood, I have used them. Readers