Reuben Gold Thwaites was born on May 15, 1853, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, the son of William and Sarah Thwaites. He was educated in the public schools of Massachusetts. After going to Wisconsin in 1866, he worked on a farm, taught school, and put himself through a course of college studies. By 1872, he had joined the staff of the Oshkosh Times, and went to Baltimore to report on the convention which nominated Horace Greeley. Thwaites went to Yale University in 1874 to take graduate courses in history and economics, supporting himself as a newspaper reporter. In 1876, he became managing editor for the Wisconsin State Journal, a position he held for ten years.
Because of the interest Thwaites had taken in the State Historical Society, Lyman C. Draper, then secretary, took him on as assistant secretary and recommended him as secretary when Draper retired in 1886. One of Thwaites' first duties was to enlarge the society's manuscript collection and to make it available to students of the University of Wisconsin. He visited many descendants of the French pioneers and obtained many of their papers. In 1891, the Society inherited the Draper Manuscripts, and Thwaites arranged to have Frederick Jackson Turner and his advanced seminar students do research in this and other manuscript collections. Recognizing the need for more space, Thwaites won support for the idea of a building on the lower campus housing both the Historical Society and the university library.
Feeling the need for a new edition of the Jesuit Relations, Thwaites and his assistants collected and translated them, and from 1896 to 1901, there were published seventy-three volumes of Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents. This work established him as one of the best historical editors of his day. In 1904 and 1905, Thwaites brought out eight volumes of the Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He also edited Hennepin's New Discovery (1903) and Lohantan's New Voyages (1905). There followed Early Western Travels, thirty-two volumes of annotated reprints (1904-1907), and the Draper Series, Documentary History of Dunmore's War (1905); The Revolution on the Upper Ohio (1908); Frontier Defense on the Upper Ohio (1912), all done with Louise P. Kellogg. During this whole period, Thwaites also produced a yearly volume of the Society's Proceedings, and a biennial volume of the Collections, containing source material for the history of the state. In addition to his editorial work and work for the Society, Thwaites authored Father Marquette and Daniel Boone (both in 1902 for the Appleton Life Series); A Brief History of Rocky Mountain Exploration (1904); France in America (1905, for the American Nation series). Earlier he had written The Colonies (1891) for the Epochs of American History Series. Among his works concerning Wisconsin, Wisconsin (1908) is considered the best. Travel and nature books by Thwaites include: Historic Waterways (1888); Our Cycling Tour in England (1892); and Afloat on the Ohio (1897).
Thwaites was an amateur photographer. After his marriage to Jessie Turvill in 1882, he
spent considerable time on the Turvill family farm on the south shore of Lake Monona. Here
he took numerous circular "Kodaks" of the rural landscape and family activities. Using the
camera to document historic routes and sites, he left a visual account to supplement his
writings.
Thwaites was also in great demand as a lecturer. He had additional administrative duties as president of the American Library Association, and he also served as an officer in the American Historical Association. On October 22, 1913, Thwaites died of heart failure after only a few days' illness. He was survived by his wife and his son, Fredrik T. Thwaites.
