The Reuben Gold Thwaites Papers include correspondence, speeches and writings, photographs, and some miscellaneous personal material. In addition, there is substantial material about his wife, Jessie Turvill Thwaites; his son and daughter-in-law, Fredrik T. Thwaites and Amy Mueller Thwaites; and his in-laws, the Henry Turvill family of Madison, Wisconsin.
The papers are arranged by name, with Reuben Gold Thwaites' papers followed in alphabetical order by the files of individual members of his family.
The Reuben Gold Thwaites papers include correspondence, writings, notes, interviews, and financial records. The correspondence consists almost entirely of mail handled by Wisconsin Historical Society staff that was originally filed under the designation “personal” in Historical Society official files. However, the letters are not personal in the strict sense, for the largest portion concerns books Thwaites edited or wrote. Historians James Ford Rhodes and Albert Bushnell Hart were frequent correspondents here. (A separately catalogued collection of material gathered by Thwaites for his book on Lewis and Clark contains some correspondence relating to the publication of that volume.) More truly personal correspondence concerns the construction of the Thwaites' Turville Point home (which was designed by architect William Schuchardt) and his land investments with Richard T. Ely in University Heights.
Within the correspondence are letters from Lucius Fairchild, William F. Vilas, Charles Van Hise, Richard T. Ely, Cyrus McCormick Jr., and Ida M. Tarbell. Because of the importance of Thwaites' relationship with Frederick Jackson Turner a list of letters to and from Turner (as well as letters to or from others in which Turner is mentioned) has been appended to this finding aid.
The chronologically arranged writings section is far from complete. It includes, for example, manuscript drafts of only a few of Thwaites' books, although there is a large scrapbook (now available only on microfilm) of reviews and publicity for books published during the period 1888-1901. There is also an extensive file of notes and drafts for his talks and university lectures.
Related to his writing in the “Notes” section of the collection are the notebooks used as the source for his many travel books: Historic Waterways, Our Cycling Tour in England, and Afloat on the Ohio. This section also includes notes Thwaites took as a graduate student at Yale University (1874-1875) in classes with William Graham Sumner and others. Of special interest because of its detail and the long period covered is Thwaites' family account book which he began in 1881 and which was continued after his death by Jessie. About the year 1908 Thwaites began to use the volume as a journal to make brief notations about travel, entertaining, and other personal matters. The other family business papers in the collection pertain to the construction of the house at Turville Point. Included are elevations and blueprints drawn by William Schuchart, specifications, and topographical surveys drawn by Fred Thwaites.
Additional information about Thwaites' family life and travel is recorded in a diary dated 1882-1887. This volume includes printed copies of the newspaper articles Thwaites wrote about his travel during the period and information on some of the first collecting trips that he took in behalf of the Historical Society in 1887.
The collection also includes photographs of views in Colorado, including towns, street scenes, railroads, roads, mountains, snow, hot springs, burros, etc., 1880-1890, which were taken by William Henry Jackson, W.F. Hook, D.B. Chase, Wakely and Clements, and Dennis and Charles Gillingham (PH 780); and views of Leadville, Colorado, 1880-1890, some photographed by William Henry Jackson (PH 810). The images of Leadville, Colorado, show overall views with mountain backgrounds, street scenes, Iron Hill, Carbarate Hill, the Robert E. Lee mine, the Great Smelter, and Evergreen Lake.
Careful recordkeeping was characteristic of other members of Thwaites' family. For example, his father-in-law Henry Turvill, who moved to Madison from Ohio during the early 1850s and who farmed at the location later known as Turville Point in Olin Park, kept a regular diary until his death in 1871. Although the entries are brief, they are legible and relatively descriptive of everyday agricultural life. Also documenting Henry Turvill Sr. are financial account books and ledgers that relate to his truck farming in Ohio as well as his Wisconsin activities. Two of Henry's sons, Henry Jr. and Thomas, are represented by incidental diaries.
Fredrik (or Frederick) Turville (or Turvill) Thwaites (1883-1961), the son of Reuben Gold Thwaites, also kept a regular diary beginning in 1883 and continuing almost until his death. F.T. Thwaites was an acknowledged expert on Wisconsin geology and glaciation, and his diary records both scientific work and domestic life. His correspondence is divided into personal and professional sections, although the personal correspondence also contains some references to his scientific field work. F.T. Thwaites' writings include several early versions of his Outline of Glacial Geology. (Versions issued after 1934 are available in many UW campus libraries.)
The letters from Amy Mueller Thwaites to her husband are more truly personal than his half of the exchange, but because she was a geology student and Geology Department employee prior to their marriage, many of her letters contain interesting information about departmental and scientific matters. Her papers also include a written report of the 1925 field trip to the Rocky Mountains made by students in Geology 139s.
Jessie Inwood Turvill Thwaites (1854-1938) is represented by some fragmentary correspondence, diaries primarily dating from her old age, and some miscellaneous notebooks. Of special interest are materials relating to her rug making, a notebook documenting the History Club founded by Anna Sheldon, a special diary that indicates entertainments attended by the Thwaites and the food served, and some fragmentary references to the charitable work she did during World War I.
Visual materials include negatives and prints from early roll film cameras used by amateur photographers who found them a portable, quick, and simple way to document their activities. In addition, the collection contains studio portraits of relatives as well as a group of photographs by Blanchard Harper documenting the activities of the Thwaites and Turvill families at Lakeside, the Turvill family farm on the southwest shore of Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin.
Appendix A lists the surviving photographs taken by Reuben Gold Thwaites and his immediate family in the years 1891 to 1907. As a historian and author, Thwaites found prints from the early Kodak cameras useful supplements to the notebooks he kept during his family's frequent and extensive travels. From his earliest days in Madison working for the Wisconsin State Journal, Thwaites published accounts of his travels. As head of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, he continued this practice, publishing three books describing his journeys in the United States and Europe. Most photographs in the collection were made during these travels. The remainder document his life in Madison, especially the family and friends who would gather at his in-laws' farm, Lakeside.
