The business papers of Bolens' manufacturing enterprises cover the period 1903-1944. Included are profit and loss statements, patent agreements, 3 reports of a labor detective, 1919, and general business correspondence of the Gilson Manufacturing Company, manufacturers of gasoline engines, garden tractors, and chair irons. Also present are similar materials for the Bolens-Enders Printing Company and the Plymouth Phonograph Company.
Materials relating to Bolens' political activities include letters and speeches opposing the state income tax in 1912, when he was the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor. Bolens served in the state senate from 1933 to 1940 as a conservative Democrat, and the papers for these years contain information on the coalition of conservative Democrats and Republicans against Philip La Follette's Progressives. Some of Bolens' speeches, several drafts of bills and amendments, and a manuscript of his study of the University of Wisconsin's finances are also included. His opposition to organized labor, a higher corporate tax, and University president Glenn Frank is clearly reflected in the collection. Among his regular correspondents were Congressman M. K. Reilly and Senator F. Ryan Duffy; and there are also occasional letters from Franklin D. Roosevelt, James A. Farley, and Henry A. Wallace.
Photographs show some of the garden implements and other machinery produced by the Gilson Company. There are also portraits related to the extended Bolens family and their friends, circa 1860-1885, and carte-de-visite and tintype portraits of members of the Bolens family as well as members of the Brown, Runkel, and Van Dorn families. Digital prints for the three negatives are available.
