Mildred Throne

Background

Mildred was born on October 31, 1902, in Ottumwa, Iowa, United States.

Education

Mildred graduated from high school in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. In 1934 she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and then worked at a Chicago business, McDonald-Miller, Inc.

Throne’s graduate work at the State University of Iowa began in 1942. In 1946 she earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree with a dissertation on agriculture in southern Iowa, 1833–1880.

Career

Mildred was an editorial assistant to Louis Pelzer, editor of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review. From 1946 to 1948 she taught U.S. and European history at Washburn Municipal University in Topeka, Kansas. In the fall of 1948 William J. Petersen, superintendent of the State Historical Society of Iowa in Iowa City hired Throne. As associate editor of the Iowa Journal of History, Throne routinely prepared primary documents for publication, often one per issue. This fit with Petersen’s intent both to share SHSI collections with readers and researchers and to build the collections through donations of diaries and letters.

Most of the primary sources Throne edited were related to the Civil War. Aware that historians were awash in such diaries, she also understood their appeal. After finishing “The Civil War Diary of Cyrus F. Boyd, Fifteenth Iowa Infantry, 1861-1863”, she confessed, “I’m about fed up with the Civil War for a while.” But in a few years, she wrote her own article on the Battle of Shiloh, a “sort of a trial run” for a book she hoped to write on Iowa and the Civil War.

Throne contributed articles to the Palimpsest magazine, as well as to the IJH, and handled reference queries. Petersen wrote, “Scores of graduate students...were shuttled to her desk by their American history professors” for research topics and help in SHSI collections. Her correspondence reveals her ongoing solicitation of manuscripts. “Editing a state quarterly is quite a chore-not in deciding which article to use, but how to get good articles...Therefore, I am always on the prowl.” She encouraged planners of national history conferences to avoid “dreary” and “antiquarian” papers or “those puny monographic things,” and to instead invite papers by established historians who would inspire young historians. A passionate and avid reader, she owned a “well-rounded personal American history library”, although she was also a longtime subscriber to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

Throne’s own scholarship centered on mid-19th-century agricultural history, the Grange, and Iowa Governor Cyrus Clay Carpenter. While preparing for publication of political biographies by Leland Sage, on William Boyd Allison, and Thomas R. Ross, on Jonathan Prentiss Dolliver, she also completed her own on Carpenter. But the book-length manuscript stayed on the back burner. After seeing the Allison biography into print, she confided, “Possibly within a few months I can finish (Carpenter) off. Poor old chap has been sadly neglected, what with the Journal every four months, and the Allison book, which took lots of time, and other little side duties.” Two years later: “It looks like my old governor is finally going to get into print...I’ll be glad to get him off my hands.” In October 1959 the Carpenter biography was “ready, whenever we get the time.”

The next June Throne fell ill and was hospitalized for a month-reading galley proof from her hospital bed. She died in July at age 57. Agricultural historian Allan Bogue presided at her memorial service in Iowa City. She was buried in Ottumwa. The IJH floundered without Mildred, only three issues followed. Petersen asserted that qualified applicants would reject the low salary and that his own time was filled with directing SHSI and editing the Palimpsest. In mid-1961, after six decades, the well-reputed journal died, in one observer’s words, “for the want of an editor.”

In 1974, fourteen years after Throne died, SHSI published Cyrus Clay Carpenter and Iowa Politics, 1854-1898. In the preface, historian Philip D. Jordan wrote, “The biography exemplifies Mildred Throne’s historical talents-the scholarship is sound, Carpenter’s career and contributions are balanced, the writing is deft.”

Achievements

• In 1988 the State Historical Society of Iowa established the Throne, Aldrich Award. Named to honor her, and Charles Aldrich, longtime editor of the Annals of Iowa, the award annually recognizes the best articles on Iowa history.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Iowa Journal of History 1951
  • The Civil War Diary of Cyrus F. Boyd 1896
  • Iowa Journal of History 1952

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• In its introduction, Peter Harstad, SHSI’s new director, wrote that Throne “used the life of C. C. Carpenter as the framework for analyzing Iowa politics, particularly the intricacies of the Republican Party, during a complicated period.”

References

• The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa Iowa has been blessed with citizens of strong character who have made invaluable contributions to the state and to the nation. In the 1930s alone, such towering figures as John L. Lewis, Henry A. Wallace, and Herbert Hoover hugely influenced the nation’s affairs.
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