Background
Reuben Thwaites was born on May 15, 1853, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, United States, into the family of William George and Sarah (Bibbs) Thwaites. His parents had moved to Dorchester in 1850 from Yorkshire, England.
Reuben Thwaites was born on May 15, 1853, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, United States, into the family of William George and Sarah (Bibbs) Thwaites. His parents had moved to Dorchester in 1850 from Yorkshire, England.
Reuben studied college-level coursework in Omro, Wisconsin. In 1874 - 1875 he studied English Literature, Economic History and International Law at Yale University. Thwaites studied at Yale as a special student, and beyond that never formerly studied at the collegiate level.
From 1876 to 1886, Thwaites was managing editor of the Wisconsin State Journal, at Madison. After that Reuben Gold Thwaites worked for a generation as secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, taking over that post in 1886 from the esteemed Lyman C. Draper. During his tenure at the Historical Society, Thwaites changed it from a relatively small collection of antiquarian papers intended for the reading pleasure of an intellectual elite, to “an instrument for public education” whose “varied resources” were to be used by the public at large.
Active in civic educational affairs during a progressive period of American, and especially Wisconsin, history, Thwaites helped oversee a historically important, and still enduring, union between the State Historical Society of Wisconsin and another great state-supported institution, the University of Wisconsin. These two mutually assisting institutions still share space on the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison. As secretary of the Historical Society, Thwaites hired a staff which by the end of his lifetime, in 1913, numbered forty-one professionals plus three students and a staff of caretakers. His aggressive acquisitions policy — the Historical Society acquired some 6,900 volumes per year under his leadership — enlarged the Society’s collection to more than 350,000 volumes, tripling its 1887 holdings.
Through his work for the American Historical Association, Thwaites was largely responsible for the establishment of a number of historical organizations, including the Conference of American Archivists, later known as the Society of American Archivists, and the Conference of Historical Societies, later known as the American Association for State and Local History. His educational work for the state of Wisconsin was equally admirable.
Thwaites was a founder of the Wisconsin Library Association and of various local library associations, and of Wisconsin’s Free Library Commission, which encouraged the growth of public libraries in that state. He was actively involved in erecting markers at Wisconsin historical sites and in restoring the state capitol building, which is still considered one of the finest state capitols in the United States. He lectured in American history at the University of Wisconsin, and spoke before audiences at local schools. As historian and editor of historical materials, Thwaites produced some work that it still available and of historiographic interest.
Thwaites strongly believed in “the perfectibility of man through broad-based public education.”
Thwaites was a man of enormous energy who “demanded much of his staff”, but also one of great personal charm. He made friends easily and treated his workers like members of a family.
Physical Characteristics: Thwaites stood five feet seven inches, slightly round of figure and wore rimless eyeglasses and a cheerful expression.
In 1882 Reuben married Jessie Inwood Turville, with whom he had a son Frederick.