Herbert Eugene Bolton

Herbert Eugene Bolton
Bolton in 1905
Born	(1870-07-20)20 July 1870 Monroe County, Wisconsin, U.S.
Died	30 January 1953(1953-01-30) (aged 82) Berkeley, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Academic, author
Spouse	Gertrude Janes ​ (m. 1895)​
Academic background
Education	University of Wisconsin–Madison (BA) University of Pennsylvania (PhD)
Influences	Frederick Jackson Turner
Academic work
Institutions	Milwaukee State Normal School University of Texas University of California, Berkeley
Notable students	Woodrow Borah, LeRoy R. Hafen, Abraham P. Nasatir, J. Fred Rippy, and Ursula Lamb
Main interests	Spanish-American borderlands
Notable works	Guide to Materials for the History of the United States in the Principal Archives of Mexico New Spain and the Anglo-American West
Notable ideas	Bolton Theory[1]

Herbert Eugene Bolton (July 20, 1870 – January 30, 1953) was an American historian who pioneered the study of the Spanish-American borderlands and was a prominent authority on Spanish American history. He originated what became known as the Bolton Theory of the history of the Americas which holds that it is impossible to study the history of the United States in isolation from the histories of other American nations,^[1] and wrote or co-authored ninety-four works. A student of Frederick Jackson Turner, Bolton disagreed with his mentor's Frontier theory and argued that the history of the Americas is best understood by taking a holistic view and trying to understand the ways that the different colonial and precolonial contexts have interacted to produce the modern United States. The height of his career was spent at the University of California, Berkeley where he served as chair of the history department for twenty-two years and is widely credited with making the renowned Bancroft Library the preeminent research center it is today.^[2]