William Watts Folwell: The Autobiography and Letters of a Pioneer Culture was first published in 1933. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original In a three-room farmhouse in Romulus, New York, where a spinning wheel stood by the fireplace and home-dipped candles lighted the long evenings, William Watts Folwell was born on February 14, 1833. His life of ninety-six years spanned the Century of Progress. It was on February 14, 1933, exactly one hundred years from the day of his birth, that the University of Minnesota Press brought out this volume containing Dr. Folwell’s own story of his long life. He traveled in early Victorian Europe, met Browning in Italy and Jakob Grimm in Germany, corresponded with Matthew Arnold, served as an officer in the Civil War, and in 1869 became the first president of the University of Minnesota. From that time until his death in September 1929, he maintained an unflagging interest in the affairs of the university and the state, finishing the four-volume History of Minnesota only a few months before his death.
