William Watts Folwell (February 14, 1833 – September 17, 1929) was an educator, writer and historian who was the first president of the University of Minnesota.
After the Civil War, Folwell briefly engaged in business pursuits in Ohio and accepted a position as the chair of mathematics at Kenyon College, Ohio for a year. In 1869, he became the University of Minnesota's first president. When he first assumed the presidency, the university consisted of just eight faculty members and 100 students in a single building. He laid out an ambitious plan for the university to expand beyond traditional undergraduate education to include postgraduate education and professional programs as well as cultural facilities such as museums and libraries. Folwell's plans caused some tension with more traditional faculty, leading to resignations in 1879 and an amicable end to his presidency in 1884. Folwell continued to serve the university as the chair of the school's political science department and as the university's librarian until 1907. After retiring the University named a new building Folwell Hall in his honor.[1][2][3][4]
Folwell was also a major advocate for parks in Minneapolis, serving on the city's park board from 1889 to 1907 and as the board's president from 1895 to 1903. He supported Horace Cleveland's vision of a network of parks crossing the city and also suggested the term "Grand Rounds" to describe it. Today the Folwell, Minneapolis neighborhood and Folwell Park within it are named for him[5][6] as was William Watts Folwell Junior High (later Middle) School, a south Minneapolis public school that was open from 1931 to 2010 (converted to the current Folwell Performing Arts, a public pre-K through 8 facility).
Folwell was president of the Minnesota Historical Society from 1924 to 1927. His comprehensive four-volume "A History of Minnesota," first published in the 1920s, was still in print from the Minnesota Historical Society Press a century later.[7]
Folwell, William Watts; Buck, Solon J. (1933). William Watts Folwell; The Autobiography and Letters of a Pioneer of Culture. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press. OCLC2287639.
Papers
Two collections of William Watts Folwell's papers are available for research use at the University Archives, University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. They include correspondence, civil war letters, genealogical correspondence, manuscripts by Folwell, newspaper clippings, and diaries by Folwell.[8][9]
