Gertrude Hull

Gertrude Hull was born in Bloomington, Illinois, on November 16, 1866. Her parents were John Hull and Mary Hull. She had a sister named Bertha, was four years younger than Gertrude. In 1875, Gertrude's family moved to Carbondale, Illinois, where she grew up and attended public school. Her father was then a mathematic's professor at Southern Illinois Normal College and became its president in 1892.[1]

Milwaukee West Side high school

Plankinton House Hotel

Hull enrolled at the University of Michigan in 1890 and received a teacher's degree in 1894. In a survey of female students of the university on the alumni they were most influenced by and admired, Hull responded it was Alice Freeman Palmer.[2] She then entered Southern Illinois Normal College and graduated salutatorian with another degree in 1895.[3][4] Hull's first job was as principal of the high school at Henry, Illinois, in 1895, where she worked for almost two years. From late 1896 to the winter of 1897, she worked as a history teacher at the high school in Bloomington.[5][2][6] In mid-1897, Hull resigned her position, moved to Milwaukee and became a teacher in the history department of West Side High School.[7]

Hull said in a 1942 radio interview that one day in 1897, Douglas MacArthur's mother took him to Hull's school to get some quick lessons. At the time Hull was a lead instructor at the school and she became MacArthur's history tutor and an assistant coach in other subjects.[8][9] She was a key influence in MacArthur's passing of the West Point entrance examination because of the lesson preparations she did.[10][11][12][13]

MacArthur and his mother were then living at the exclusive Plankinton House Hotel to establish a temporary residence in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.[14][15][16] It was two miles (3.2 km) from the high school and MacArthur had to walk the distance each school day for several months while being tutored by Hull.[8][16][17][18] She said MacArthur one day worked on one of her specially prepared practice exam questionnaires for over three hours and later submitted a paper that received a 99% grade.[19]

Because of Hull's coaching and special teaching, MacArthur passed the West Point examinations ahead of all others by at least fifteen percent, scoring 93.3% overall.[20] He received 700 of 750 total points on the examinations.[21] MacArthur competed against twelve other students for the congressional cadet-ship appointment to West Point;[22] Because of his preparedness, Milwaukee congressman Theobald Otjen selected MacArthur for entrance to the United States Military Academy.[23][24][25][26]

Hull later became the manager of the history department of Milwaukee West Side High School, where she worked until 1937, teaching for over 40 years before retiring from the school system.[13] Hull lived on Kilbourn Avenue, Milwaukee, during the last half of her life. She died at her home on March 22, 1947, at the age of 80.[13] The Michigan Almunus of University of Michigan noted that Hull enjoyed traveling to Europe and Hawaii to learn their cultures, and made frequent trips.[5]

Hull was a president of the Illinois College Women's Club and a secretary of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants. She was also a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Woman's Club of Wisconsin, The National Society of the Colonial Dames of America, Society of the Founders and Patriots of America, and the sorority Kappa Alpha Theta.[5][13]

• Benge, Janet (2005). MacArthur: What Greater Honor. YWAM Publishing. ISBN 978-1-932096-15-6.
• Fromkin, David (2013). Time of Americans. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-76606-9.
• Haugen, Brenda (2006). Douglas MacArthur: America's General. Compass Point Books. ISBN 978-0-7565-0994-1.
• Herman, Arthur (2016). Douglas MacArthur: American Warrior. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8129-9488-9. In addition to his own course of reading under his mother's care, Douglas attended classes at Milwaukee's West Side High School to brush up on history, mathematics, English, and other topics covered in the exam, while the school's principal and its most popular history teacher, Miss Gertrude Hull, agreed to tutor the eighteen-year-old on whatever subjects posed the most difficult challenges.
• James, Dorris Clayton (1970). The Years of MacArthur: 1880–1941. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 9780395109489. p 63 = He also received special tutoring from the popular principle Mac McLanagan and from Miss Gertrude Hull, a young, vivacious instructor of history at West Side who had just graduated from the University of Michigan. p 66 = When the results of the examinations were announced in June, 1898, MacArthur received the congressional appointment, having scored 93.3 on the test, sixteen points ahead of the next competitor.
• Jones, Meg (2015). World War II Milwaukee. Arcadia Publishing Incorporated. ISBN 978-1-62585-541-1.
• Kamuchey, Thelma (2010). Tales of Milwaukee's Eastside. AuthorHouse. ISBN 978-1-4490-6759-5.
• Macarthur, Douglas (2012). Reminiscences. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-61251-173-3.
• MCHS (1989). Milwaukee History. Milwaukee County Historical Society. Gertrude Hull (whose chief distinction lay in preparing Douglas MacArthur for his West Point qualifying exams)
• Manchester, William (2008). Douglas MacArthur 1880–1964. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-316-03242-1.
• UM (1946). The Michigan Alumnus. University of Michigan Libraries. UOM:39015071120854. She coached General MacArthur for his entrance examinations to West Point, and she carried on a large correspondence with her formal pupils, many now prominent citizens.
• Wisconsin Magazine, of History (1942). The Society and the State. Vol. 26, No.1 (pages 117–118). Wisconsin Historical Society. Miss Gertrude Hull of Milwaukee contributes other interesting details relating to the present General MacArthur. She was asked to prepare the examination questions in United States history for him when he was preparing for West Point.