Gertrude Hull

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

Milwaukee West Side high school

Plankinton House Hotel

Hull entered the University of Michigan in 1890 after high school and received a teacher's degree in 1894. She then entered Southern Illinois Normal College and graduated salutatorian with another degree in 1895.[2][3] Her first job was as principal of the high school at Henry, Illinois, in 1895. She worked there for almost two years and then was a history teacher at the high school in Bloomington starting in late 1896 and through the winter of 1897.[4][5][6] Hull then resigned her position and moved to Milwaukee in the summer of 1897 and became a teacher at the West Side high school in the history department.[7]

Hull recalled in a 1942 radio interview that one day MacArthur's mother brought her son, Douglas, to Hull's school to get some quick lessons in 1897. At the time Hull was a lead instructor at the Milwaukee high school, so she became his history tutor and an assistant coach for other subjects.[8][9] She was a key influence in MacArthur's passing 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 away (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 recalled one day that MacArthur worked on one of her specially prepared practice exam questionnaires for over three hours and ultimately turned in a paper that received a 99% grade.[19]

Because of Hull's coaching and special teaching, MacArthur was then so well prepared that he passed the West Point examinations ahead of all others by at least fifteen percent, scoring 93.3% overall.[20] The next highest score of the entries was 77.9 percent.[21] There were 750 points total for the examinations and MacArthur received 700 of them.[22] There were a dozen others that were competing for the congressional cadet-ship appointment to West Point.[23] Because of his preparedness MacArthur was the one selected by Milwaukee congressman Theobald Otjen to receive the honor to be the one selected from his district for entrance to the United States Military Academy.[24][25][26][27]

Hull eventually became the manager of the history department at the Milwaukee West Side high school. She made a career there until 1937, teaching for over 40 years before retiring from the school system.[13] Hull lived on Kilbourn Avenue in Milwaukee during the last half of her life. She died at her home on March 22, 1947, at the age of 80.[13]

Hull was influenced by and admired Alice Freeman Palmer.[5] Hull enjoyed traveling to Europe and Hawaii to learn their cultures and made frequent trips.[4]

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.[4][13]

• Benge, Janet (January 2005). MacArthur: What Greater Honor. YWAM Publishing. ISBN 978-1-932096-15-6.
• Fromkin, David (23 January 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 (June 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. 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 (30 November 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 (11 October 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 (12 May 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 (September 1942). The Society and the State. volume 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.