Central Catholic High School

Tim Tomlinson ’51 will be one of the many scholars presenting a paper at the Bread and Roses Centennial Academic Symposium, April 28, 2012, sponsored by the Lawrence History Center, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike. His paper, A Strike for Ten Loaves of Bread, was written 50 years ago, when he was a graduate student at Harvard University and a Master’s candidate at Boston University.

Tomlinson grew up in Lawrence, attending St. Rita’s Grammar School, St. Augustine’s (Andover), and graduating from St. Patrick’s Grammar School (1947). He graduated from Central Catholic High School in 1951 and Bridgewater State Teachers College (now Bridgewater State University) in 1955. He holds an A.M. in American Social History from Boston University and was a John Hay Fellow in history and the Humanities at Harvard University. He is a Fellow emeritus of the Social Science Education Consortium and the Mexican Academy of Traditional Medicine and Folklore, which awarded him the Martin de la Cruz Medal.

“When I was completing the paper, my mother told me she was one of the young marchers in the For God and Country parade on Columbus Day, 1912. It was twelve days before her twelfth birthday. She was a little fuzzy on why she was a marcher that day, but recalled the excitement of the event. I remember the hours and days I spent in the Lawrence Public Library, located on the corner of Haverhill and Hampshire streets, poring over newspaper articles and other first-hand documents. There were not a lot of books written yet about the strike. Even back then I found the Strike fascinating, which might explain why I still have a copy of a paper I wrote 50 years ago. I’ve done a lot of reading about the strike over the past several months, material not available to me long ago. I am pleased to think my paper and its observations have held up over time”

Tomlinson’s interest in history has continued over the years. He was the author of a number of elementary school social studies books in the 1970s when he was on the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis. He retired in 1996 as the Associate Director of the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania, a 175-acre site on the National Register of Historic Places. He lives now in an historic Chautauqua community near Elsah, Illinois. He is President of Historic Elsah Foundation, and founder and editor of the Chautauqua Historical Society Newsletter. His most recent book, The Western Chautauqua, was published in 2010. Fellow alumni and friends can learn more at www.thewesternchautauqua.com or by contacting Tomlinson at trt1933@aol.com.