Thomas Francis Parkinson papers, 1950-1985

Thomas Parkinson was a professor of literature at the University of California Berkeley, a poet, political activist, and scholar of William Butler Yeats and the writers and culture of the Beat Generation.

Parkinson was born in San Francisco in 1920. He grew up in the Haight-Ashbury district with his father, a plumber and union leader. His father's political and union activities shaped Parkinson's own political views, and he remained a committed political activist throughout his life.

Parkinson graduated from Lowell High School and attended some courses at a junior college, but left to do odd jobs and a brief stint in the army before returning to the University of California Berkeley. He completed his Bachelor's, and then his PhD at Berkeley and stayed on to teach as faculty member in the English Department. He remained at Berkeley for the entirety of his career as a scholar, and was awarded the University's highest honor, the Berkeley Citation, in 1991.

In addition to his activities as a scholar, Parkinson was a poet who was involved in the art and literary scene in the San Francisco area in the 1950s and 1960s. He was friendly with poets such as Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Robert Duncan, and Allen Ginsberg, and wrote an early academic analysis of beat poetry entitles A Casebook of the Beat in 1961.

Thomas Parkinson died of a heart attack in 1992, survived by his wife, the artist and theatrical designer Ariel Parkinson.