Misplaced Pages

Carol Jackson Robinson

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

Carol Jackson Robinson (5 May 1911 - 23 August 2002) was a Catholic writer, editor, and public speaker. She often published under the pseudonym Peter Michaels.

Childhood and Education

She was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and grew up in West Redding, Connecticut. Her father had been general counsel to the American Gas Association. Carol Jackson attended Wellesley College, became an atheist, and interrupted her studies for a few years before graduating in 1937. She converted to Roman Catholicism in 1941. She held a doctorate in philosophy from Fordham University.

She married in 1956. Later in life, she joined the traditionalist congregation of the Society of St. Pius X in 1990. In 1975, she won the "Wanderer Award" for her work in promoting the work of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Speaker and Writer

Carol Jackson wrote for The Torch, where she met fellow author Ed Willock. Together, they founded Integrity magazine in October, 1946. Over the course of the next ten years, the magazine was a forum for young Catholic writers. Jackson worked for the magazine until 1952. Thomas Merton, later a widely-read Trappist monk, published several articles in Integrity. The Dominican friar James Mark Egan served as Integrity's theological consultant and vetted articles to insure their conformity to Catholic teaching. He was later appointed head of the theology department at St. Mary's, Notre Dame. A visitor to the Integrity offices described Jackson in detail: "Then I was asked to lunch with editors, staff, and visitors, the community. There was Carol Jackson, slim, young, immaculately groomed and well, "spiritual looking". The conversation was serious but not dour. Carol seemed to be the dominant personality at table.

As a writer, she used the pseudonym Peter Michaels. After her death, some books were re-issued using her real name. In his review of This Perverse Generation, which was a critique of tepid Catholicism in American culture, J.F.T. Prince claimed the book was just as apt as a critique of British culture. The advertisement for the book in The Tablet claimed: "Peter Michaels' book will give you a shock."

She often wrote articles for The Wanderer.

Jackson traveled widely to hold public speeches, often about Thomas Aquinas and his relevance for contemporary culture. She coined the term nunk, using it to criticize laypeople who thought that the only form of holiness was to imitate nuns and monks "for want of a clear idea of the lay role."

Publications

  • The Eightfold Kingdom Within: Essays on the Beatitudes & The Gifts of the Holy Ghost
  • The Salt of the Earth
  • The Poor in Spirit
  • Designs for Christian Living
  • This Perverse Generation
  • Thy Faith Hath Made Thee Whole: The Integrity Years (1946-1956)
  • Breaking the Chains of Mediocrity: Carol Robinson's Marianist Articles

References

  1. ^ Fisher, James Terence (1989). The Catholic counterculture in America, 1933-1962. Internet Archive. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-1863-3.
  2. The Wellesley Legenda (1937), p. 71.
  3. "Tentative Program of Fifty-Third Annual Meeting". American Bar Association Journal. 16 (7): 436–461. 1930. ISSN 0002-7596.
  4. Hoehn, Matthew (1957). Catholic Authors: Contemporary Biographical Sketches, 1930-1952. St. Mary's Abbey. p. 262.
  5. "Carol Robinson, Catholic scholar." The Pilot (Redding, CT) 5 September 2002, p. 2A.
  6. "Carol Robinson, Catholic scholar." Ridgefield Press, 5 September 2002.
  7. "Wanderer Award." The Catholic Transcript, 11 July 1975, p. 2.
  8. Carol Jackson, "Integrity: the Beginnings," Catholic Press Annual 3 (1962), p. 32.
  9. ^ McCarthy, Nora (1969). The Social Vision of Ed Willock. Marquette University thesis.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  10. John Stanley, "In Memory of Ed Willock," Commonweal 74 (April 14, 1961), p. 80.
  11. "Carol Jackson Robinson". aroucapress.com. Retrieved 2025-01-12.
  12. Prince, J. F. T. (July 1950). "This Perverse Generation. By Peter Michaels. (Sheed & Ward; 7s. 6d.)". Blackfriars. 31 (364): 345–346. doi:10.1017/S1754201400036535. ISSN 1754-2014.
  13. "The Table". reader.exacteditions.com. 8 October 1949. Retrieved 2025-01-12.
  14. "Speaker. Miss Carol Jackson." Lansing State Journal (Lansing, Michigan) May 10, 1948, p. 7.
  15. Campbell, Debra (1989). "The Nunk Controversy: A Symbolic Moment in the Search for a Lay Spirituality". U.S. Catholic Historian. 8 (1/2): 81–89. ISSN 0735-8318.
  16. New Catholic World. Vol. 165. Paulist Press. 1947. p. 373.
Categories: