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Inventory of the Thomas F. Mayo Papers TAMU MSS 00084., 1914-1915; 1945-1953

Title: Inventory of the Thomas F. Mayo Papers 1914-1915; 1945-1953

Thomas Franklin Mayo (1893-1954), librarian, educator, author, and Rhodes Scholar, was born in Columbia, Mississippi 27 March 1893. He graduated from the University of Mississippi (1913) with a B.A. in English. A Rhodes Scholarship enabled Mayo to attend Oxford University in England in 1914, eventually earning a B.A. in English Literature (1916). After serving as an ambulance driver in France (1916) during World War I, followed by two years of teaching in the Texas A & M University English Department at College Station, Tex., then eighteen months serving with the U. S. Navy as an intelligence officer in naval aviation, Mayo returned to Oxford University to continue his education, earning a B.A. in Modern History (1921) and a M.A. in English (1922). Mayo immediately returned to Texas A & M University and resumed his teaching career, having been appointed Associate Professor of English and Librarian. Mayo spent the remainder of his career at Texas A & M University, except for one year of graduate study at Columbia University, 1927-1928. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1934.Mayo continued in the dual role of Librarian and Associate Professor of English until 1944, at which time he was named Head of the English Department. In 1935 he had been promoted to the rank of Professor. After serving eight years as Head of the English Department, Mayo asked to be relieved of the administratie duties on 1 September 1952 so that he could devote full time to teaching and writing. He died 26 June 1954 and was buried beside his parents in Arlington National Cemetry.As an educator, Mayo championed education at Texas A & M University, believing that such an approach was necessary to counterbalance the great emphasis on education in other departments.As a librarian, Mayo strove to emphasize acquiring and making accessible books in the fields of art, literature, and history. The Thomas Franklin Mayo Papers (1914-1914 and ca. 1945-1953) contain a few letters and notes, drafts, and final copies of book reviews, articles, and chapters of books. Chapter topics include Gothic Culture, Medieval Architecture, Romanesque Art and Architecture, Baroque Art, and Renaissance Painting, particularly the paintings of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo Buonarroti. The bulk of the latter material probably pertains to a book on which Mayo was working at the time of his death in 1954. The book was to have been titled and would have recorded the cycles between romanticism and rationalism in art and literature. humanistic technical The Great Pendulum

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