University of St. Thomas

 Vincent J. Flynn Papers
RS02/11/02

Biography:

Vincent J. Flynn was born September 11, 1901, Avoca, Minnesota. He attended the St. Thomas Military Academy (graduating in 1919) and the College of St. Thomas (BA. 1923).  He entered the St. Paul Seminary in 1921 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1927.  He taught at St. Thomas Military Academy for the next three years, while working towards his Master's degree in English.. from University of Minnesota (1929).  He did graduate work in English at the University of Chicago from 1930 to 1934, spending 15 months abroad doing research for his doctoral dissertation on "The Life and Works of William Lily". During his research, he discovered manuscript shedding new light on Anglo-Italian relations during the Renaissance. He completed his dissertation and received his Ph.D. from University of Chicago in 1939.

In 1935, Flynn was appointed an Assistant Professor in the English Department at College of St. Thomas and became deprtment chair in 1940.   In the summer of 1942, Father Flynn was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to pursue research regarding the manuscript he discovered while abroad. He returned from his sabbatical leave in September, 1943.

Father Flynn was appointed President of the College of St. Thomas and St. Thomas Military Academy, following the resignation of Fr. James H. Moynihan in January 1944. He was formally installed as president on April 27, 1944.  During his tenure as president of the college, he served on a wide range of committees and boards including the Association of American Colleges (serving as president from 1949 - 50), the National Student Association and the Minnesota Historical Society.

Fr. Vincent Flynn died July 6, 1956 in St. Paul, MN.

Scope and Content:

The papers of the Very Reverend Vincent J. Flynn, President of the College of St. Thomas 1944-56, were deposited in the College Archives shortly after his death on July 6, 1956. The papers were thereafter housed and serviced for researchers in the state in which they had been transferred to the archives until they were processed and inventoried in their present form in February, March and April of 1977. At this time basic repair and restoration work on the collection was also undertaken.
The papers in the Flynn collection are primarily from the period of the Flynn tenure as College President. The remarkable post-war growth of the College and its rapidly changing character are fully reflected in the Flynn papers, particularly in Section II. of the inventory ("College of St. Thomas") which consists of official files of the President's office.

A second major group of documents in the collection is Flynn's file of working scholarly papers. These reflect his special academic interests: 15th and 16th century English literature and history, the history of Renaissance Anglo-Italian and Anglo-Papal relations, and the history of the English community in Rome during the Renaissance.

The story of St. Thomas Military Academy, which was associated with the College until 1964, is well documented in the Flynn papers for the years 1944-1956. Flynn was also the President of the Academy as were all College of St. Thomas presidents until 1964.Flynn's many activities outside the St. Thomas community as scholar, educator and citizen are reflected in Section III.
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In a number of cases, Flynn's papers include files he inherited from his two immediate predecessors as President of the College and the Academy: the Reverend Matthew Schumacher, C.S.C. (President, 1928-1933), and Monsignor James Moynihan (President, 1933-1944). Most of the files listed in sections II. and IV. of this inventory which contain material from before 1944 will include other documents produced by these two men. Where the older documents in a certain file seemed particularly important, the name of the earlier College President who produced the documents follows the file folder description in parentheses.

Inventory:

Series I.  College of St. Thomas Records
Series II. Associations and Organizations
Series III. and IV.  St. Thomas Military Academy and Photographs
Series V.  Biography and Publications

  
Publications:

Books:

Prose Readings; an Anthology for Catholic Colleges. Selected and edited by . . .N.Y., Charles Scribner's Sons, 1942.

A Shorte Introduction of Grammar by William Lily. With an introduction by . . . N.Y., Scholar's Facsimiles and Reprints, 1945.

Articles:

"The Intellectual Life of Fifteenth-Century Rhodes." Tradition: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought, and Religion. II (1944). 239-55.

"The Grammatical Writings of William Lily, ?1468-?1523." The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. XXXVII, Second Quarter (1943). 3-31

"Englishmen in Rome During the Renaissance." Modern Philology. XXXVI, No. 2 (Nov. 1938), 121-38.

"William Lily and the English Hospice." The Venerabile. IX, No. 1 (Oct. 1938), 1-8.

"Sangre Azul." The Catholic World. CXXXII, No. 791 (Feb.1931), 547-550.

"Other Sheep." American Ecclesiastical Review. LXXXIV, No. 1 (Jan. 1931), 45-51

Address:

"Religion and the University Graduate." (Commencement address, University of Minnesota, Spring, 1945.) Reprinted in The Best Sermons of 1946, edited by G. Paul Butler, Harper, 1946, pp. 122-26; and in The Pulpit Magazine, XVI, No. 8 (Aug. 1945), 171-173

Reviews:

The Vita Sancti Malchi of Reginald of Canterbury. Edited by Levi Robert Lind. "Illinois Studies in Language and Literature," XXVII, No. 3-4. Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1942. Review in Modern Philology, XLI, No. 4 (May 1943), 59-60

Humanism in England During the Fifteenth Century. By Count Roberto Weiss. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1941. Review in Modern Philology, XL, No. 4 (May 1943), 354-57.