Biography
John Collins was born in Roxbury, Boston on July 20, 1919. In 1941 he graduated from Suffolk University Law School. He served a tour in the Army during World War II and four years later was elected to the Massachusetts State Senate. Collins spent two terms as senator and then ran unsuccessfully for state attorney general in 1954. While campaigning for a seat on the City Council in 1955, he contracted polio, but continued with his campaign despite warnings from his doctors. He was elected to the Council and the following year was appointed to Register of Probate for Suffolk County. In 1959, he ran against John E. Powers for Mayor of Boston. Collins was widely viewed as the underdog in the race.
After leaving office in 1968, Collins held visiting and consulting professorships at MIT for 13 years.
Read more about this topic: John F. Collins
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“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
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