In Memoriam – Thomas S. Gladsky

Abstract

Tom Gladsky was born August 26, 1939, in the coal-mining community of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. He passed away March 30, 2022, in Monroe Township, New Jersey, where he and his wife Rita had retired after long academic careers. A scholar in her own right, Rita passed away just five weeks before Tom, on February 21, 2022.Gladsky earned degrees in history and English education from Bloomsburg State Teachers College—now Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania—before going on to receive an MA in English from the University of Arizona and a PhD in American Literature from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro.He joined the English Department at the University of Central Missouri, where he later served as Interim Dean of Graduate Studies, and continued his administrative career as Dean of the Graduate School and International Programs at Eastern Illinois University. While there he formed the Polish/Eastern European Cultural Interest Group for students. He later served as Academic Dean at St. Mary's College, Orchard Lake, Michigan, helping to develop the Polish and East Central European Studies Program before the college closed in 2003.Gladsky's interest in his Polish roots, combined with his literary studies, also led him to spend considerable time in Poland. He was a Fulbright Professor at Marie-Curie Sklodowska and Jagiellonian Universities, as well as a guest lecturer at the University of Rzeszow's Institute of English Studies.Princes, Peasants, & Other Polish Selves: Ethnicity in American Literature, Gladsky's 1992 study, helped ensure a place at the table for Polish American writing in the field of ethnic American literature and Polish American studies. His next book, Something of My Very Own to Say: American Women Writers of Polish Descent, which he edited with Rita Holmes Gladsky, helped open the door to what is now a well-established focus on Polish American women and on gender issues. Something of My Very Own to Say won PAHA's 1999 Halecki prize. Gladsky's stint as Project Director of PAHA's Polish American Memoirs Project underscores his interest in the making a space for the under-represented voices within Polonian history. In addition to his work on Polish American literature, Gladsky published on Polish literary figures like Jerzy Kosinski.Tom Gladsky served as PAHA president from 1998–2000, and in 2002 received the Haiman award for “sustained contribution to the study of Polish Americans.” He helped shape the universe of Polish American Studies as we now know it, and left a lasting legacy to this organization and to the scholars who took inspiration from his work.