Marion Tinling


Marion Rose Tinling was an American historian, editor, and activist. She worked for the Huntington Library and Library of Congress, publishing several edited book volumes of historical documents, and she was a 1960 Guggenheim Fellow. During her early life, she worked as a social worker and non-profit founder, and published several books in women's history.

Biography

Marion Rose Goble was born on December 17, 1904, in Richmond Hill, Queens. Her mother Nora was a nurse and her father Frank Newton was a contractor. After briefly attending Occidental College in the mid-1920s, she returned to New York state and obtained a BA from Keuka College in 1929.
In 1930, she started working at the Huntington Library, where she was hired as a secretary for her typing skills. From 1947 to 1949, she served as the library's managing editor of publications, as well as assistant editor of the Huntington Library Quarterly. She also worked as a proofreader and typist. While at Huntington, she co-edited several editions of historical documents, including two diaries from the Virginia colonist William Byrd II. Tinling recalled of her time with Huntington: "I was privileged to work with leading scholars in the fields of English and American history and literature, and there I got more education than I received in college." She also released edited diaries of America-based London merchant Robert Hunter and of political leader Harry Toulmin.
After working at the California Department of Education as an editor, she joined the Library of Congress' transcription project for the 1st [United States Congress]' House of Representatives shorthand notes. She released another edited William Byrd diary in 1958, as well as a volume of correspondence from the Byrd family of Virginia in 1977. In 1960, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship "for a study of the letters and other writings of William Byrd II of Westover, Virginia," traveling to London for the research.
In 1963, she returned to Sacramento and worked for the Sacramento County welfare department. She also founded Meals a la Car, a non-profit organization focused on delivering food to elderly people. During her later life, she focused on women's history due in part to its marginalized nature, with her work including two edited volumes on women's history and a guidebook on landmarks related to women's history. In 2001, she published a biography on Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, her final book. She was active in women's rights activism, particularly within the National Organization for Women, Older Women's League, and Sacramento Community Commission for Women.
She was married to writer and stunt performer Willis Tinling from 1933 until their divorce in 1947; they had three children, as well as several grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She lived in Land Park, Sacramento, California. She was a Democrat.
Tinling died on December 30, 2006, aged 102, in a care home in Elk Grove, California.

Works

The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709–1712 Another Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1739–1741 Quebec to Carolina in 1785–1786: Being the Travel Diary and Observations of Robert Hunter, Jr., a Young Merchant of London The Western Country in 1793: Reports on Kentucky and Virginia The London Diary, 1717–1721, and Other Writings The Correspondence of the Three William Byrds of Westover, Virginia, 1684–1776