Edwin B. Rollins Papers

Edwin B. Rollins (1878-1980), E1901, was professor of electrical engineering, chair of the department and acting dean of the College of Engineering. In addition he pursued his interests in photography and research into the history of the built environment of the Medford campus.

Rollins was born in Lewiston, Maine, on June 1, 1878. He attended Tufts College and graduated in 1901. While an undergraduate Rollins worked on campus assisting with the new electrical system on the campus, winding transformers and installing lights. He earned fifteen cents per hour for the labor. Upon graduation, Rollins joined Tufts' engineering faculty as an instructor of physics and electrical engineering. He became assistant professor in 1910 and in 1928 was made full professor and chairman of the department of electrical engineering at Tufts. He served as acting dean of the engineering school from 1927 to 1929. In 1948 he received the alumni association's Distinguished Service Award.

Over the years, Rollins, in addition to his academic and administrative activities, built a full-scale model telephone office, a collection of lamps, wrote a history of the first forty years of electrical engineering at Tufts, and compiled in notebooks a history of buildings and gates on the Medford campus.

Rollins worked closely with Professor Melville Munro who, on the side, worked as campus photographer for three decades. Rollins, only a few years Munro's senior, sparked Munro's interest in photography, encouraging him to embark on what was to become an exhaustive photographic history of Tufts covering the entirety of Munro's years at Tufts. Rollins assisted Munro in assembling the scrapbooks and taking photographs.

For most of his years at Tufts, Rollins lived at 84 Packard Avenue, with his wife, Mabel. He died in Rockland, Maine, on December 17, 1980, at the age of 102.