CATHERINE LUGAR

1943 - 2020

LUGAR, Catherine A scholar of Brazilian history, died of the Covid-19 virus April 21 in Belmont at the age of 75. A graduate of the Newton College of the Sacred Heart (1965), she earned a doctorate from SUNY, Stony Brook with a dissertation on The Merchant Community of Salvador, Bahia: 1780-1830 (1980). She published numerous reviews of books on Brazilian history, as well as a meticulously documented essay on tobacco growers and exporters. She held a Fulbright in Brazil in 1985 and taught in non-tenured positions at the Universities of Indiana, Cornell, Connecticut, and Harvard. As a teacher-activist, in the 1980s she developed outreach programs connecting the University of Connecticut to Hispanic and Portuguese communities. In addition to extensive administrative work, much of her life she devoted to free-lance research on topics such as marine archeology, commodities, and working class lives in factory towns in Massachusetts. Her passions included travel in Latin America, watercolors, and rowing. Services will be held at a later date.

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