Charles Keeler
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Charles Augustus Keeler (October 7, 1871 – July 31, 1937) was an American author, poet, ornithologist and advocate for the arts, particularly
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.


Biography


Early life

Keeler was born on October 7, 1871, in
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,
Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...
. He moved to Berkeley with his family in 1887. He studied biology at
UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...
, where he was a member of
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fraternity and the organizer of an Evolution Club.


Career

Keeler was hired in 1891 by the
California Academy of Sciences The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, that is among the largest List of natural history museums, museums of natural history in the world, housing over ...
in San Francisco and became director of its natural history museum. That same year, he met the architect
Bernard Maybeck Bernard Ralph Maybeck (February 7, 1862 – October 3, 1957) was an American architect. He worked primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area, designing public buildings, including the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, and also private houses, ...
on the commuter ferry. They became friends, and in 1895 Keeler asked Maybeck to design his home, in the
Berkeley Hills The Berkeley Hills are a range of the Pacific Coast Ranges, and overlook the northeast side of the valley that encompasses San Francisco Bay. They were previously called the "Contra Costa Range/Hills" (from the original Spanish ''Sierra de la Co ...
on Highland Place, just north of the UC campus in North Berkeley. It was Maybeck's first residential commission, the first of many redwood-clad hillside homes designed by Maybeck, and the first in a cluster of influential
First Bay Tradition First Bay Tradition (also known as First Bay Area Tradition or San Francisco Bay Region Tradition) was an architectural style from the period of the 1880s to early 1920s. Sometimes considered as a regional interpretation of the Eastern Shingle Styl ...
houses in Berkeley, designed to blend in with their natural setting. Maybeck also designed a studio structure for Keeler near the house in 1902. The desire of Keeler, Maybeck and others to promote locally this kind of architecture integrated with nature, in keeping with
Arts and Crafts movement The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America. Initiat ...
ideals, prompted creation of a Ruskin Club in Berkeley in 1895 and the Hillside Club in 1898. Although the Hillside Club was originally started by a group of women, men were soon admitted, and Keeler became its first secretary (1902–1903) and second president (1903–1905). He laid out his ideas for a new style of residence "infused with the art spirit" in his 1904 book ''The Simple Home,'' which became a manifesto of sorts for the Club and is considered Keeler's most significant book.Herny, Ed, Shelley Rideout and Katie Wadell (2008). ''Berkeley Bohemia: Artists and Visionaries of the Early 20th Century'' (Gibbs Smith, Publisher). In 1905 he was one of the founders, along with
Alfred L. Kroeber Alfred Louis Kroeber ( ; June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an American cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. He was also the fi ...
and George Rapall Noyes of a "Berkeley Folk-Lore Club" and then the California Branch of the American Folk-Lore Society, of which he soon became president. In 1907 he was elected president of a newly organized Studio Club of Berkeley. He associated with many of the artists in the local colony, especially the “art photographers,” and used them as actors in the plays he produced at the Hillside Club. Keeler even served as a model for Adelaide Hanscom Leeson’s photo illustrations in
Omar Khayyam Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīshābūrī (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131) (Persian language, Persian: غیاث الدین ابوالفتح عمر بن ابراهیم خیام نیشابورﻯ), commonly known as Omar ...
’s " Rubaiyat". An online facsimile of the entire text of Vol. 1 is posted on the Traditional Fine Arts Organization website. In the 1890s and early 1900s he was active in the First Unitarian Church of Berkeley, directing its Sunday school program. Keeler joined the
Bohemian Club The Bohemian Club is a private club with two locations: a city clubhouse in the Nob Hill district of San Francisco, California, and the Bohemian Grove, a retreat north of the city in Sonoma County. Founded in 1872 from a regular meeting of jour ...
in 1902 and wrote the Cremation of Care ceremony for their 1913 encampment. He was also a member of the Author's Club of London and the New York Author's Club.''Overland Monthly'', July 1916. Mira Abbott Maclay
"Charles Keeler, Poet"
Retrieved on May 10, 2014.
In 1921-23 he was president of the California Writers Club. He was friends with many influential naturalists and outdoorsmen, including
John Muir John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the national park, National Parks", was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologi ...
,
John Burroughs John Burroughs (April 3, 1837 – March 29, 1921) was an American naturalist and nature essayist, active in the conservation movement in the United States. The first of his essay collections was ''Wake-Robin'' in 1871. In the words of his bi ...
, painter William Keith and developer
Duncan McDuffie Duncan McDuffie (September 24, 1877 – 1951) was a real estate developer, conservationist, and mountaineer based in Berkeley, California, United States. Developer McDuffie is best known for developing the Claremont and Northbrae neighb ...
—men who today would be called environmentalists. He was a charter member of the
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. He was a lifelong adventurer. In 1893 he took a trip around Cape Horn on the clipper ship ''Charmer''. In 1899, Keeler was invited to join other elite scientists on the Harriman Alaska Expedition, to study and document the coast of
Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...
. He and his family voyaged to the South Pacific in 1900–1901, visiting Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, Samoa and Hawaii. In 1911-12 he took a worldwide poetry reading tour; he read before
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in Hawaii and the Emperor of Japan, and was a house guest of the Hindu poet
Sarojini Naidu Sarojini Naidu (Birth name, née Chattopadhyay) (; 13 February 1879 – 2 March 1949) was an Indian political activist and poet who served as the first Governor of Uttar Pradesh, Governor of United Provinces, after Independence Day (India), Indi ...
in Hyderabad, India. In 1913 he settled in
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, where he presented poetry readings, original plays, and "dance poems" in which his reading would be accompanied by music, and original dances by fellow Californian Maud Madison. In 1917, he returned to Berkeley and moved into a cottage he had built in 1909, alongside an outdoor amphitheater with seating for 300. He produced theater parties there for soldiers and sailors on leave from World War I. In 1921, he was hired as managing director of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce and quickly organized both a Manufacturers' and Merchants' Fair and a three-day Berkeley Music Festival. He hoped to develop Berkeley as an increasingly prominent center for literature and the arts. He also began teaching English at the A to Zed School in Berkeley by 1921. He was a spiritual seeker all his life, and eventually formulated the idea of starting a new religion. He founded the First Berkeley Cosmic Society in 1925 and the same year published a book outlining his view of a new "Cosmic Religion" based on a common bond shared by all religions, "the trinity of love, truth and beauty." In the late 1920s and 1930s, he wrote scripts for two popular radio serials, "Skipper Brown's Yarns" and "The O'Flanagan Family."


Family

He married Louise Mapes Bunnell (1872–1907) in 1893. Louise was a talented artist and illustrated several of his books of poetry. They had three children: Merodine, Leonarde (co-inventor of the polygraph) and Eloise. Louise died in 1907, and in 1921 he married Ormeida Curtis Harrison (1875–1947), a poet and assistant principal of the A-Zed School.


Death

He died of a heart attack on July 31, 1937, at his private residence in Berkeley. A memorial service was held at the First Unitarian Church using a Cosmic Society funeral ritual.''Oakland Tribune'', August 2, 1937, p. 13. Keeler Avenue in
Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...
, is named after him.


Works


''Evolution of the Colors of North American Land Birds''
(1893)
''A Light Through the Storm''
(1894, verse, illustrated by Louise Keeler)
''The Promise of the Ages''
(1896, verse)
''Southern California''
(1898, illustrated by Louise Keeler, for Santa Fe Railway)
''Bird Notes Afield: A Series of Essays on the Birds of California''
(1899)
''A Season's Sowing''
(1899, verse, illustrated by Louise Keeler)
''Idyls of El Dorado''
(1900, verse, illustrated by Louise Keeler)
''A Wanderer's Songs of the Sea''
(1902, verse)
''San Francisco and Thereabout''
(1903, cover and decorations by Louise Keeler)
''Elfin Songs of Sunland''
(1904, verse for children, decorations by Louise Keeler)
''The Simple Home''
(1904)
''A Light Through the Storm''
(1904, verse, illustrated by Louise Keeler and with photogravures of paintings by William Keith)
''San Francisco Through Earthquake and Fire''
(1906)
''The Victory: Poems of Triumph''
(verse, 1916)
''Sequoia Sonnets''
(verse, 1919, illustrated by daughter Merodine Keeler) * ''An Epitome of Cosmic Religion'' (1925)


Notes


External links

* *
Text of “The Simple Home" pdf
* ttp://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf0290010m/ Guide to the Charles Augustus Keeler Papersat
The Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library is the primary special-collections library of the University of California, Berkeley. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retain the name Bancroft Library in perpetuity. ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Keeler, Charles 1871 births 1937 deaths American male poets American naturalists Scientists from California Writers from Berkeley, California Scientists from Milwaukee University of California, Berkeley alumni 20th-century American poets 20th-century American male writers