Fay-Cooper Cole (8 August 1881 – 3 September 1961) was a professor of
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...
and founder of the anthropology department
at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
; he was a student of
Franz Boas. Some argue that he, most famously, was a witness for the defense for
John Scopes at the
Scopes Trial.
Cole also played a central role in planning the anthropology exhibits for the 1933
Century of Progress World's Fair. He was elected a Member of the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...
in 1941.
Early life
Cole was born in 1881 in
Plainwell, Michigan to Ida J. Upright Cole and Dr. George LaMont Cole (1849–1918), a
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
-area physician interested in southwestern archaeology. After graduating from
Northwestern University
Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...
in 1903, he did graduate work researching the
Itneg people in the north of the then-American
territory
A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, belonging or connected to a particular country, person, or animal.
In international politics, a territory is usually a geographic area which has not been granted the powers of self-government, ...
of the
Philippine Islands
The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...
at the University of Chicago, the University of Berlin in
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
, and
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
in New York, obtaining a doctorate in 1914.
Career
Cole worked as the Assistant Curator of Anthropology at the
Field Museum of Natural History after 1914. He led the museum’s Philippine expeditions, collecting more than 5,000 objects, traveling together with his wife,
Mabel Cook Cole, with whom he co-authored ''The Story of Man.''
Their son, LaMont C. Cole, served as Professor of Zoology in the Section of Ecology and Systematics at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...
.
University of Chicago
He was well-known for helping to establish the University of Chicago's graduate program in Anthropology (officially in 1929), as well as his broader archeological surveys in Illinois.
Early iterations of the
University of Chicago's Anthropology department began when
William Rainey Harper appointed
Frederick Starr as the first faculty member in anthropology in 1892. When Starr retired, the University brought in Cole to teach Anthropology courses, where he was later joined by faculty such as
Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American anthropologist-linguistics, linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States ...
,
Wilton Krogman,
Robert Redfield, and
Sol Tax.
Archaeology – Laboratory Skeletal Collection
Among his most lasting legacies at the University of Chicago, among others, are the effects of the
University of Chicago's Archaeology Laboratory Skeletal Collection. From the earliest iterations of the department in the late 1890s through the 1940s, a collection of remains of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, bone fragments, and artifacts were compiled, studied, stored, and possibly exhibited on campus. The skeletal collection contained human remains and archaeological objects taken and collected by faculty, students, curators, and donors through excavations of Illinois burial mounds such as the
Fisher Mounds,
Starved Rock,
Kincaid, Algeria,
Globe, Arizona
Globe ( "Place of Metal") is a city in and the county seat of Gila County, Arizona, Gila County, Arizona, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 7,249. Globe was founded c. 1875 as a mini ...
, among materials from private donors. The collection also contained human remains from the University's Anatomy Department and Medical School.
[Inventory and Report on the Archaeology Laboratory, n.d., Fred Eggan Papers. Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library, Chicago, IL.] Donations accounted for a significant portion of the collection. Skeletal remains of 400 Indigenous people, as well as 10,000 bone fragments, stone, pottery and shell implements and artifacts largely excavated from Fisher and Adler Mounds, were donated in 1930 by George Langford, an engineer from
Joliet who as also an amateur anthropologist, an honorary Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, and later Curator of Plant Fossils at
Field Museum.
When Cole retired, Robert Redfield and Sol Tax intermittently served as Chair of the Department of Anthropology. The politics of the department had changed with the faculty body, and Redfield and Tax determined that the Skeletal Collection no longer served the research purposes of the department, and the storage space could be better used. They tasked a graduate student in the department to inventory and report on the collection.
Around 1950, much of the skeletal collection was unofficially dispersed to other institutions like
Indiana University
Indiana University (IU) is a state university system, system of Public university, public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. The system has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration o ...
,
Illinois State Museum,
Beloit College, and the
Field Museum. Under
NAGPRA guidelines, these institutions are now responsible for deaccessioning and repatriating
Native American human remains and funerary objects. The remaining skeletal materials do not account for extent of the historical collection; the department's report recommended that the majority be “dumped.”
The University of Chicago Archaeology Laboratory continues to hold non-Native American human remains, while the paleoanthropology laboratory contains a large osteology collection.
Works
* 1912:
''Chinese pottery in the Philippines, Volume 12''
*1913: ''The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao''. Chicago: R.F.Cummings Philippine Expedition., Anthropological Series. Publication No. 170, Vol. XII, no. 2
* 1933: ''The Long Road from Savagery to Civilization''. New York and London: Century Co.
* 1945: ''The Peoples of Malaysia''. New York: Van Nostrand.
* 1956: ''The Bukidnon of the Philippines''. Chicago: Chicago Natural History Museum.
References
References
* Redman, Samuel J. ''Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museum'' (Cambridge: Harvard University Press). 2016.
External links
*
*
1881 births
1961 deaths
University of Chicago faculty
Members of the American Philosophical Society
20th-century American anthropologists
Presidents of the American Society of Naturalists
{{US-anthropologist-stub