Frederick Starr
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Frederick Starr (September 2, 1858 – August 14, 1933) was an American academic,
anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
, and "populist educator"Parezo, Nancy J. and Don D. Fowler. (2007)
"Taking Ethnological Training Outside the Classroom: the 1904 Louisiana Exposition as Field School,"
''Histories of Anthropology Annual,'' Vol. 2, p. 78.
born in
Auburn, New York Auburn is a city in Cayuga County, New York, United States. Located at the north end of Owasco Lake, one of the Finger Lakes in Central New York, the city had a population of 26,866 at the 2020 census. It is the largest city of Cayuga County, the ...
. As he was avid collector of charms ('' ofuda'') and votive slips ('' senjafuda'' or nōsatsu) he was called in Japan. Ofuda Hakushi, 1924.
/ref> He sold much of this collection to art collector and museum specialist Gertrude Bass Warner, and it currently resides at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon and the University of Oregon Knight Library Special Collections & University Archives.


Biography

Starr earned an undergraduate degree at the
University of Rochester The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...
(1882) and a doctorate in geology at
Lafayette College Lafayette College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Easton, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1826 by James Madison Porter and other citizens in Easton, the college first held classes in 18 ...
(1885). While working as a curator of geology at the
American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...
( AMNH) in New York, he became interested in anthropology and ethnology. Frederic Ward Putnam helped him become appointed as curator of AMNH's ethological collection (1889–1891). In this period, he became active in the
Chautauqua Chautauqua ( ) is an adult education and social movement in the United States that peaked in popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Cha ...
circuit as a popular professor and, in 1888–89, as registrar. When William Rainey Harper, president of the Chautauqua Institution, was named President of 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 appointed Starr as an assistant professor of anthropology there. Starr moved to the University of Chicago in 1891; he served in its faculty for the next 31 years. "Mourned in Chicago"
''New York Times.'' August 15, 1933.
He was an Assistant professor (1892–1895), and he gained tenure in 1896. One of Starr's most infamous incidents occurred while traveling in Mexico. Much like ethnologist Carl Sofus Lumholtz, Starr traveled to the Purépecha community of Cheran, Michoacan located in the Meseta Purépecha in the state of Michoacan. Unlike his predecessor, Starr successfully obtained Amerindian bones, said to have been dug up from a nearby ancient burial. He intended to take these with him to the U.S. for the collection of the University of Chicago. The inhabitants of Cheran opposed having their ancestors exhumed and were suspicious of Starr's motives for visiting Cheran. In 1905-06 Starr made a study of the
pygmy In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a po ...
races of Central Africa. In 1908 he did field work in 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 ...
, followed by Japan in 1909–10, and
Korea Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...
in 1911. In his ''Truth about the Congo Free State'' (1907), a collection of articles regarding the
Congo Free State The Congo Free State, also known as the Independent State of the Congo (), was a large Sovereign state, state and absolute monarchy in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908. It was privately owned by Leopold II of Belgium, King Leopold II, the const ...
, Starr wrote:
Many a time... I have seen a man immediately after being flogged, laughing and playing with his companions as if naught had happened. Personally, though I have seen many cases of this form of punishment, I have never seen blood drawn, nor the fainting of the victim."
In this period there was mounting criticism of the state of near-slavery in which rubber workers were kept by colonial forces. Starr's work is often cited as an example of the whitewashing campaign King Leopold II conducted from 1884 to 1912, also known as the Congo Free State Propaganda War. Floggings with the chicotte were known and documented as an especially cruel form of torture by other observers, such as Roger Casement, an Anglo-Irish investigator. He extensively reported on the abuse of the indigenous peoples by the private Belgian police which the king used to impose a state of virtual slavery for rubber workers. Starr happened to be in Japan when the
1923 Great Kantō earthquake The 1923 Great Kantō earthquake (, or ) was a major earthquake that struck the Kantō Plain on the main Japanese island of Honshu at 11:58:32 JST (02:58:32 UTC) on Saturday, 1 September 1923. It had an approximate magnitude of 8.0 on the mom ...
and subsequent major fires struck the main island of Honshū. In the absence of news from the devastated area, speculation about his safety was published in the ''New York Times.'' His plans to spend several months researching the vicinity of
Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano located on the Japanese island of Honshu, with a summit elevation of . It is the highest mountain in Japan, the second-highest volcano on any Asian island (after Mount Kerinci on the Indonesian island of Sumatra), a ...
were not specific, nor was the extent of the quake area known. Reports that the area near Mount Fuji were hard hit led to increased concerns. The US Embassy in Tokyo published Dr. Starr's name among the list of survivors. Dr. Starr had escaped to the relative safety of Zojo-ji, a famous Buddhist Temple in Tokyo's Shiba district in what is today Minato ward. A brief description from a letter he wrote to friends in
Auburn, New York Auburn is a city in Cayuga County, New York, United States. Located at the north end of Owasco Lake, one of the Finger Lakes in Central New York, the city had a population of 26,866 at the 2020 census. It is the largest city of Cayuga County, the ...
, was printed in the ''New York Times:''
We went to the temple grounds, but at midnight, the priests took us up higher and higher to the innermost temple. Here on the topmost step, I sat till morning, watching the brazen sky beyond the slope meaning ruin to millions."
Dr. Starr died of bronchial pneumonia at age 74 in Tokyo, August 14, 1933. Services were held at Trinity Cathedral in Tokyo. Among those attending was Japanese Premier Makoto Saito. He was survived by his sister, Lucy Starr, who helped execute his estate.


Honors

*
Order of Leopold (Belgium) The Order of Leopold (, , ) is one of the three current Belgian national honorary orders of knighthood. It is the oldest and highest order of Belgium and is named in honour of its founder, King Leopold I. It consists of a military, a ma ...
. *
Order of the Crown of Italy The Order of the Crown of Italy ( or OCI) was founded as a national order in 1868 by King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele II, to commemorate Italian unification, the unification of Italy in 1861. It was awarded in five degrees for ...
(Italy). * Order of the Sacred Treasure (Japan). * University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology, Starr Lectureship.


Selected works

* ''Catalogue of Collections of Objects Illustrating Mexican
Folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...
'' (1899) * '' Indians of South Mexico'' (1900) * '' The Ainu Group of the Saint Louis Exposition'' (1904) * ''The Truth about the Congo'' (1907) * ''In Indian Mexico'' (1908) * '' Filipino Riddles'' (1909) * ''Japanese Proverbs and Pictures'' (1910) * ''Liberia: Description, History, Problems'' (1914) * ''Mexico and the United States'' (1914) * ''Japanese Collectors and What They Collect'' (1921)
''Fujiyama, the Sacred Mountain of Japan.''
(1924).


Notes


References

* Parezo, Nancy J. and Don D. Fowler. (2007)
"Taking Ethnological Training Outside the Classroom: the 1904 Louisiana Exposition as Field School,"
''Histories of Anthropology Annual,'' Vol. 2, Regina Darnel and Frederic W. Gleach, eds. Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press The University of Nebraska Press (UNP) was founded in 1941 and is an academic publisher of scholarly and general-interest books. The press is under the auspices of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the main campus of the University of Ne ...
. (paper) * ''New York Times.'' August 15, 1933. * Gillis, Frank J
Starr Collection of Recordings from the Congo (1906) -- bio note.
Archives of Traditional Music, Indiana University.
Starr papers -- bio note
University of Chicago Library, Manuscripts and Archives.
Starr Photographs Collection, 1894-1910 -- bio note.
Smithsonian Institution Research Information Service (SIRIS). * Gillis, Frank J
Starr Collection of Recordings from the Congo (1906) -- bio note.
Archives of Traditional Music, Indiana University.


External links

* * * * *

- Objects and Field Notes from Starr Congo Expedition 1905-1906 (section Collections Online, option ''Collections Highlights''). *
Guide to the Frederick Starr Papers 1868-1935
at th
University of Chicago Special Collections Research CenterGuide to the Frederick Starr Liberian Research Collection 1792-1914
at th
University of Chicago Special Collections Research CenterGuide to the Frederick Starr Mexican Manuscripts Collection 1580-1918
at th
University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Starr, Frederick 1858 births 1933 deaths University of Chicago faculty University of Rochester alumni American anthropologists American science writers People from Auburn, New York