Caroline Augusta Furness Jayne (July 3, 1873 – June 23, 1909) was an American
ethnologist
Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...
who published the first book on
string figures in 1906 titled ''String Figures: A Study of Cat's Cradle in Many Lands''.
Early life and education
Jayne was born on July 3, 1873, the youngest of the four children and only daughter of Shakespearean scholar
Horace Howard Furness
Horace Howard Furness (November 2, 1833 – August 13, 1912) was an American Shakespearean scholar of the 19th century.
Life and career
Horace Furness was the son of the Unitarian minister and abolitionist William Henry Furness (1802–1896), ...
and author Helen Kate (Rogers) Furness. She grew up in the family's house in
Washington Square in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
, and at
Lindenshade, their summer house in
Wallingford, Pennsylvania
Wallingford is an unincorporated community in Nether Providence Township, Delaware County in Pennsylvanias. Founded in 1687, it is named for Wallingford, England. In 2007, Wallingford was named by ''Money Magazine'' as the 9th best place to li ...
. She graduated from the
Agnes Irwin School
The Agnes Irwin School is a non-sectarian college preparatory day school for girls from pre-kindergarten through grade 12. It was founded in 1869 by Agnes Irwin in Philadelphia. Irwin, a great-great-granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin, later beca ...
.
Career
Jayne became interested in string figures through her brother,
William Henry Furness III's anthropology work with
Alfred Haddon
Alfred Cort Haddon, Sc.D., FRS, FRGS FRAI (24 May 1855 – 20 April 1940, Cambridge) was an influential British anthropologist and ethnologist.
Initially a biologist, who achieved his most notable fieldwork, with W.H.R. Rivers, C.G. Seligma ...
studying native cultures where string game figures were used.
Jayne was the first to create a popular study of string figures built on academic papers from journals such as''The Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology''. the ''Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society'' and other foreign language anthropological journals. She also personally recorded string figures from several native groups that were in attendance at the
1904 World's Fair
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the St. Louis World's Fair, was an international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, from April 30 to December 1, 1904. Local, state, and federal funds totaling $15 milli ...
in St. Louis, Missouri.
Jayne published the first book on string figures in 1906 titled ''
String Figures and How to Make Them''. The book provided instructions on how to create 129 string figures that were identified by anthropologists studying traditional societies such as those in
Congo-Kasai and the
Caroline Islands
The Caroline Islands (or the Carolines) are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the ce ...
.
The 1906 book review from the ''Journal of Education'':
Personal life, death and legacy
On October 10, 1894, she married
Horace Jayne
Horace Fort Jayne (5 March 1859, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – 9 July 1913, Wallingford, Pennsylvania) was an American zoölogist and educator.
Biography
He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania ( A.B., 1879; M.D., 1882), and studied ...
, a zoologist and professor at the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
. Together they had two children, Kate Furness Jayne (b. 1895) and
Horace H. F. Jayne (b. 1898).
They built a house in Philadelphia at 19th & Delancey Streets, designed by her uncle, the architect
Frank Furness, now known as the
Horace Jayne House
Horace Jayne House (1895) is an architecturally significant building designed by architect Frank Furness in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is located at the southwest corner of 19th and Delancey Streets, about a block south of Rittenhouse Square. ...
. They also built a summer house in
Wallingford, Pennsylvania
Wallingford is an unincorporated community in Nether Providence Township, Delaware County in Pennsylvanias. Founded in 1687, it is named for Wallingford, England. In 2007, Wallingford was named by ''Money Magazine'' as the 9th best place to li ...
,
"Sub Rosa" (again designed by her uncle), on the grounds of her father's summer house. Following Jayne's early death at age 36, her husband and children lived year-round at "Sub Rosa".
In her memory, her father commissioned a
Tiffany window for the
First Unitarian Church of Philadelphiabr>
The window features a portrait of her holding a lily.
In 1910, her friend, the poet
Florence Earle Coates
Florence Van Leer Earle Nicholson Coates (July 1, 1850 – April 6, 1927) was an American poet, whose prolific output was published in many literary magazines, some of it set to music. She was mentored by the English poet Matthew Arnold, with wh ...
, wrote a poem in her memory.
Her son, Horace H. F. Jayne, was the first curator of Chinese art at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art, worked as director of the
and as vice director of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
.
[
]
Bibliography
String Figures: A Study of Cat's Cradle in Many Lands
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1906
Gallery
File:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914) p333.jpg, Jayne's childhood house in Washington Square, Philadelphia
File:Horace Jayne 1899.jpg, Horace Jayne, in 1899
File:Jayne House Philly.JPG, Horace Jayne House
Horace Jayne House (1895) is an architecturally significant building designed by architect Frank Furness in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is located at the southwest corner of 19th and Delancey Streets, about a block south of Rittenhouse Square. ...
at 19th and Delancey Streets in Philadelphia
File:Photocopy of old photograph (in possession of Jayne family, as of September 1962) FRONT ELEVATION - Subrosa, Turner Road (Nether Providence Township), Wallingford, Delaware County, HABS PA,23-WALF,3-1.tif, The Jayne's summer home, "Sub Rosa" (c.1896) in Wallingford, Pennsylvania
File:Horace Howard Furness, Horace and Catherine Furness Jayne tombstone.jpg, Caroline Furness Jayne tombstone in Laurel Hill Cemetery
See also
*List of string figures
The following is a list of string figures, various figures which can be made using a loop of string, and which occur in games such as cat's cradle
Cat's cradle is a game involving the creation of various string figures between the fingers, ...
Citations
Sources
*
External links
*
Caroline Furness Jayne (1873-1909)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jayne, Caroline Furness
1873 births
1909 deaths
20th-century American women writers
Agnes Irwin School alumni
American anthropology writers
American ethnologists
Burials at Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia)
Furness family
String figures
Women ethnologists
Writers from Philadelphia