Daniel Clarence Holtom (July 7, 1884 – August 17, 1962) was an American ethnologist and expert on

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Holtom gained an AB from

Kalamazoo College Kalamazoo College, also known as Kalamazoo, K College, KC or simply K, is a private liberal arts college in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Founded in 1833 by Baptist ministers as the Michigan and Huron Institute, Kalamazoo is the oldest private college in ...

in 1907, a BD from

Newton Theological Seminary Newton Theological Seminary or Newton Theological School may refer to: * Newton Theological Institution (1825–1965) * Andover Newton Theological School (1965–2017) * Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School Andover Newton Seminary at Y ...

and a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in History from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. He was also awarded honorary degrees from Kalamazoo and

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

. He was sent to Japan by the

American Baptist Foreign Mission Society International Ministries is an international Baptist Christian missionary society. It is a constituent board affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA. The headquarters is in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, United States. History The soc ...

and was Professor of Modern Languages at Tokyo Gakuin during 1914–1915. He was then Professor of Church History at Japan Baptist Theological Seminary from 1915 to 1925, Professor of History at Kanto Gakuin from 1926 to 1936 and Dean of Theology at Aoyama Gakuin from 1936 until 1940. He was in Japan when Emperor

Hirohito Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...

was enthroned and wrote a history of Japanese coronations titled ''The Japanese Enthronement Ceremonies'' (1928). The Professor of Shinto at

Tokyo Imperial University , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

, Katō Genchi (加藤玄智), praised it as "a fine piece of work with the right man in the right place... tmakes good use of the expositions of our historians and thereby avoids falling into conjecture; at the same time out of his own original study he advances new interpretations".

Robert S. Ellwood Robert S. Ellwood (born 1933) is an American academic, author and expert on world religions. He was educated at the University of Colorado, Berkeley Divinity School and was awarded a PhD in History of Religions from the University of Chicago in 1 ...

in 1969 said Holtom's study of

Shinto Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shintois ...

(''The National Faith of Japan'') "is undoubtedly still the best general study, but its prewar provenance leaves it now rather dated, and there is not enough depth of material on rite and symbol to satisfy a history of religions approach".Robert S. Ellwood, 'Review: Shinto and Three Books on Japanese Religion', ''History of Religions'', Vol. 9, No. 1 (Aug., 1969), p. 95. Douglas G. Haring stated that Holtom was:

Works

*''The Japanese Enthronement Ceremonies'' (1928). *''The National Faith of Japan : A Study in Modern Shinto'' (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1938). *''Modern Japan and Shinto Nationalism'' (1943; rev. ed. 1947).

Notes

External links

Guide to the Daniel Clarence Holtom Papers
Special Collections, The Claremont Colleges Library. Retrieved 2021-12-16. {{DEFAULTSORT:Holtom, Daniel Clarence 1884 births 1962 deaths American ethnologists Kalamazoo College alumni University of Chicago alumni 20th-century American anthropologists