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Frederick Starr (September 2, 1858 – August 14, 1933) was an American academic,
anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
, 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 In Shinto and Buddhism in Japan, an is a talisman made out of various materials such as paper, wood, cloth or metal. are commonly found in both Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples and are considered to be imbued with the power of the deities ...
'') and votive slips (''
senjafuda are votive slips, stickers or placards posted on the gates or buildings of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples in Japan. Unlike , which bear the name of the shrine, bear the name of the worshipper, and can be purchased pre-printed with com ...
'' 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 Gertrude Bass Warner (May 14, 1863 – July 29, 1951) was an American twentieth-century art collector, with particular interests in Asian art, religious artifacts, daily-life textiles, ceramics, paintings, and photographs. She lived, traveled, and ...
, 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 (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...
(1882) and a doctorate in geology at
Lafayette College Lafayette College is a private liberal arts college in Easton, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1826 by James Madison Porter and other citizens in Easton, the college first held classes in 1832. The founders voted to name the college after General Laf ...
(1885). While working as a curator of geology at the
American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...
(
AMNH The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...
) in New York, he became interested in anthropology and ethnology.
Frederic Ward Putnam Frederic Ward Putnam (April 16, 1839 – August 14, 1915) was an American anthropologist and biologist. Biography Putnam was born and raised in Salem, Massachusetts, the son of Ebenezer (1797–1876) and Elizabeth (Appleton) Putnam. After leavin ...
helped him become appointed as curator of AMNH's ethological collection (1889-1891). In this period, he became active in the
Chautauqua Chautauqua ( ) was an adult education and social movement in the United States, highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Chautauqua bro ...
circuit as a popular professor and, in 1888-89, as
registrar A registrar is an official keeper of records made in a register. The term may refer to: Education * Registrar (education), an official in an academic institution who handles student records * Registrar of the University of Oxford, one of the sen ...
. When
William Rainey Harper William Rainey Harper (July 24, 1856 – January 10, 1906) was an American academic leader, an accomplished semiticist, and Baptist clergyman. Harper helped to establish both the University of Chicago and Bradley University and served as the fi ...
, president of the
Chautauqua Institution The Chautauqua Institution ( ) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit education center and summer resort for adults and youth located on in Chautauqua, New York, northwest of Jamestown in the Western Southern Tier of New York State. Established in 1874, the ...
, was named President of 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 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 Carl Sofus Lumholtz (23 April 1851 – 5 May 1922) was a Norwegian explorer and ethnographer, best known for his meticulous field research and ethnographic publications on indigenous cultures of Australia and Mexico. Biography Born in Fåberg, N ...
, Starr traveled to the
Purépecha The Purépecha (endonym pua, P'urhepecha ) are a group of indigenous people centered in the northwestern region of Michoacán, Mexico, mainly in the area of the cities of Cherán and Pátzcuaro. They are also known by the pejorative "Tarascan ...
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 rightly 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 pop ...
races of Central Africa. In 1908 he did field work in the
Philippine Islands The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
, followed by Japan in 1909-10, and
Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
in 1911. In his ''Truth about the Congo Free State'' (1907), a collection of articles regarding the
Congo Free State ''(Work and Progress) , national_anthem = Vers l'avenir , capital = Vivi Boma , currency = Congo Free State franc , religion = Catholicism (''de facto'') , leader1 = Leopo ...
, 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 * german: link=no, Leopold Ludwig Philipp Maria Viktor , house = Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , father = Leopold I of Belgium , mother = Louise of Orléans , birth_date = , birth_place = Brussels, Belgium , death_date = ...
conducted from 1884 to 1912, also known as the
Congo Free State Propaganda War The Congo Free State propaganda war was a worldwide media propaganda campaign waged by both King Leopold II of Belgium and the critics of the Congo Free State and its atrocities. Leopold was very astute in using the media to support his virtual ...
. Floggings with the
chicotte The sjambok () or litupa is a heavy leather whip. It is traditionally made from an adult hippopotamus or rhinoceros hide, but is also commonly made out of plastic. A strip of the animal's hide is cut and carved into a strip long, tapering from a ...
were known and documented as an especially cruel form of torture by other observers, such as
Roger Casement Roger David Casement ( ga, Ruairí Dáithí Mac Easmainn; 1 September 1864 – 3 August 1916), known as Sir Roger Casement, CMG, between 1911 and 1916, was a diplomat and Irish nationalist executed by the United Kingdom for treason during Worl ...
, 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 struck the Kantō Plain on the main Japanese island of Honshū at 11:58:44 JST (02:58:44 UTC) on Saturday, September 1, 1923. Varied accounts indicate the duration of the earthquake was between four and ten minutes. Extensive firestorms an ...
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 , or Fugaku, located on the island of Honshū, is the highest mountain in Japan, with a summit elevation of . It is the second-highest volcano located on an island in Asia (after Mount Kerinci on the island of Sumatra), and seventh-highest p ...
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 ( nl, Leopoldsorde, french: Ordre de Léopold, ) 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 Le ...
. *
Order of the Crown of Italy The Order of the Crown of Italy ( it, Ordine della Corona d'Italia, italic=no or OCI) was founded as a national order in 1868 by King Vittorio Emanuele II, to commemorate the unification of Italy in 1861. It was awarded in five degrees for civi ...
(Italy). *
Order of the Sacred Treasure The is a Japanese order, established on 4 January 1888 by Emperor Meiji as the Order of Meiji. Originally awarded in eight classes (from 8th to 1st, in ascending order of importance), since 2003 it has been awarded in six classes, the lowest ...
(Japan). * University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology, Starr Lectureship.


Selected works

* ''Catalogue of Collections of Objects Illustrating Mexican
Folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
'' (1899) * '' Indians of South Mexico'' (1900) * '' The Ainu Group of the
Saint Louis Exposition The Saint Louis Exposition or St. Louis Expo was a series of annual agricultural and technical fairs held in St. Louis' Fairgrounds Park, from the 1850s to 1902. In 1904, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, a major World's Fair, was held in St. L ...
(1904) * ''The Truth about the Congo'' (1907) * ''In Indian Mexico'' (1908) * ''
Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
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, also known as 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 Univer ...
. (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