Kevin Owen Starr (September 3, 1940 – January 14, 2017) was an American
historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...
and
California's state librarian
The California State Library is the state library of the State of California, founded in 1850 by the California State Legislature. The Library collects, preserves, generates and disseminates a wide array of information. Today, it is the central ...
, best known for his multi-volume series on the
history of California
The history of California can be divided into the Native American period (about 10,000 years ago until 1542), the European exploration period (1542–1769), the Spanish colonial period (1769–1821), the Mexican period (1821–1848), and Un ...
, collectively called "Americans and the California Dream."
After an impoverished childhood, he received degrees from various universities where he studied history and literature. Beginning in 1973, Starr wrote nine books on the history of California during his career, along with being professor or visiting lecturer at numerous California universities. From 1989 until his death in 2017, he was a professor at the
University of Southern California
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, accreditation = WSCUC
, type = Private research university
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.
From 1994 to 2004 Starr was California's state librarian. He continued writing California history throughout his career, receiving a
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
National Humanities Medal
The National Humanities Medal is an American award that annually recognizes several individuals, groups, or institutions for work that has "deepened the nation's understanding of the humanities, broadened our citizens' engagement with the human ...
from President George W. Bush for his work as a scholar and historian, and in 2010 was inducted into the California Hall of Fame.
Early life and education
Kevin Starr was born on September 3, 1940, in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, to Owen Starr, a machinist, and Marian Starr (née Collins), a bank teller. He was a seventh generation Californian.
Starr's parents divorced when he was a child. When he was six his mother had a nervous breakdown, after which Starr and his younger brother, James, were placed in a Roman Catholic orphanage in Ukiah. Five years later, he and his brother were reunited with their mother, where they lived in a public housing project in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, while they subsisted on welfare. He attended St. Boniface School in the Tenderloin neighborhood.
He later enrolled in the
University of San Francisco
The University of San Francisco (USF) is a private Jesuit university in San Francisco, California. The university's main campus is located on a setting between the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park. The main campus is nicknamed "The ...
, a Jesuit institution, where he graduated with a
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', Jan. 16, 2017 After graduation he was commissioned as an armor officer in the
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...
. He served for two years as a lieutenant with the 4th Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment, first as a platoon leader and then as the Assistant S-1. The 4/68 Armor Bn was assigned to the 3rd Brigade, 8th Infantry Division and was located at Coleman Barracks near Mannheim in what was then West Germany. Upon release from the service, Starr entered
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
, earning an M.A. in English in 1965 and a Ph.D. in the discipline (specializing in American literature) in 1969. He subsequently launched his teaching career at Harvard as an assistant (and later associate) professor of English from 1969 to 1973 before returning to California. Full CV in
PDF
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
format from October 2003)
Career
In 1973, he became an aide and speechwriter to San Francisco mayor Joseph Alioto. He was also appointed city librarian, during which time he earned a master's degree in
library science
Library science (often termed library studies, bibliothecography, and library economy) is an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, and ...
from the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, in 1974. He also did post-doctoral work at the
Graduate Theological Union
The Graduate Theological Union (GTU) is a consortium of eight private independent American theological schools and eleven centers and affiliates. Seven of the theological schools are located in Berkeley, California. The GTU was founded in 1962 ...
in Berkeley.
Beginning in 1973, Starr wrote nine books on the history of California, eight of which comprise his ''Americans and the California Dream'' series. It was at Harvard that he first became inspired to write about California's history, after browsing through their collection of books about California and the Pacific Coast. He explained the impact those books had on him:
From 1974 to 1989 he was professor or visiting lecturer at numerous California universities, including
UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...
,
University of Southern California
, mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it"
, religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist
, established =
, accreditation = WSCUC
, type = Private research university
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $8. ...
,
UC Davis
The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the Uni ...
Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university's campus surrounds the historic M ...
, the University of San Francisco, and Stanford University. He was also a columnist for the ''
San Francisco Examiner
The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and published since 1863.
Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst, and flagship of the Hearst Corpora ...
'' and served as the Vatican correspondent for Hearst Newspapers, covering the elections of Popes John Paul I and
John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
in 1978.
In 1989 Starr became Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the
University of Southern California
, mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it"
, religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist
, established =
, accreditation = WSCUC
, type = Private research university
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $8. ...
, he then became Professor of History, and he was designated University Professor in 1998.
Starr sometimes taught at the USC State Capital Center in
Sacramento, California
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, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
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, map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...
.
Starr was appointed by
Governor Pete Wilson
Peter Barton Wilson (born August 23, 1933) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 36th governor of California from 1991 to 1999. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as a United States senator from California betw ...
to serve as California's state librarian, a post he managed from 1994 to 2004, at which time
Governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
Emeritus
''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
. Starr oversaw the allocation of $350 million in local library construction money after voters approved a statewide library borrowing measure in 2000. As a child, Starr had to read the newspaper to his visually impaired father, an experience which led him to create a statewide service that allowed
visually impaired
Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment� ...
people to call a phone number to connect with someone who would read the news to them.
California state librarian Greg Lucas calls Starr "truly, one of a kind. No other historian has been able to capture
California's exceptionalism
American exceptionalism is the belief that the United States is inherently different from other nations. Starr's library assistant, Mattie Taormina, notes that "Starr made you excited to be a Californian because you were going to create the future California."
Starr is the author of the multi-volume history of California collectively entitled "Americans and the California Dream". The first volume in the series, ''Americans and the California Dream, 1850–1915'' was published in 1973. The final volume, entitled ''Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance,'' covers the period from 1950 to 1963 and won the 2009 ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
, membership in the Society of American Historians, and the Gold Medal of the Commonwealth Club of California.
In 2006, Starr was made a member of the College of Fellows of the
Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology
The Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology (DSPT) is a Catholic graduate school in Berkeley, California. It is a member of the interfaith Graduate Theological Union (GTU) and an affiliate of the University of California Berkeley. DSPT ...
in
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
. In 2006 he was presented a
National Humanities Medal
The National Humanities Medal is an American award that annually recognizes several individuals, groups, or institutions for work that has "deepened the nation's understanding of the humanities, broadened our citizens' engagement with the human ...
Maria Shriver
Maria Owings Shriver (born November 6, 1955)
is an American journalist, author, a member of the Kennedy family, former First Lady of California, and the founder of the nonprofit organization The Women's Alzheimer's Movement. She was married to ...
inducted Starr into the
California Hall of Fame
The California Hall of Fame honors individuals and families who embody California's innovative spirit and have made their mark on history. The hall and its exhibits are housed in The California Museum in Sacramento.
The hall of fame was conceived ...
The Sacramento Bee
''The Sacramento Bee'' is a daily newspaper published in Sacramento, California, in the United States. Since its foundation in 1857, ''The Bee'' has become the largest newspaper in Sacramento, the fifth largest newspaper in California, and the 2 ...
'', Jan. 15, 2017
Composer
John Adams
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...
was inspired by the "Dream" series of books to write the piece '' City Noir'' in 2009. Starr received The Robert Kirsch Award by the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...
'' as part of the 2012
Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Since 1980, the ''Los Angeles Times'' has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The Prizes currently have nine categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award added in 1991), history, mystery/thriller ...
s.
Death
Starr died of a
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which m ...
in San Francisco on January 14, 2017.
Works
* ''Land's End'' (a novel) (1979)
* ''Americans and the California Dream, 1850–1915''. (1973 and 1986) New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 494. (1986)
* ''Inventing the Dream: California through the Progressive Era'' (1985)
* ''Material Dreams: Southern California through the 1920s'' (1990)
* ''Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California'' (1996)
* ''The Dream Endures: California Enters the 1940s'' (1997)
*
* ''Embattled Dreams: California in War and Peace, 1940–1950'' (2002)
* ''Coast Of Dreams: California on the Edge, 1990–2003'' (2004)
*
*
*
*''Continental Ambitions: Roman Catholics in North America: the Colonial Experience.'' (2016) Ignatius Press; Sewn edition. pp. 675.