Frederick Starr: Popularizer of Anthropology, Public Intellectual, and Genuine Eccentric [Hardcover]

This definitive, detail-packed biography is the first of Frederick Starr (1856-1933), a founding father of American anthropology at the University of Chicago. It presents a major reevaluation of Starrs place as the missionizer of anthropology, illuminates the consequences of the professionalization of anthropology, and yields a greater understanding of the United States as it moved into a position of global power. Donald McVicker considers Frederick Starrs colorful life in the context of the times. In many respects Starrs early career paralleled that of Franz Boas, the architect of American anthropology. Nonetheless, as Boas led professional anthropology into the twentieth century in the United States, Starr, the popularizer, increasingly fell behind. Today, if Starr is remembered at all, he is usually described in terms of his intellectual, professional, and ethical failings. Yet his collections, publications, and photographic and paper archives provide a rich set of resources for archaeologists, ethnologists, folklorists, and historians. McVicker argues that Starrs mission to bring anthropology to the public and enlighten them was as valid a goal during his career as was Boass goal to professionalize the field.Donald McVicker is professor emeritus of anthropology at North Central College in Naperville, IL, and a research associate at The Field Museum in Chicago.

Before Margaret Mead, there was Frederick Starr. Who? Starr, often in the newspapers, adulated University of Chicago professor, popular lecturer to packed theaters, collector of thousands of Indian, Mexican, Asian and African museum objects, fervently believed everyone should learn about anthropology. Why do even anthropologists today hardly recognize the name of Frederick Starr? Chicago anthropologist Donald McVicker perceives that Starr's anthropology exploring primitive and barbarian peoples, a kind of human geography, conflicted with the sophisticated scientific research carried on by Gerlsp