Kevin Starr
| Kevin Starr | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
Kevin Owen Starr September 3, 1940 San Francisco, California |
| Died | January 14, 2017 (aged 76) San Francisco, California |
| Cause of death | Heart attack |
| Education | Univ. of San Francisco (B.A. 1962); Harvard (M.S. 1965; PhD 1969); U.C. Berkeley (M.S. 1974) |
| Occupation | Historian, author, professor, librarian |
| Known for | Writings on California history |
| Spouse(s) | Sheila Gordon (1963–his death) |
| Children | two |
| Awards |
California Hall of Fame; National Humanities Medal; Los Angeles Times Book Prize |
Kevin Owen Starr (September 3, 1940 – January 14, 2017) was an American historian and Caliifornia's State Librarian, best known for his multi-volume series on the history of California, collectively called "Americans and the California Dream."
Born in San Francisco, he was a seventh-generation Californian. 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 1994 to 2004 Starr was California's State Librarian. He continued writing California history throughout his career, receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship, membership in the Society of American Historians, and the Gold Medal of the Commonwealth Club of California. In 2006 he was presented a National Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush for his work as a scholar and historian, and in 2010 was inducted into the California Hall of Fame.
Kevin Starr was born on Sept. 3, 1940, in San Francisco, 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, while they subsisted on welfare. He attended St. Boniface School in the Tenderloin neighborhood.
He later enrolled in the University of San Francisco, a Jesuit institution, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1962. At the school, he was editor of The Foghorn, the school newspaper. After graduation he served for two years as a lieutenant in a tank battalion in Germany (the 68th Armored Brigade of the U.S. Army, in what was then West Germany). Upon release from the service, Starr entered Harvard University where he earned an MA degree in 1965 and a PhD in 1969 in American Literature.
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