David Starr Jordan

For the fisheries research vessel, see NOAAS David Starr Jordan (R 444).
David Starr Jordan
President of Indiana University
In office
1884–1891
Preceded by Lemuel Moss
Succeeded by John Merle Coulter
First President of Stanford University
In office
1891–1913
Preceded by none
Succeeded by John C. Branner
Personal details
Born (1851-01-19)January 19, 1851
Wyoming County, New York
Died September 19, 1931(1931-09-19) (aged 80)
Stanford, California
Spouse(s) Susan Bowen Jordan, Jessie Knight Jordan
Children Knight Starr Jordan, Eric Knight Jordan, Barbara Jordan
Alma mater Cornell University
Profession Ichthyologist, University President

David Starr Jordan (January 19, 1851 – September 19, 1931) was an American ichthyologist, educator, eugenicist, and peace activist.[1] He was president of Indiana University and was the founding president of Stanford University.[2]

Biography

Early life and education

Jordan was born in Gainesville, New York, and grew up on a farm in upstate New York. His parents made the unorthodox decision to educate him at a local girls' high school.[3] He was part of the pioneer class of undergraduates at Cornell University, graduating with a degree in botany. He obtained graduate education from Butler University and the Indiana University School of Medicine.[4] While at Cornell, Jordan joined the Delta Upsilon fraternity.

His first wife Susan Bowen died after 10 years of marriage and he then married Jessie Knight, with whom he had four children.[3][5]

Career

He was inspired by Louis Agassiz to pursue his studies in ichthyology. He taught natural history courses at several small Midwestern colleges before joining the natural history faculty of Indiana University Bloomington in 1879. In 1885, he was named President of Indiana University, becoming the nation's youngest university president at age 34 and the first Indiana University president that was not an ordained minister.[4] He improved the university's finances and public image, doubled its enrollment, and instituted an elective system which, like Cornell's, was an early application of the modern liberal arts curriculum.[3]

In March 1891, he was approached by Leland and Jane Stanford, who offered him the presidency of their about-to-open California university, Leland Stanford Junior University. He had been recommended to the Stanfords by the president of Cornell, Andrew White. His educational philosophy was a good fit with the Stanfords' vision of a non-sectarian, co-educational school with a liberal arts curriculum, and after consulting his wife he accepted the offer on the spot.[3] Jordan arrived at Stanford in June 1891 and immediately set about recruiting faculty for the university's planned September opening. With such a short time frame he drew heavily on his own acquaintance in academia; of the fifteen founding professors, most came either from Indiana University or his alma mater Cornell. During his first year at Stanford he was instrumental in establishing the university's Hopkins Marine Station. He served Stanford as president until 1913 and then chancellor until his retirement in 1916.[4] While chancellor, he was also elected president of the National Education Association.[6]

In addition to his work as Stanford president, Jordan was known for being a peace activist. He argued that war was detrimental to the human species because it removed the strongest organisms from the gene pool. Jordan was president of the World Peace Foundation from 1910 to 1914 and president of the World Peace Conference in 1915, and opposed U.S. involvement in World War I.[4]

In 1925 Jordan was an expert witness for the defense in the Scopes Trial.[4] That same year, he was a listed member in the Bohemian Club and the University Club in San Francisco.[7] Jordan served as a Director of the Sierra Club from 1892 to 1903.[8] He served as a member of the initial board of trustees of the Human Betterment Foundation, a eugenics organization established in Pasadena, California, in 1928 in order to compile and distribute information about compulsory sterilization legislation in the United States, for the purposes of eugenics.[9]

Role in coverup of the murder of Jane Stanford

In 1905, Jordan launched an apparent coverup of the murder by poisoning of Jane Stanford. While vacationing in Oahu, Stanford had suddenly died of strychnine poisoning, according to the local coroner’s jury. Jordan then sailed to Hawaii, hired a physician to investigate the case, and declared she had in fact died of heart failure, a condition whose symptoms bear no relationship to those actually observed.[10][11] His motive for doing this has been a subject of speculation. One possibility is that he was simply acting to protect the reputation of the university;[10][12] its finances were precarious and a scandal might have damaged fundraising. He had written the president of Stanford's board of trustees offering several alternate explanations for Mrs. Stanford's death, suggesting they select whichever would be most suitable.[10] Given that Mrs. Stanford had a difficult relationship with him and reportedly planned to remove him from his position at the university, he might have had a personal motive to eliminate suspicions that might have swirled around an unsolved crime.[13] Jordan's version of Mrs. Stanford's demise[14] was largely accepted until the appearance of several publications in 2003 emphasizing the evidence that she was murdered.[10][12][13][15]

Legacy

Eric Knight Jordan in 1920.

His son, Eric Knight Jordan (1903–1926)[16] followed his father's footsteps into the sciences. He had taken part in a successful paleontological expedition to the Revillagigedo Islands and was considered a rising star in the world of paleontology when he was involved in a traffic accident near Gilroy, California, suffering fatal injuries and dying at the age of 22.[17] His death was a severe blow to his father.[18]

Jordan's papers are housed at Stanford University[19] and at Swarthmore College[4]

His later work, The Higher Foolishness was one of the several papers whose opinions inspired philosopher Martin Gardner to write his treatise on scientific skepticism, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science.

The David Starr Jordan Prize was established in 1986 as a joint endowment by Cornell, Indiana University, and Stanford. It is awarded to a "young scientist (40 years of age or less) who is making novel innovative contributions in one or more areas of Jordan’s interest: evolution, ecology, population and organismal biology".[20]

The fisheries research ship David Starr Jordan, commissioned in 1966 for service with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's Bureau of Commercial Fisheres and which later served in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fleet as NOAAS David Starr Jordan (R 444) until 2010, was named in Jordan's honor.[21]

Monuments and memorials

Works

David Starr Jordan as a young man (1868) from Days of a Man
Photograph of David Starr Jordan in 1880.
David Starr Jordan.
Portrait of David Starr Jordan, by E. Spencer Macky.

Selected articles

Miscellany

Eponymy

Photograph of David Starr Jordan, March 1923.
Drawing of David Starr Jordan, by F. Soulé Campbell.

The genera Jordania Starks, 1895, Davidijordania Popov, 1931, and Jordanella Goode & Bean, 1879 are named after him.

Species named after him include:

Notes

  1. Abrahamson, James L (1976). "David Starr Jordan and American Antimilitarism". The Pacific Northwest Quarterly 67 (2): 76–87.
  2. "David Starr Jordan '72" (PDF). Cornell Alumni News I (6): 39, 43. May 10, 1899.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Johnston, Theresa (January–February 2010). "Meet President Jordan". Stanford Magazine.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "David Starr Jordan Collected Papers (CDG-A), Swarthmore College Peace Collection". swarthmore.edu.
  5. "David Starr Jordan". Geni.com. Retrieved 21 June 2012.
  6. "David Starr Jordan". The Independent. Jul 13, 1914. Retrieved August 21, 2012.
  7. Dulfer & Hoag (1925). Our Society Blue Book. San Francisco: Dulfer & Hoag, pp. 177–178.
  8. "Roster of Sierra Club Directors" (PDF). Sierra Club. Retrieved 2010-02-02.
  9. "Human Sterilization Today," Human Betterment Foundation, 1938.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Romney, Lee (2003-10-10). "The Alma Mater Mystery". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2012-12-19.
  11. Morris, A. D. (2004). "Review of The Mysterious Death of Jane Stanford" (PDF). Hawaiian Journal of History (Hawaiian Historical Society) 38: 195–197. Retrieved 2012-12-21.
  12. 1 2 Cutler, Robert W. P. (1 August 2003). The Mysterious Death of Jane Stanford. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-4793-6. OCLC 52159960. Retrieved 2012-12-19.
  13. 1 2 Carnochan, W. B. (Summer 2003). "The Case of Julius Goebel: Stanford, 1905". American Scholar (Phi Beta Kappa) 72 (3). Retrieved 2012-12-19.
  14. Jordan (1922). The Days of a Man. Yonkers-on-Hudson, N.Y.: World Book Co., pp. 156-157.
  15. Wolfe, Susan (September–October 2003). "Who Killed Jane Stanford?". Stanford Magazine. Stanford University. Retrieved 2012-12-19.
  16. Guérard, Albert (1926). "Eric Knight Jordan, 1903-1926," Copeia, No. 152.
  17. Guérard, Albert (1926). "Eric Knight Jordan". Sigma Xi Quarterly 14 (2): 55–56.
  18. Hanna, G. Dallas (1926). "Expedition to the Revillagigedo Islands, Mexico, in 1925 - General Report". Proceedings of the California Academy Of Sciences XV: 1.
  19. "Guide to the David Starr Jordan Papers". Stanford University archives. Retrieved 21 June 2012.
  20. "The David Starr Jordan Prize". Retrieved 21 June 2012.
  21. noaa.gov NOAA Ship David Starr Jordan
  22. 1 2 3 Clark Kimberling, David Starr Jordan Landmarks on the campus of Indiana University, Bloomington. His source on "Jordan River" is Indiana Alumni Magazine [vol. 18 (June 1956) page 7].
  23. Frances Jackson et al. (1975) Papers of the Ad Hoc Committee on Preservation of Campus Plantings. University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
  24. "UH Mānoa · Campus Plant Collections". manoa.hawaii.edu. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  25. Cherry, W B; Gorman, G W; Orrison, L H; Moss, C W; Steigerwalt, A G; Wilkinson, H W; Johnson, S E; McKinney, R M; Brenner, D J (February 1982). "Legionella jordanis: a new species of Legionella isolated from water and sewage". J Clin Microbiol 15 (2): 290–297. PMC 272079. PMID 7040449.
  26. "NOAA Ship DAVID STARR JORDAN". noaa.gov.
  27. Domning, D. P., 1978, Univ. Calif. Publ. Geol. Sci. 118:21.

Further reading

External links

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David Starr Jordan
Academic offices
Preceded by
Lemuel Moss
President of Indiana University
18841891
Succeeded by
John Merle Coulter
Preceded by
None
President of Stanford University
18911913
Succeeded by
John C. Branner
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