Cole, Fay-Cooper

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Cole, Fay-Cooper

Fay-Cooper Cole (1881–1961) was born in Plainwell, Michigan. His family soon moved to California, where Cole spent his youth. He graduated from Northwestern University in 1903, and after a period of postgraduate work at the University of Chicago he joined the staff of the department of anthropology at the Field Museum of Natural History. The museum was then initiating an active program of exploration, and in preparation for his participation in this program Cole undertook formal graduate training in anthropology at Columbia and Berlin. On behalf of the museum, he then made two extended field trips to the Philippines, first working among the Tinguian of northern Luzon, 1907–1908, and then primarily in Mindanao, 1910–1912. His work among the Tinguian provided the material for his doctoral dissertation, and he received his ph.d. from Columbia in 1914.

In 1922/1923 Cole made a third trip for the museum to southeast Asia, spending much of this period in Indonesia. He returned to Chicago and in 1924 joined the faculty of the University of Chicago as assistant professor of sociology and anthropology. Through Cole’s vigorous efforts, anthropology received separate departmental status in the university in 1929, and under his guidance the department developed as a widely recognized center for research and teaching in this field. Following his retirement in 1947, Cole established his home in Santa Barbara, California, but continued to be in great demand as a teacher. During this period he served in a visiting capacity at the University of Southern California, at Northwestern, Syracuse, Washington, Cornell, and Harvard.

Cole’s published work made an original contribution to two distinct fields in anthropology. The first is Philippine ethnology. His monographs, The Tinguian (1922), Traditions of the Tinguian (1915a), The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao (1913), and The Bukidnon of Mindanao (1956), together with a number of shorter papers, form an important part of ethnological knowledge of the Philippines. The field studies on which these were based led to his more general book The Peoples of Malaysia (1945), which incorporated his accumulated knowledge and experience of this complex region. The second field in which Cole made a significant original contribution was North American archeology. At a time when administrative demands precluded extended field work away from the University of Chicago, he turned his ef-forts to the archeology of the American Middle West. Knowledge of the prehistory not only of the Middle West but of the entire eastern half of North America was at that time in a most immature state. Cole took an active role in stimulating systematic archeological excavations and in the development and application of refined techniques in the field and laboratory. Two volumes, Rediscovering Illinois (Cole & Deuel 1937) and Kincaid: A Prehistoric Illinois Metropolis (Cole et al. 1951), include the results of archeological surveys and excavations that he initiated and led.

In the United States Cole is perhaps best known as the founder of the department of anthropology at the University of Chicago. Despite the fact that the establishment of the department virtually coincided with the onset of economic depression and that during the following decade means were always very scarce, under Cole’s direction the department grew and flourished. Edward Sapir, Radcliffe-Brown, and Redfield were among the distinguished men who joined the department faculty. The lectures of visiting scholars from abroad added distinction. The department attracted an able group of graduate students, who have continued Cole’s work in anthropology at Chicago and at numerous other institutions in the United States.

Not so well known is Cole’s contribution to museum development. The impressive and well-documented ethnographic collections from southeast Asia in the Field Museum of Natural History are to a large extent the result of his long effort. He was always sympathetic to the museum cause, and his service on the Illinois State Board of Museums greatly aided in developing a professional museum system.

Cole’s career coincided with a period of unprecedented growth of professional scholarly societies in the United States and with a consequent expansion of their roles in the organization of teaching and of research and in public affairs. Particularly since World War II American professional societies have experienced recurring problems of growth, of accommodating special fields and interests, and of establishing working relations between the various branches of social science. To these problems Cole gave generously of his time and effort. He occupied numerous positions of responsibility—in the American Anthropological Association, the Social Science Research Council, and the National Research Council, to name but a few—but regarded his offices not merely as an honor but as a responsibility for contributing to the greater effectiveness of professional organizations in the advancement of knowledge.

Finally, Cole was devoted to education in the broadest sense. Here his interests ranged from teaching introductory undergraduate courses in anthropology to organizing the evidence for human evolution at the time of the Scopes trial in Tennessee. Much of his published writing was directed toward educated lay readers. He enjoyed presenting anthropology as an important approach to the understanding of man, and he gave his message with dignity and force.

Alexander Spoehr

[Other relevant material may be found inIndians, North American.]

WORKS BY COLE

1913 The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao. Field Museum of Natural History, Publication No. 170. Chicago: The Museum.

1915a Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study of Philippine Folk-lore. Field Museum of Natural History, Publication No. 180. Chicago: The Museum.

1915b A Study of Tinguian Folk-lore. Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia Univ.

1922 The Tinguian: Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe. Field Museum of Natural History, Publication No. 209. Chicago: The Museum.

1937 Cole, Fay-Cooper; and Deuel, Thorne. Rediscovering Illinois: Archaeological Explorations In and Around Fulton County. Univ. of Chicago Press.

1945 The Peoples of Malaysia. Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand.

1951 Cole, Fay-Cooper et al. Kincaid: A Prehistoric Illinois Metropolis. Univ. of Chicago Press.

1956 The Bukidnon of Mindanao. Natural History Museum, Publication No. 792. Chicago: The Museum.