California has had its share of bona fide heroes. Men and women whose selfless contributions to the state’s growth and well-being place them in an elite pantheon of leaders. People whose vision, sense of purpose and sheer grit have helped the Golden State grow into itself as the unique cultural touchstone it is today.
That leadership A-list includes everyone from William Randolph Hearst and Cesar Chavez to George Lucas and current Vice President Kamala Harris. But alongside tha distinguished group, there’s a smaller, unassuming cadre of California’s “unsung” heroes. They’re pivotal leaders in their own right, whose work also elevated and advanced the state, often in ways that ran under the radar and out of the glare of headlines.
One of them is Kevin Starr. Even as a teen, Starr latched onto his native state’s distinctiveness and, for the rest of his life, he never let go of it. He found inspiration for his life’s work when he was a scholar and doctoral candidate at Harvard University in the late 1960s, poring through the Horace Davis collection of books on California. He went on to say, with perhaps too much simplicity, “California is a very important part of the American formula…I wanted to see how [the state] fit in.”
That abiding curiosity led to Starr’s penning far more than a million words to complete his magnum opus, which has become one of the state’s most treasured records of its culture and history.
When Starr passed away in 2017, former California Governor Jerry Brown said of him, “Kevin Starr chronicled the history of California as no one else. He captured the spirit of our state and brought to life the characters and personalities that made the California story. His vision, like California itself, was bigger than life.”
Early adversity
Starr’s early life was plagued with heartbreak and deprivation. He was born in San Francisco in 1940 to Owen Starr, a machinist, and his wife, Marian, a bank teller. Starr’s parents divorced when he was a child and when he was six, his mother suffered a nervous breakdown and was later committed to a mental institution. Starr and his brother, James, were shuttled off to a Roman Catholic orphanage in Ukiah, California, where the boys spent the next five years. Afterwards, the brothers were reunited with their mother back in San Francisco, where they lived in a meager public housing project and subsisted on welfare.
Despite the adversity, Starr drove himself to succeed. After attending St. Boniface School in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District and graduating from St. Ignatius High School, he enrolled in the University of San Francisco, a Jesuit school from which he graduated with a degree in English in 1962. A year later, he married Sheila Gordon with whom he eventually had two daughters.
Library caretaking
Following his college graduation, Starr served two years as an Army tank battalion officer in Germany. He returned to the U.S. in 1964 to earn a master’s and doctoral degree from Harvard, and then followed up with a Master of Library Science from UC Berkeley.
In 1973, then San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto appointed Starr as his executive aide. Later that year, Alioto named him director of the San Francisco Public Library, a position he held until 1976.
In 1994, Starr was appointed to the prestigious role of California state librarian, where he made significant contributions to the statewide administration of libraries. In fact, within four years, he increased California’s library budget by 65%. During his tenure, he also initiated landmark library programs, including Proposition 14, for which voters subsequently authorized $350 million for statewide library construction.
Starr left the library position in 2006, upon which former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger officially dubbed him State Librarian Emeritus, the only state librarian who was accorded that honor. That same year, Starr was further recognized for his contributions to the state when he received the National Humanities Medal and later, in 2010, was inducted into the California Hall of Fame.
Literary legacy
Starr’s contributions to furthering California’s place in American history can’t be overstated. Today, American Studies students in the history and honors program at Cal State Fullerton often delve into Starr’s writings to gain a better sense and understanding of California’s role in American history.
Jason Sexton, honors program lecturer in the university’s history department, noted that, “During any given term, there are probably four or more classes throughout the university assigning Kevin’s work. He’s a major literary figure in understanding the history of California.”
Shortly following Starr’s death in 2017, Sexton and his colleague William F. Deverall, a history professor at the University of California, launched a project that brought together scores of historians, social scientists and theologians to investigate Starr’s eight-volume “Americans and the California Dream” series.
The project was called “The California Dream in Interdisciplinary Perspective: Revisiting Major Themes in Kevin Starr’s California.” It ran for two years and delved into 10 major themes of Starr’s work. Recently, Sexton published a new collection of essays exploring what drove Starr’s devotion to the Golden State. Entitled “Redemptive Dreams: Engaging Kevin Starr’s California,” the book was just released this past fall.
“The ‘California Dream’ series is the most ambitious literary account of California that’s ever been given and probably ever will be given by one single author. Kevin’s passing is, in a sense, the end of an era of that kind of chronicling of California,” says Sexton. “Very few people have read all of Kevin Starr; I think Kevin would have appreciated that we’re not just excavating his work, but taking the themes and bringing them into conversation with our various disciplines and other concerns in California today. I hope the research we produce will provide some tools for reckoning with California, its 40 million residents and others around the world who count it such a special place.”
If what’s past is prologue, there’s more greatness ahead for California. No other state comes close to the sweeping grandeur of our geography, or the universal impact of our economy and culture. But to truly understand where the Golden State is headed, you must know its history, and the books of Kevin Starr are an indispensable resource for building that knowledge.