Talk:David Starr Jordan

Talk

In late March 1891, Leland Stanford, appointed an energetic young scholar, David Starr Jordan of Indiana University, to head the fledgling university and mature with it. He had little time in which to recruit professors and design a curriculum by the university's Oct. 1 opening. Jordan found that established scholars in the East were reluctant to move to an unproven school in the West, so he turned to promising younger scholars, many from his alma mater, Cornell.

Two years later, in 1893, Senator Stanford died, and his estate was snarled in legal proceedings that threatened the life of the university. For "six pretty long years," as Jordan later summed up the difficult experience, the future of the university was in doubt. But Jane Stanford's determination, the courage of the pioneer faculty and their families, the faith that the community outside the campus placed in them and the buoyant energy of those early-day students sustained the university.

Once the estate was released from probate, Jordan was eager to build the academic program, but Mrs. Stanford wanted to see constructed the rest of the buildings she and her husband had planned -- the Outer Quad, Memorial Church, the Chemistry Building, a new library and a new gymnasium. Jordan came to call this period of construction the university's "stone age." Mrs. Stanford died in 1905; she saw fulfilled her "fondest wish . . . to live long enough to give to you young students all the requisite buildings planned by the founders."

But on April 18, 1906, a violent earthquake wrecked many of the new buildings and caused considerable damage to others. Jordan had been offered the position of secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, a job he now declined as he looked forward to rebuilding the university: "I am sure that my place is here," he wrote to a friend. "I can now, I believe, weld this institution together. I need some years to complete this. Then the institution will be beautiful, with a great library, adequate apparatus, a strong and well-paid faculty and a small but selected and effective body of students. . . . I shall stay with the poppies, the perfect sunshine and the shadow of the great temblor."

Stanford University's western, entrepreneurial spirit was evident through and beyond the period of rebuilding that followed the earthquake. Jordan's early faculty appointees became eminent in their fields, and in places far from California, Stanford graduates were earning reputations in their professions that reflected well on their alma mater.

In 1913, Jordan assumed the new post of chancellor, so that he could devote himself to the peace movement. When he died in 1931, he had spent half of his 80 years at Stanford.-— Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.64.170.57 (talk) 11:15, 19 February 2004 (UTC)

Appleton's

I originally composed this from scratch so as to avoid the dreaded Appleton's material, now hard to tell how much it's been "infected". Should be scrubbed at some point. Stan 16:19, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Not to rain on the parade, but Stanford's emergence had more to do with Ronald Reagan than Jordan. When Ronald Reagan became Governor of California, he slashed the University of California budget. Stanford University benefited from the resultant brain drain, much of it at the expense of UC Berkeley.EdwardG 19:25, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Deletions

This used to be a longer article - in September 2007, looks an anon deleted about 1/3 of it, and nobody noticed... Stan (talk) 21:04, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Jordan Hall at Butler University was named for local businessman Arthur Jordan--not David Starr Jordan.12.186.80.1 (talk) 18:37, 16 October 2008 (UTC)Misemici

Article?

Lulz, looks little more than a C.V. to me.67.190.86.13 (talk) 00:55, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

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Update Needed for Jordan Middle School in Palo Alto

The school has been renamed after a campaign to change the name due to DSJ's views on eugenics. http://padailypost.com/2018/03/28/board-renames-2-schools-terman-become-fletcher-jordans-new-name-greene/ I still need to learn how to edit properly so that is why I'm writing it here (and probably making a mistake)

It has been taken care of. WolfmanSF (talk) 15:10, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

"A Study of the Decay of Races Through the Survival of the Unfit"

This (quote) is the subtitle of Jordan's book from 1902 and it suggests he would have been proud to be identified as a racist. Influential promoters, pushing a view from the top, were an important pathway by which racism flowed into our culture and became systemic during this period after the civil war and the end of slavery. Our world was further broken by this mistake and we are still trying to recover. These racists talked about fish and farm animals but never took the time to define the goal of what an ideal human being from such a breeding project should be like: Jesus Christ or Augustine or Emily Dickinson or Joan of Arc or Homer or Isaac Newton or Ellen Craft or Tolstoy or Gandhi or Sacajawea or Frederick Douglass or Jane Austen? Why would hair and skin color (denoting so-called "race") be considered nearly as important as the cultural contributions that came thru the exchange of different narratives and ideas? Looking back at human evolution, isn't it obvious that ideas (including the exchange of ideas) were always far more important than the physical traits of our awkward and vulnerable bodies? With their impoverished imaginations and stunted yet zealous view of human "progress", these racists were certainly unable to envision so many thousands of wonderful and influential people who would become popular in their dawning 20th century.

Instead of racism, "eugenics" seems to be the term greatly favored in the article in its current form (June 22,2020). This word carries some negative connotations but it also retains the soft quality akin to the word that describes what it is: a euphemism. It was appealing at the time because it was a euphemistic and expert-sounding way to describe murder and forced sterilization. Additionally, in the current article this word has been carefully surrounded by other warm expressions, such as that Jordan was a "peace activist." WWII suggests the results of applied racism were not peaceful. We can also find many critics of these racist ideas in the same time period (see, for instance, Tolstoy's letter to Gandhi in 1908).

History at its most elemental form can be considered instructions to future generations of what in the forest is edible and what is poison. Racists loudly promoted what turned out to be a deadly poison and their mistaken views resulted in some of the greatest human suffering this world has seen. Those of us who take on the role of being editors of this encyclopedia have a responsibility to be clear about that, especially when we find jarring examples within our own beloved institutions of learning. Lewismr (talk) 15:09, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Racism and eugenics are not the same. One could still promote (or oppose) eugenics in a world where everyone was of the same race. WolfmanSF (talk) 21:46, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm assuming you agree that it makes most sense for editors here to use the same terms Jordan used. I haven't (yet) found the term 'eugenics' in his work including the quote provided by a previous editor (in the Career section) introducing it as "his version of eugenics." Lewismr (talk) 14:38, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Are your views based on the title he used, or from actually reading the book? WolfmanSF (talk) 18:49, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I've read it and it is thankfully short. Hastily written according to the author. Evidently so. More review to come.Lewismr (talk) 20:54, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I actually just made an account to join this discussion; please forgive any mistakes in wikipedia etiquette on my part (and let me know if I make any), I'm learning as I go. Lewismr, isn't the point of an encyclopedia to present facts, not opinions? As uncontroversial as it is, "racism is bad" is an opinion, not a fact, just as declaring anything "good" or "bad" is opinion. Also, the fact that Jordan didn't use the term "eugenics" doesn't mean he wasn't a eugenicist, does it? I'm not trying to be combative, I just think we need to tread carefully on sensitive topics like this one.DrPeepus (talk) 05:37, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Talk page is a forum where editors can informally express personal views. I think it helps make this encyclopedia stronger and more interesting than those that came before. But I understand that it also pulls back the veil and might be disconcerting if we prefer to think of historians as sphinx-like. I think you and I can agree that pseudo-scientific racism was consequential in the 20th c. and Jordan (like the contemporary Woodrow Wilson at Princeton) had an influential position over young scholars in the first few decades of that century. I agree with you that it is accurate to refer to him as a eugenicist but not as a substitute. Lewismr (talk) 14:10, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I misunderstood the point of the talk page. I thought contributions here were always advocating for changes to the related article, so I read your post in that light. I agree with the points you made re racism and Jordan's influence, but the two points aren't connected until it can be shown that Jordan helped make pseudo-scientific racism consequential through his influence over young scholars. DrPeepus (talk) 02:40, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

"War and Breed" (1915) contains DSJ's statements on both Race and Eugenics

DSJ describes this publication in his autobio (p. 619) as "extended treatise on the same subject [of Blood of a Nation/Human Harvest] in which I gathered together all material then available." Further describing this work in the main article might also aid with our ongoing discussion (above, including WolfmanSF) and in some of the editorial comments, with regard to DSJ's zealous concern regarding race (aka racism) and eugenics. Unlike the various versions of Blood of a Nation/Human Harvest, where the word "eugenics" is missing, in 1915 DSJ does begin to use the term and attributes the coining of it to Francis Galton, dating a definition to 1904, and also describing the opposite of eugenics as "dysgenics." https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=XEVSAQAAMAAJ&pcampaignid=books_web_aboutlink Lewismr (talk) 16:06, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Cattle and Men

As offended as I am by much of what he said, I'm a bit baffled by the claim in the introduction that he asserted that cattle and human beings are "governed by the same laws of selection." From my knowledge of biology, all living things are governed by the same laws of selection. That was Darwin's point. Later in the article, it clarifies that Jordan was comparing "… a race of men or a herd of cattle…" He was referring to what was called "the white race." It's the way he used the word "race" that makes the idea offensive, but that word is missing from the introduction. We need to rethink that sentence, or maybe remove it completely from the introduction. (It's fine in the later exposition.) There are plenty of other examples of offensive things he said that would better illustrate his dangerous ideas. —MiguelMunoz (talk) 07:53, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm curious about your last sentence— examples? In current form, footnote 2 links directly to the DSJ quote you mention and it falls near the beginning of the essay that he re-worked and re-published many times and that would seem to be his best attempt to apply his biased pseudo-scientific and since-discredited theories of Social Darwinism onto human beings in a way that could only lead to murderous social policies, applied by the powerful onto the vulnerable. It seems foundational to his convoluted and wrong-headed argument. Lewismr (talk) 17:04, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

We need more balance in the "monuments and memorials" section

This article is very, very unbalanced when it comes to the “Monuments and memorials” section. Instead of listing the things that were named after him - names that survived in his honor for decades - it only reports on their renaming. Even the subject headings are about the renaming rather than the naming. This is recentism inappropriate for an encyclopedia. I propose to change the schools section as follows, keeping appropriate references:

Schools named or formerly named for David Starr Jordan

During the 20th century several schools were named after him or in his honor. However, most of them were renamed in the 21st century, as his eugenics activities became well known.

• Jordan Middle School in Palo Alto, California, established in 1937, was renamed in 2018 for African-American memory chip inventor Frank S. Greene.
• David Starr Jordan Middle School in Burbank, California, established in the 1940s, was renamed in 2021 for labor leader and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta.
• Jordan High School in Long Beach, California, established in 1934, was still named for him as of March 2021 while the school district explores possible renaming.
• David Starr Jordan High School in Los Angeles, California, was established in 1923; the name was shortened to Jordan High School in 2020 to remove the reference to him while keeping "Jordan" as a generic legacy name for alumni.

Comments? -- MelanieN (talk) 23:48, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Since there has been no objection I am implementing this change. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:10, 24 April 2021 (UTC)