Marion L. Starkey
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Marion L. Starkey | |
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| Born | April 13, 1901 |
| Died | December 18, 1991 |
| Genre | history |
| Notable works | The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials |
Marion Lena Starkey (April 13, 1901 – December 18, 1991) was an American writer of history books, including The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials. She was born April 13, 1901 in Worcester, MA to Arthur and Alice T. (Gray) Starkey. She earned a bachelor's degree from Boston University in 1922, and a master's degree from Harvard University in 1935.[1]
Career
[edit]After working as a newspaper editor for the Saugus Herald and teaching at the Hampton Institute and at the University of Connecticut at New London, she became a full-time writer.[2] She began writing as a child, but did not take up writing full-time for many years. Her books include: The Tall Man from Boston, The Visionary Girls: Witchcraft in Salem Village, Cherokee Nation, The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Inquiry into the Salem Witch Trials, Land Where Our Fathers Died: the Settling of the Eastern Shores, Striving to Make It My Home, Congregational Way and The First Plantation: A History of Hampton and Elizabeth City County, Virginia, 1607-1887.
The Devil in Massachusetts
[edit]Motivated in part by the question of how the Holocaust could have happened, Starkey delved into the Salem archives to explore the underpinnings of an earlier, American tragedy: the Salem Witch Trials. Working from court records, she created a psychological portrait tracing the development of the event from child fantasies to societal hysteria, eventually publishing in 1949 The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry Into the Salem Witch Trials. Arthur Miller is said to have used this work in his research for The Crucible.[3]
References
[edit]- ^ "Marion L(ena) Starkey". Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. Gale. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
- ^ "Marion L. Starkey". Penguin Random House. Retrieved 2017-08-11.
- ^ Kate Bolick (October 27, 2015). "Salem's Reign of Terror". The New Republic. Retrieved 2017-08-11.
External links
[edit]
Quotations related to Marion L. Starkey at Wikiquote
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- 1901 births
- 1991 deaths
- People from Saugus, Massachusetts
- American women historians
- 20th-century American women journalists
- 20th-century American women writers
- 20th-century American historians
- Historians from Massachusetts
- 20th-century American journalists
- Journalists from Massachusetts
- Hampton University faculty
- Boston University alumni
- Harvard University alumni
- University of Connecticut faculty
- American historian stubs