Fay-Cooper Cole was born in Plainwell, Michigan in 1881. He attended Northwestern University and Columbia University. He did his fieldwork with the Tinguian people in Luzon, Philippines from 1906-1908 for the Field Columbian Museum. His research with the Tinguian was published as a dissertation for his Ph. D. at Columbia University in 1914. He is also known for his research in Mindanao from 1910-1912 and in Indonesia from 1922-1923.
He was important to the anthropological field because he started the anthropology program at the University of Chicago in 1929. Because of his efforts (with help from others) the anthropology department separated from the sociology department to become its own department. He also changed the way anthropology was studied at the University of Chicago from museum oriented to one that involved social behavior. At the University of Chicago he also developed fund-raising for money to finance research projects in the department.
He is responsible for the Worcester Collection at the Field Museum of Natural History. While he was the curator for the museum he went to the Philippines and Indonesia in the 1920’s. He gathered 200 photos of the area from Dean C. Worcester’s (a prominent Philippine official) personal photographer. He took more than 400 photos around the area of Indonesia and the Philippines, but the Worcester Collection is by far the most important “for the study of Philippine anthropology (in particular, the Nias region), and late colonial Philippine history.”
Fay-Cooper Cole was the first archeologist to use dendrology in studies about Illinois and the Midwest. Although he retired in 1947, he persisted to lecture, teach, and publish further works about anthropology. He is noted for co founding the Society for American Archeology, and was the president of the American Anthropological Association from 1933-1935. He wrote The Story of Man in 1937, and Kincaid: A Prehistoric Illinois Metropolis in 1951. Fay-Cooper Cole died in 1961.
Fay-Cooper Cole. Comptons Encyclopedia Online. http://www.comptons.com/ceo99-cgi/article?'fastweb?getdoc+viewcomptons+A+2090+1++Fay%20Cooper-Cole '. June 17, 2000.
Separating from Sociology. About the department: History. Anthropology. Former link, http://anthropology.uchicago.edu/about/cases/separating.html . (October 2006) June 17, 2000.
Worcester Collection. Research and Collections Photography. The Field Museum. http://www.fieldmuseum.org/research_collections/photography/collections.htm . June 17,2000.
Written by: Amanda Murtha