Background

Eliza was born in Deerfield, Massachusetts, United States, on August 29, 1824. She descended from Dr. Comfort Starr, of Ashford, County Kent, England, who, in 1634, settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On her mother's side she descendeded from the "Allens of the Bars, " originally of Chelmsford, England, who were prominent in Colonial history. Her father, a dyer, was a descendant of Dr. Comfort Starr, who emigrated from Kent, England, to Boston in 1635.

Education

Uneducated but intelligent, the Starrs encouraged Eliza to go beyound the district school, and even the local academy, to Boston, where she took lessons in art and painting from the wife of Richard Hildreth, the historian.

Career

Finding the climate disagreeable in Boston, where she had a studio, she taught art in private schools in Brookyn, New York, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, became a tutor in a wealthy family of Natchez, Mississippi, and finally settled in Chicago, Illinois, about 1856 as one of its first teachers of art and the first to instruct her pupils from nature and casts.

In addition to private teaching she gave for a score of years an annual series of lectures, which contributed to the cultural life of the first families of the city, on painting, architecture, and the great artists of the Renaissance. After her studio burned in the great fire of 1871, she spent a few years at St. Mary's Academy (later College), South Bend, Indiana, under Mother Angela, organizing an art department.

In 1875 she traveled extensively in Europe, drawing upon her experiences later for her Pilgrims and Shrines (2 vols. , 1885).

She died at the home of a brother in Durand, Ill. , and was buried from the Cathedral of the Holy Name, Chicago, in Calvary Cemetery.

Achievements

• Eliza Allen Starr became widely known as a lecturer in Catholic circles and convent schools, and as a writer of poems and popular essays on art in the Catholic World, Ave Maria, New York Freeman's Journal, London Monthly, and other magazines. She received a medallion from Pope Leo XIII in appreciation of her work; a Laetare Medal (1885), awarded annually by the University of Notre Dame to an outstanding Catholic contributor to the church and nation; and a gold medal at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago for her work as a teacher.

Works

More photos

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  • Christmas-Tide (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Christmas-Tide Merrie Christmas! Christmas ...)

  • The Three Archangels and the Guardian Angels in Art (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Three Archangels and the Guardian Angels...)

  • Isabella of Castile, 1492-1892 (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Isabella of Castile, 1492-1892 In the follo...)

  • Songs of a Life-Time (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Songs of a Life-Time F all fair abodes wher...)

  • Poems (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Poems Of life's increasing cares, shall dim...)

  • The Life and Letters of Eliza Allen Starr (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Life and Letters of Eliza Allen Starr A...)

  • Satan in Societ

    (This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)

  • Poems

    (This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)

  • Pilgrims and Shrines, Volume 2

    (This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)

  • Patron Saints

    (Study and learn about the Patron Saints with this Eliza A...)

  • Saint Lawrence

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • St. Luke

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • St. Anthony Of Padua

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • St. Benedict And Scholastica

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • St. Cecilia

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • St. Dunstan

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • St. Lucy

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • St. Jerome

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Pilgrims and Shrines

    (This Is A New Release Of The Original 1885 Edition.)

Religion

In some way about 1845 her Unitarian beliefs were upset by a sermon of Dr. Theodore Parker, and her religious yearnings were not satisfied until in 1854 she joined the Roman Catholic Church. She was influenced by her association with Bishops Francis Patrick Kenrick and John Bernard Fitzpatrick, and her cousin, George Allen, a convert and a professor of Latin and Greek at the University of Pennsylvania.

Connections

She died at the home of a brother in Durand, Ill. , and was buried from the Cathedral of the Holy Name, Chicago, in Calvary Cemetery.

Father:

Oliver Starr

mother :

Lovina Allen Starr

Cousin:

George Allen

Brother:

Caleb Allen Starr

Brother :

Oliver Starr

associate:

Leander James McCormick

associate:

James Duggan

associate:

Walter Loomis Newberry

associate:

William Butler Ogden

associate:

Jonathan Young Scammon

References

• Education of Jane Addams (07) by Brown, Victoria Bissell Paperback (2007)
• A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters and Other Remains