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]
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.
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]