William A. Starrett

Starrett was born in Lawrence, Kansas, on June 14, 1877.[1] His father was William Aiken Starrett Sr., a Kansas minister.[2] His mother, Helen Martha (Ekin) Starrett, was a writer of many books and a teacher who founded the Starrett School for Girls in Chicago.[3] There were seven children in the family, five boys and two girls.[3] When he was a boy the family moved to the Chicago area, where he received his initial schooling.[4] Starrett worked part-time in a wholesale grocery house when he was in his early teens.[5]

The Woolworth Building under construction in February 1912

Empire State Building

Starrett entered the University of Michigan in 1893. However, he had to leave his studies in 1895 to help the family financially. He entered the construction field part-time, working along side his four brothers in companies which started the concept of building American skyscrapers.[6] Starrett started his full-time career at the age of 21 with the George A. Fuller Company in 1898 as an office boy, working alongside his brother Paul, who was already employed there.[7][8]

Starrett left the Fuller Company in 1899 and formed with his brothers Theodore and Ralph the Thompson-Starrett Company.[9] His brothers and Thompson left the company within a couple of years and Starrett became executive vice president of the company in 1901.[10] He was in charge of designing skyscraper buildings.[6] Between 1910 and 1912, one of the New York City skyscraper projects the company did was the Woolworth Building.[11]

Starrett sold out his share of the Thompson company In 1913 and joined his brother Goldwin at Starrett & van Vleck, architects of skyscraper department stores.[12][13] Key design elements used were skeleton steel framing and reinforced concrete.[14][15][16] Ultimately he passed on this steel construction technology to Japan so they could design buildings to resist earthquakes.[17][18][19] Starrett was an assistant architect engineer for three commercial buildings in the Marunouchi district of Tokyo and for the Crescent Building in Kobe.[13][16]

Just before World War I Starrett entered army training and qualified for the rank of Major in the United States Army Corps of Engineers. He served by supervising all U.S. government war construction as Chairman of the Emergency Construction Committee for the Council of National Defense.[20][21][22] He was in charge of all the architects that did work for the government.[23][24] During the war he was assigned to the War Industrial Board and put in charge of overseeing the architecture engineering of army construction work for military barracks housing for over a million soldiers.[25][26][27] He was promoted to captain, major and finally colonel. Starrett served in the Quartermaster Corps as an architect in charge of building cantonments.[28][29][30] He received several accolades and was honorably discharged on March 22, 1919.[6][13]

Starrett was chosen in 1919 as an advisory architect for the state of New Jersey for improving public buildings and designing future ones.[31] After this assignment he returned to George A. Fuller Company and became its vice president through 1921.[13] In 1922 the Starrett Corporation was formed and he became its president. He held the position for the rest of his life.[32]

Starrett was the main motivator behind the real estate and building interests of the family.[10][33] They consisted of his grandfather, four brothers, and two brothers-in-law. He was a principal officer of several companies associated with building approximately 200 notable buildings and skyscrapers in cities throughout the United States.[34][35] The 1,250-foot (380 m) Empire State Building was built by a Starrett's company in one year from 1930 to 1931.[36] It was the tallest structure in the world at the time.[37][38][39]

In 1917 the University of Michigan awarded Starrett his Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering nunc pro tunc, as if he had graduated in the class of 1897.[6][40] In 1931 he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering from the same university.[6][41][42] He was a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the Associated General Contractors of America.[42]

Starrett is remembered as building the tallest steel and concrete structures of his time as a new art form – the American skyscraper.[43][44][45] He was once nicknamed the "father of the skyscraper".[46] The Chicago Tribune newspaper reported that they considered him the person that built more skyscrapers than anyone.[13]

Starrett and his wife, Eloise, had a daughter, Helen Ruth, and a son, David.[47] He suffered a series of apoplectic strokes and was gravely ill from January 19, 1932.[17][19][48] He died at his home in Madison, New Jersey, on March 25, 1932, at the age of 54.[1][47][49] Starrett's will provided an income to Eloise and the children for the rest of their lives from his substantial estate.[50]

Adjunct associate professor of Urban Studies at Columbia University and architectural historian Carol Willis designates Starrett as an authority in the designing and construction of the skyscraper building.[51] The Skyscraper Museum considers Starrett's book Skyscrapers and the Men Who Build Them the best book written on the subject. They point out how he was able to convey in down-to-earth language easily understood by the general public the technical aspects of various skills of the architect, engineer, iron-worker, financier, and builder of the skyscraper since he had each of these talents.[52][53]

• Benardo, Leonard (1 July 2006). Brooklyn By Name. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-9149-3.

• Buttenheim (1921). Contractors and Engineers Monthly. Buttenheim-Dix Publishing Corporation.

• Cody, Jeffrey W. (2005). Exporting American Architecture. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781135804879. One of those who became most influential in the construction of the four buildings was William A. Starrett, an architect, engineer and member of a dynasty of American construction experts in the early twentieth century.

• Encyclopedia Americana (1967). The Encyclopedia Americana. Americana Corporation. William Aiken Starrett (Lawrence, 1877–1932), builder of the Empire State Building...

• Fenske, Gail (August 2008). The Skyscraper and the City: The Woolworth Building and the Making of Modern New York. University of Chicago Press. p. 169. ISBN 978-0-226-24141-8.

• Forbes (1932). Professional Architectural Monthly. Forbes, Limited.

• GCA (1921). Bulletin – General Contractors Association. The Association.

• Gothamite (1910). The Gothamite. University of Michigan Club of New York. Colonel William A. Starrett, '97E, builder of the Empire State Building, was recently nominated for president of the Associated General Contractors of America. Last summer at the 1931 Commencement at Ann Arbor, Mr. Starrett who is a member of our club, received the honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering.

• Greenwood (2009). Icons of American Architecture. Greenwood. ISBN 978-0-313-34207-3.

• Kingston, George C. (2017). William Van Alen, Fred T. Ley and the Chrysler Building. McFarland Publishers. ISBN 9781476668475.

• McDonnald, Alexander Hopkins (1951). The Encyclopedia Americana. Americana Corporation. William Aiken Starrett (Lawrence, 1877–1932), builder of the Empire State Building in New York and other famous buildings...

• McGraw (1932). Engineering News Record. McGraw-Hill.

• Microfilms (1967). National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. University Microfilms.

• Monograph (1919). Monograph.

• Osgood (1932). American Architect and Architecture. J. R. Osgood & Company.

• Tauranac, John (21 March 2014). Empire State Building. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-7109-4.

• U of M (1931). The Michigan Alumnus. University of Michigan Libraries. UOM:39015071179470. Colonel William A. Starrett, B.S.C.E.'97, D.Eng. (hon.) '31, who built the Empire State Building and a good many others.

• United States War Dept (1919). War Expenditures: Camps. U.S. Government Printing Office.

• Willis, Carol (1998). Building the Empire State. W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-73030-2.

• William A. Starrett at Find a Grave
• Chase Up Into The Sky – an account of the construction of Empire State Building by W. A. Starrett