Cornelius Vander Starr, His Life and Work

Moving Around

1940 British Driving License

London Driving License

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As this document attests, C.V. Starr moved incessantly around the world.   This "Visitor to Great Britain" driving license is just one proof of that.

 

Starr did not just stay with insurance business.  The old journalism bug held over from his early years in California inspired him to also buy out two English-language newspapers.  He merged them into the Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury, which was published from 1931-1949.  He felt that there should be an American voice in Shanghai.

 

 C.V. Starr's Shanghai press card, signed by editor Randall Chase Gould, bears a red seal reading Mei shang Da mei wan bao guan yin (American Business Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury Office Seal).  The newspaper's address is given as 19 Chung Cheng Road (East); Telephone: 84086, and the date given is "February 19, 38th year of the Republic of China" [i.e. 1949].

After the Japanese occupied Shanghai in 1939, Starr's response to the censorship and abuse of his paper for propaganda purposes was to start a New York edition of the paper.  When in 1949 the communists came into power, with more censorship, he closed down the paper altogether.

 

C.V. Starr East Asian Library / 300 Kent Hall, M.C. 3901 / 1140 Amsterdam Avenue / New York, NY 10027 / (212) 854-4318 / starr@libraries.cul.columbia.edu