Fritz Sage Darrow Papers

Collection

Identifier: Spec-Coll-00016

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The collection is organized into two series:

Series 1: Personal Papers. 1897-1919. This series consists of many of Darrow’s writings on Theosophy including plays and journal articles. Also found here are newspaper clippings and correspondence regarding Darrow’s dismissal from Drury College and his divorce.

Series 2: Research Material. 1910-1919 and undated. This series consists of correspondence, notes, bibliographies and transcriptions related to Darrow’s research into the life of Francis Mercurius van Helmont. Also found here are some family correspondence related to his research, but which also contains personal information.

Early collection descriptions by James Holly Hanford and I.R. Watts are located in Box 12.

Abbreviations used in this list are as follows:

F.S.D. : Professor Fritz Sage Darrow

M.G.D. : May Goodall Darrow

F.M.v.H. : Francis Mercurius van Helmont (son)

J.B.v.H. : Jean Baptiste van Helmont (father)

Dates

1897 - 1919

Biographical / Historical

Fritz Sage Darrow was born in Rochester, New York in 1882 to Charles E. and Isabel Sage Darrow. He graduated from Harvard University (A.B., 1903, A.M., 1904, PhD, 1906) and earned many scholastic honors there including Harvard College Scholar (1902), John Harvard Scholar (1903), and Charles Eliot Norton Fellow. He was a Member of the American School of Classical Studies, Athens, Greece (1903-1904A)

Darrow served as instructor of Classical Archeology in the Harvard Summer School (1906), Adjunct Professor of Greek at Dickenson College (1906-1907) and Professor of Greek at Drury College (1907-1910). He sought to write the definitive life of Francis Mecurius van Helmont (1614-1698), a 17th century alchemist, cabbalist and physician.

Also a prominent Theosophist, Darrow was the author of many works about that philosophy. He lived with his wife and children for a time at the International Theosophical Headquarters in Point Loma, California. After divorcing from his wife in 1919, Darrow returned to Rochester where he remarried and became director of the Rochester Business Institute. He died in 1929.