Robert Hunter | |
---|---|
Born |
Terre Haute, Indiana, United States |
April 10, 1874
Died | May 14, 1942 Montecito, California, United States |
(aged 68)
Occupation | Sociologist, progressive author, golf course architect |
Education | Indiana University |
Spouse | Caroline M. Phelps Stokes |
Robert Hunter (April 10, 1874 – May 14, 1942) was an American sociologist, progressive author, and golf course architect.
Wiles Robert Hunter was born on April 10, 1874, at Terre Haute, Indiana the middle of five children born over thirteen years to William Robert and Caroline “Callie” (née Fouts) Hunter. Hunter’s father was a native of Tennessee and a veteran of the American Civil War, having served as a colonel with the Illinois 21st Infantry. At war’s end William Hunter relocated to Terre Haute where he married and became a manufacturer of horse-drawn carriages and buggies in partnership with his father-in-law, Andrew B. Fouts. Robert Hunter's maternal second great-grandfather was Samuel Hawkins, an American Revolutionary War veteran who had served with General George Rogers Clark at the Battle of Vincennes.
During the 1884 presidential race New York Governor Grover Cleveland made a campaign stop at Terre Haute, where William Hunter had been put in charge of the local reception committee. As a result, his ten-year-old son was given the honor of shaking the candidate’s hand after riding a white pony at the head of a parade greeting the Democratic nominee to their city.
Robert Hunter graduated from Indiana University in 1896, and soon thereafter became an organizing secretary for the Chicago Bureau of Charities. Around this time he became involved with the Settlement Movement. For a while, he was a resident of the city’s Hull House, before traveling to England, where he would join similar socioeconomic communes. In 1902 he was named head worker (manager) of the University Settlement in New York City, where he also became active in an anti-tuberculosis campaign and chaired a New York commission tasked with ending child labor.