Person
Adam, Leonhard (1891 - 1960)
- Born
- 16 December 1891
Berlin, Germany - Died
- 9 September 1960
Bonn, Germany - Occupation
- Academic, Anthropologist, Curator, Ethnologist and Lawyer
Summary
Leonhard Adam fled Nazi Germany in 1938, was one of the 2,500 Jewish refugees labelled 'enemy aliens' who were sent from England to Australia aboard the Dunera. Adam was released from refugee internment at Tatura to take part in an ethnographic project with Professor Max Crawford at the University of Melbourne and went on to the position of scholar (1943-1947), lecturer (1947-1956) and part-time curator of the ethnographic collection (1958-1960). His dedication to the improvement of the ethnological collection at the University led to its renaming as the Leonhard Adam Ethnological Collection.
Details
Chronology
- c. 1912 - 1916
- Education - Bachelor's Degree in Ethnology, Universities of Berlin and Griefswald
- c. 1916 - 1920
- Education - Degree in Practising Law, Berlin University
- 1919 - 1938
- Career position - Editor of Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft (Journal of Comparative Jurisprudence)
- 1931 - 1933
- Career position - Lecturer in ethnological jurisprudence and primitive law at the Institute of Foreign Laws, Berlin
- 1933
- Life event - Nazi law disallowed him from practising in his field.
- c. 1933
- Career position - Member of the board of experts of the Ethnographical Museum, Berlin
- 1938
- Life event - Transported to Australia by the British Government as an 'enemy alien' aboard the Dunera
- 1938 - 1942
- Life event - Interned at refugee camp, Tatura, Victoria
- 1943
- Career position - Collaborated with Prof. Max Crawford on Aboriginal uses of stone.
- 1943 - 1947
- Career position - Scholar, University of Melbourne
- 1947 - 1956
- Career position - Lecturer in anthropology, University of Melbourne
- 1956
- Life event - Naturalised as an Australian Citizen
- 1957
- Award - Awarded a doctorate from the University of Bonn, Germany
- 1958 - 1960
- Career position - Part-time Curator of the Ethnographic Collection, University of Melbourne
Related entries
Published resources
Book Sections
- Dening, Greg, 'Adam, Leonhard (1891-1970), Anthropologist and Lawyer' in Australian Dictionary of Biography, John Ritchie, ed., vol. 13 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1993), pp. 8-9. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/adam-leonhard-9962. Details
Journal Articles
- Adam, Leonard, 'The abstract art of the Aranda', Anthropos, 55 (3/4) (1960), 345-54. https://jstor.org/stable/40453807. Details
- Anderson, Jaynie, 'The creation of indigenous collections in Melbourne: how Kenneth Clark, Charles Mountford, and Leonhard Adam interrogated Australian indigeneity', Les actes de colloques du musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac, 1 (2009). https://doi.org/10.4000/actesbranly.332. Details
- Davis, Michael, 'The outsider anthropologist? Leonhard Adam in Germany and Melbourne', Australian journal of biography and history, 4 (2020), 113-30. https://doi.org/10.22459/AJBH.04.2020.06. Details
- Inglis, Ken, 'The odyssey of Leonhard Adam', History Australia, 14 (4) (2017), 561-78. https://doi.org/10.1080/14490854.2017.1389234. Details
- Massola, A., 'In memoriam Leonhard Adam', Oceania, 31 (3) (1961), 161-5. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1834-4461.1961.tb00233.x. Details
- Sloggett, Robyn, '"Has Aboriginal art a future?" Leonhard Adam's essay and the development of the Australian Aboriginal art market', International journal of cultural studies, 18 (2) (2015), 167-83, http://doi.org/10.1177/1367877913515871. Details
Resources
- Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q1819175. Details
- VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/3551293. Details
- 'Adam, Leonhard (1891-)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-478402. Details
Rebecca Rigby
Created: 30 January 2012, Last modified: 29 March 2022