Leland Schubert

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Leland Schubert (born June 11, 1907 in Toledo, Ohio ; died June 27, 1998 in Cleveland ) was an American literary scholar and philanthropist .

life and work

Schubert studied at Ohio Wesleyan University ( BA 1930), the University of Minnesota and Yale University ( MFA 1934); In 1938 he received his Ph.D. from Cornell University with the work The Realistic Tendency in the Theater for Ph.D. 1934-36 he initially taught rhetoric at the Ohio Wesleyan. 1938–39 he taught as an assistant professor at Madison College , then 1939–43 at Carleton College . In 1945 he returned to Madison College, where he headed the literature department from 1948 until his retirement in 1956. As a literary scholar, Schubert stood out in particular with a monograph on ekphrasis in Nathaniel Hawthorne 's work ( Hawthorne, The Artist , 1944).

In 1931 Schubert married Helen Dwan, the daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur. After retiring, the couple settled in Cleveland, where they supported numerous charitable and benevolent projects with amounts in the millions over the next few decades. In particular, Leland Schubert campaigned for the care of the blind; In 1960 he acquired a certificate for Braille transcription and in the following years transcribed several books in this "Braille"; In 1968 he also published a Braille textbook for parents of blind children. In the 1960s he also actively supported the civil rights movement of Afro-Americans. When Carl B. Stokes of Cleveland was elected the first black mayor of a major American city in 1967, the Schuberts donated (anonymously at first) $ 1 million to support Stokes' urban renewal program Cleveland: Now! In 1968 the Schuberts pooled their charitable activities in the AHS Foundation , which supported numerous schools and charitable enterprises for many years to come.

Works (selection)

  • Hawthorne, The Artist: Fine-Art Devices in Fiction . University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 1944. Reprint: Russell & Russell, New York 1963.
  • A Guide for Oral Communication . Prentice Hall, New York 1948.
  • Handbook for Learning to Read Braille by Sight . American Printing House for the Blind, Louisville KY 1968.
  • Roads Taken: The Story of My Family and Me, 1693-1983 . Cobham and Hatherton Press, Cleveland OH 1985.

Secondary literature

  • Schubert, Leland - Entry in The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History (Case Western Reserve University)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the reviews by FO Matthiessen in: Modern Philology 42: 1, 1944, pp. 62–63; Randall Stewart in: American Literature 16: 4, 1945, pp. 352-353; Stanley T. Williams in: Modern Language Notes 60: 1, 1945, pp. 71-72; Walter Blair in: Modern Philology 42: 1, 1944, pp. 62-63; Austin Wright in: Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 6: 1, 1947, pp. 73-75.
personal data
SURNAME Schubert, Leland
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American literary scholar and philanthropist
DATE OF BIRTH June 11, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Toledo, Ohio
DATE OF DEATH June 27, 1998
Place of death Cleveland