Paul readers

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Paul Readers (born February 23, 1899 in Frankfurt am Main , † December 22, 1984 in Hartford , Connecticut , United States ) was a German-American ethnologist .

Life

Paul Readers came from a wealthy Frankfurt Jewish family. His father was a higher regional judge. Readers attended the Goethe-Gymnasium in Frankfurt (Main) from 1908 to 1917 and studied ethnology at the University of Bonn since 1919 . He was a student of Fritz Graebner and received his doctorate in March 1925. From 1928 to 1930 he was a research assistant at the Museum of Ethnology in Frankfurt am Main. In 1929 he completed his habilitation at the Technical University of Darmstadt and became a private lecturer in ethnology. From 1929 to 1933 he taught as a private lecturer in ethnology at the Technical University of Darmstadt. Reader was dismissed as a non-civil servant lecturer in 1933. The subject of ethnology was no longer offered at the TH Darmstadt.

Paul Readers was involved in the youth movement in the Nerother Wandervogel and founded the illegal Pachanten order together with Wolf Kaiser in November 1933, following the dissolution of the League forced by the National Socialists . In February 1936 he fled Germany to Sweden via Denmark . From 1937 he lived in Stockholm . In 1942 he left Gothenburg via Barcelona for the USA . After he worked for the United States Army in the meantime , he fought in North Africa and Italy , he taught at various American universities. From 1952 to 1967 he was Professor of Anthropology in Hartford (Connecticut) . He was visiting professor at the University of Cologne in 1958 and at the University of Vienna in 1966/67 . Since 1968 he was President of the Standing International Committee for the Study of the History of Soil Equipment.

His main scientific work is the book " Origin and Distribution of the Plow ", first published in 1931 . On almost 700 pages, the reader gives a comprehensive overview of all plow forms in the world, presents them with approx. 300 illustrations and critically describes the different theories about the origin of this most important device for soil cultivation in agriculture.

Honors

Main work

  • Origin and distribution of the plow. Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung Münster i. W. 1931 (= Anthropos Library Volume 3, No. 3). Reprint edition published by: The International Secretariat for Research on the History of Agricultural Implements, National Museum, Brede. Lyngby (Denmark) 1971. Here is a short biography a. Photo by Paul Leser, as well as bibliography of his writings up to 1970.

literature

  • Bibliography Paul readers . On the Occasion of his 80th Birthday on February 23, 1979. Edited by Absalom Vilakazi. University of Hartford , West Hartford, Conn. 1979.
  • Isabel Schmidt: The TH Darmstadt in the post-war period (1945–1960). Dissertation, Darmstadt 2014.
  • Christa Wolf, Marianne Viefhaus: Directory of professors at TH Darmstadt. Darmstadt 1977, p. 123.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Reader, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American ethnologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 23, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH 22nd December 1984
Place of death Hartford , Connecticut