Overview
Leo Wiener (1862-1939), a philologist and historian of Yiddish language, literature, and folklore, taught in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University from 1895 to 1930. The Papers of Leo Wiener document his professional career chiefly from 1884 to 1939.
Dates
- Creation: circa 1884-1940, 1958, 1980
Researcher Access
Open for research.
Extent
3.22 cubic feet (8 document boxes, 4 glass slide boxes, 3 pamphlet binders, 1 accordion folder, 1 folder, 1 flat box, 1 card box)The Papers of Leo Wiener document his professional career chiefly from 1884 to 1939. Wiener's articles, book reviews, letters to the editor, and transcriptions chronicle his work as a historian, linguist, and translator of Yiddish literature, folklore, and language, Slavic culture, and Arabic, Germanic, African, and American Indian culture. Correspondence from 1884 to 1935 chronicles Wiener's interactions with prominent scholars including Francis James Child, Kuno Franke, Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, George Lyman Kittredge, and George Rapall Noyes. A small amount of Wiener's personal correspondence, including letters to Bertha Wiener from 1900 to 1928, from Leo, friends, and family, is also found in the collection.
Additionally, research notes and glass lantern slides document a lecture given by Wiener to the National Geographic Society in 1918. The collection contains limited biographical material related to Leo Wiener, including his naturalization and citizenship papers, newspaper clippings, and a Harvard University Leo Wiener memorial minute (1940). Also included in the collection is a microfiche copy of the guide to the Norbert Weiner papers, 1898-1966, which are held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologies Department of Distinctive Collections. Norbert Wiener, the son of Leo Wiener, was a mathematician and philosopher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Biographical note on Leo Wiener
Leo Wiener (1862-1939), a philologist and historian of Yiddish language, literature, and folklore, taught in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University from 1895 to 1930. Born in Bialystok, Poland, Wiener studied at the University of Warsaw in 1880, and then in Berlin, Germany. Wiener immigrated to the United States in 1882 where he taught Greek, Latin, and mathematics at the Kansas City High School (1884-1892), lectured in the department of Germanic and Romance Languages at the University of Kansas (1892-1895), and beginning in 1896, was an instructor in Slavic cultures at Harvard University. At Harvard, Wiener became an assistant professor in 1901, and then the first American professor of Slavic literature in 1911. Wiener published articles on Yiddish linguistic elements in Polish, German, Ukrainian, and Belorussia, studied and analyzed Yiddish folk poems, and translated foreign works into English, including the complete works of Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, a task which he completed in two years. In the latter part of his career, Wiener devoted his investigations to the study of Arabic, German, African, and American Indian culture.
Wiener married Bertha Kahn in 1893. They had four children: Norbert (later a well-known mathematician and founder of the science of cybernetics), Frederic, Bertha, and Constance.
Arrangement
The collection is organized in nine series:
- General folder, 1940, circa 1980
- Correspondence, circa 1884-1935
- Manuscripts, circa 1884-1935
- Manuscript of Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration [German Art and Decoration], circa 1900-1909
- Stray Leaves from My Life, 1910
- Biographical materials, correspondence, and writings, 1889-1940, 1958
- Periodicals, reprints, and newspaper clippings compiled by Leo Wiener, 1895-1920
- Newspaper clippings about Leo Wiener and family, 1898-1916
- Research notes and glass lantern slides used by Leo Wiener for a lecture given to the National Geographic Society, circa 1918
Acquisition Information
The Papers of Leo Wiener were donated to the Harvard University Archives in several accessions:
- Gift of the Massachusetts Institute of Technologies. Libraries. Department of Distinctive Collections; Accession number: 09090; 1980 December 5.
- Gift of the Massachusetts Institute of Technologies. Libraries. Department of Distinctive Collections; Accession number: 09175; 1981 April 30.
- Gift of Bertha Wiener Dodge; Accession number: 12121; 1991 January 11.
- Gift of Bertha Wiener Dodge; Accession number: 12760; 1993 September 21.
- Gift of Mary Cobb; Accession number: 12890; 1994 June 30.
- Gift of Mary Cobb; Accession number: 13007; 1994 November 30.
- Gift of Mary Cobb; Accession number: 13759; 1998 May 14.
References
- Dictionary of American Biography. Supplement. New York: Scribner, 1944.
Inventory update
This document last updated 2022 May 02.
Processing Information
Papers of Leo Wiener processed in May 2020 by Dominic P. Grandinetti. Processing included the establishment of a series hierarchy and the creation of this finding aid.
Information for this finding aid was assembled from legacy paper inventories, reference sources, and container management data. The collection was not re-examined.
Original folder titles were retained. Dates and titles supplied by the archivist appear in brackets.
In all respects, the archivist attempted to retain and preserve the original arrangement and existing relationships of the documents as established by Leo Wiener. Processing and arrangement details of each series are noted at the series level.
- Title
- Wiener, Leo, 1862-1939. Papers of Leo Wiener, circa 1884-1940, 1958, 1980: an inventory
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hua40020
Repository Details
Part of the Harvard University Archives Repository
Holding nearly four centuries of materials, the Harvard University Archives is the principal repository for the institutional records of Harvard University and the personal archives of Harvard faculty, as well as collections related to students, alumni, Harvard-affiliates and other associated topics. The collections document the intellectual, cultural, administrative and social life of Harvard and the influence of the University as it emerged across the globe.
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