Leser, Paul, 1899-

Biographical note: German emigre anthropologist and ethnologist.

Paul W. Leser was born in Frankfort am Main and educated at the University of Bonn, where he studied with anthropologist Fritz Graebner. He lectured in ethnology at the Frankfurter Bund für Volksbildung, 1924-33, and was a junior assistant curator at the Museum fur Volkerkunde in Frankfurt, 1928-33. He immigrated to Denmark in 1935 and lived in Stockholm, Sweden, from 1936 to 1941. Leser immigrated to the United States in 1941 and was a professor of anthropology at the New School for Social Research, 1942-47, Black Mountain College, 1949-51, and the hartford Theological Seminary, 1951-67. In Germany Leser had been active in the Nerother Wandervogel (or Nerother Bund) youth group, and he maintained a life-long interest in the German Youth Movement. His anthropological work was as a historical/cultural ethnologist who was interested in the history of the plow and other agricultural implements and followed Graebner in his study of the "critique of sources". His brother Albert Leser, a writer, changed his name to Albert Lestoque.

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