Hans Leo Epstein was born in Frankfurt am Main on March 11, 1905. He attended the University of Frankfurt, where he studied German literature, history, Hebrew, psychology, and sociology, among other things. He received his doctorate there in 1929, having written a thesis called "Die Metaphysizierung in der Literarwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung und ihre Folgen – Dargelegt an drei Theorien über das Literaturbarock". His career plans did not follow the course set by his academic focus, and he became a teacher. His first position was as Studienassessor at the Goethe-Gymnasium in Frankfurt, where he taught History, German, and Jewish History. However, the early thirties were hardly a good time for a Jew to start out on a career in Germany, and in 1933, after only a year at the Goethe Gymnasium, he was fired. Retreating into the relative safety of Jewish organizations, but with no diminished passion for pedagogy, Epstein became a teacher at the Philanthropin, the liberal Jewish high school in Frankfurt, and an educational consultant to the Department of Schools of the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland. In 1936, he left the Philanthropin, and was among the founders of a new school, the Anlernwerkstatt, designed to prepare Jewish children for emigration by teaching them crafts and mechanical skills. He became the principal there.
After continuing his work in the field of education, working on various plans and projects in different cities in Germany, he and his wife prepared for emigration. They went on a trip to Israel in 1937, and deciding that it did not quite fit their plans for the future, they settled on going to America. They moved to New York with the aid of various Jewish organizations in Germany. Epstein's first jobs were as teacher and house father at the Kohut School for Boys, and an unhappy stint at Hessian Hills school, both in upstate New York. He also held a number of other short-lived jobs, before becoming the director of the Washington Heights/Inwood YM&YWHA.
Using the foundation of his studies in Germany, and also the time he spent in the early forties studying at Columbia's Teachers College, he began to practice psychology, especially in the use of Rorschach testing and group work. These had long been Epstein's interests, and in his new careers in New York he pursued them actively. Finally finding continuity in his position at the Washington Heights Y, and with his work in psychology, Epstein was able to settle into a career. He was by that point in his middle ages, and for the rest of his life, his career maintained roughly the same shape, with a number of other jobs and projects at various times.
Hans Epstein died on September 20, 1967. His wife survived him, and lived for quite a while longer; she passed away on January 16, 1987.
From the guide to the Hans Epstein Collection, 1920-1960, (Leo Baeck Institute)
