The Jellinek Biography: Mystery and Speculations

 

Born in 1890 in New York and raised in Hungary, Elvin Morton Jellinek studied at several European universities and worked for various institutions and organizations in Budapest (1914-1920), Sierra Leone, Honduras, and at the Worcester State Hospital, in Massachusetts.

In 1941 he became an associate professor of applied physiology at Yale University, where he directed the Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies from 1941 to 1950. After more than a decade of work with the World Health Organization and several Canadian institutions, he taught and conducted research at the Institute for the Study of Human Problems at Stanford University until his death in 1963.

Jellinek was a pioneer in research on the nature and causes of alcoholism and was an early proponent of the disease theory of alcoholism.

(Source: Re-introducing Bunky at 125: E.M. Jellinek’s Life and Contributions to Alcohol Studies)

The Alcohol Studies Archives of the Center of Alcohol Studies (CAS), at Rutgers University have collected and preserved a lot of original material, including the “Bunkyana,” related to the life and work of E.M. Jellinek.

• Tribute to E.M. Jellinek – the first page to start to get acquianted with his work
• Blog posts by CAS related to Jellinek
• The inaugural issue of the Substance Abuse Library and Information Studies Journal – with two reviews on the history of alcohol studies and six articles on Jellinek (2014)