Created: 18 November 2000
Modified: 31 March 2007

Gerhardt Kurt Laves 
15 July 1906 – 14 March 1993

additional biographical notes

When Gerhardt Laves was born, his parents were living at 5611 Kenwood (previously Munroe).  This is a 3-floor residence in a brick row-house, known as "professors row", which had been bulit in 1903; it is pictured in Jean F Block's Hyde Park Houses (University of Chicago Press, 1978), on the rear dust-jacket and in Plate 62. (NB: entry on page 120 is in error: opposite '5611' should be 'Kurt Laves').  This was the Laves family house until soon after Gerhardt returned from Australia in 1932.

Gerhardt attended William H. Ray Public School (an imposing brick elementary school in the 5600 of Kimbark), and then University of Chicago Laboratory School (58th St).

Family

Portrait c1930

Student at the University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology; completed a Master's 1929 (thesis on Malaysian society), including linguistics under Edward Sapir at Chicago, c1927-29. (Edward Sapir biographies, by S Anderson, and by Regna Darnell and Judith T. Irvine)

1929-31: linguistic field work in Australia.  For general background on this period in Australian anthropology, see for instance this article and the references therein:

Gray, Geoffrey. 1997. 'Mr Neville did all in [his] power to assist me': AP Elkin, AO Neville and anthropological research in northwest Western Australia 1927-1928.  Oceania 68.1(Sept), 27-46.

Married September 1932, and continued study under Edward Sapir at Yale c1933-35.

Notes and Personalia. Language Vol. 10, No. 4 (Dec., 1934), pp. 386-390
p.390: "Gerhardt Laves has left the University of Chicago to accept a position in the Department of Anthropology at Yale University."
Notes and Personalia. Language Vol. 11, No. 1 (Mar., 1935), pp. 50-52
p.52: "Mr. Gerhardt Laves is now a graduate student at Yale.  Correct accordingly in our last issue."       

Linguistic Society of America, annual List of members, 1934–1937
Language Vol. 11, No. 1 (Mar., 1935), p.78
"1933 Mr. Gerhardt Laves, 46 Mt. View Terrace, Spring Glen, New Haven, Conn.  (Anthropology, Yale Univ.)"
Language Vol. 12, No. 1, Bulletin No. 9 (Jan., 1936), p.35;
Language Vol. 13, No. 1, Bulletin No. 10 (Jan., 1937), p.36;
Language Vol. 14, No. 1, Bulletin No. 11 (Jan., 1938), p.38
"1933 Mr. Gerhardt Laves, M.A., Torreon Community Center, Crown Point, New Mexico; Australian and American Indian languages."

Laves and his family spent 1935-39 in New Mexico, teaching in Navajo schools.  In the JP Harrington correspondence Laves in 1938-39 is described as "Teacher, Shiprock Boarding School & Wingate Vocational High School" in Navajo country.

Returned to Chicago 1939, and lived at 5525 S Kimbark (now demolished) until about 1943, then at 1359 E 57th St until 15 July 1947 when the family moved to 5553 Kenwood.

Laves and his family lived from 1947 at 5553 Kenwood in the Hyde Park area of Chicago, adjacent to the University of Chicago.  It was in the basement, then the attic, of this house that Laves' notes on Australian languages were stored for decades until they were sent to Canberra.

Comments welcome

Laves page

© 2006 David Nash
URL: http://www.anu.edu.au/linguistics/nash/aust/laves/biog.html