Burstein, Sona Rosa (1897-1971)

The following is an interim description which may change when detailed cataloguing takes place in future:
Material assembled by Burstein relating to gerontology, probably in relation to research funded by a Wellcome Trust grant, consisting of typescripts, reprints, cuttings, along with a little similar material on medical ethnography and anthropology

Born 19 August 1897. Graduated from the University of Wales Cardiff in 1921, obtained a teacher's diploma from Aberystwyth, and a master's degree in folklore. In 1928 she received a postgraduate diploma in anthropology from the University of Oxford and in the same year was appointed to the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, where she worked until retirement, 1957. Her professional duties lay primarily in the fields of anthropology and folklore (in 1958 she was appointed President of the British Folklore Society), but from 1939 onwards she also devoted her free time to the study of the social and psychological problems of old age, including undertaking fieldwork with elderly people. She published extensively in her varied fields of interest.

An appreciation by Joseph T Freeman, 'Sona Rosa Burstein: Gerontologist in Motley', was published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 1976, Vol XXIV