Burstein, S. Rosa

Sona Rosa Burstein. Folklorist, anthropologist and gerontologist. Life dates: 1897–1971

Image: see Freeman 1976.

Work at WHMM

Employed at WHMM in 1928 after studying folklore and anthropology in Wales and Oxford. She oversaw the Ethnography section and the other women working on these collections (Margaret Rowbottom and Joan Lillico).

Left WHMM for war work, and returned by 1945. Undertook research trips to USA 1951, 1953.

Biographical note

See Freeman 1976.

Education: M.A., Diploma in Anthropology, Oxford. Also educated in Aberystwyth, Wales.

WA/HMM archives

• WA/HMM/ST/Lat/A.243 - S.R. Burstein's staff file, Nov 1928-Aug 1958.

• WA/HMM/RP/Sta/1 - Reports on her museum work, Sep 1929 - Dec 1931.

• WA/HMM/RP/Sta/13 - Reports to the Director on her museum work and the Ethnography Department's activities, Jan 1932-Oct 1957. Includes reports of work on the 1952 exhibition, The Medicine of Aboriginal Peoples in the British Commonwealth.

• WA/HMM/CO/Wel/C.4 - Education qualifications, in a staff list dated 1945 (see page image 10).

• WA/HMM/CO/Sub/206 - Report on a trip to the USA, Aug-Oct 1951.

• WA/HMM/CO/Alp/93 - Donation of prints and illustrations in 1930-31 by A.S. Burstein of Cardiff, SR Burstein's father (see page image 123).

Other archives

• Box of published papers by Sona Rosa Burstein. 1946-1952. (Wellcome Collection, closed stores 136)

• GC/173 - Personal papers. Burstein, Sona Rosa (1897-1971) Anthropologist, Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, c. 1930s-1960s. Currently uncatalogued. (Wellcome Collection).

Handwriting sample

• WA/HMM/RP/Sta/1 - monthly work report, January 1930 (page image 29)

Sources

Freeman, J.T. (1976), Sona Rosa Burstein: Gerontologist in Motley. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 24: 547-551. Copy in Wellcome Collection's library.

Sona Rosa Burstein, RAI history wiki

Oral history in Symons 1987, p.9.

Tags: museum staff; anthropology; 'Ethnographic section'; scientific staff