Biographical Highlights

Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950)

• Born 3 July 1879 in Warsaw, Poland.



• Died 1 March in Sharon, Connecticut.



• At outbreak of World War I (age 35), volunteered for service in the Second Russian Army; assigned to General Staff Intelligence Department.



• Sustained hip injury when his horse was shot out from under him, as well as surviving a leg wound and internal injuries.



• In December 1915, assigned to Camp Petawawa testing grounds in Canada to observe new artillery tests.



• After collapse of the Russian army and the revolution of 1917, joined the French-Polish army for the duration of the war. Also assisted the U.S. government by lecturing on behalf of the war effort to sell Liberty Bonds.



• In 1919, met and married Mira Edgerly, an accomplished portrait painter.



• In 1921, completed and published Manhood of Humanity.



• Devised the Structural Differential model (originally called the Anthropometer) and applied for U.S. patent in 1923.



• Presented and published Time-Binding: The General Theory in 1924 to the International Mathematical Congress in Toronto.



• Under guidance of Dr. William Alanson White, spent two years observing and studying mental illnesses and treatments at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C.



• Completed and published his second book in October 1933, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics (originally titled Time-Binding, The General Theory: An Introduction to Humanology).



• From 1934-1937, traveled around the country giving public and private seminars based on the methodology of general semantics as formulated and discussed in Science and Sanity. Some of the more significant seminar venues included Harvard University, Williams College in California, Olivet College in Michigan, the Barstow School for Girls in Kansas City, and several conducted in Los Angeles.



• In August 1938, after sefcuring initial funding from Cornelius Crane (Chicago) and Frances Stone Dewing (Massachusetts), founded the Institute of General Semantics in Chicago. He was assisted by M. Kendig who resigned as Headmistress of the Barstow School to move to Chicago and become the Institute's first Education Director.



• Began regular schedule of delivering seminars at the Institute and various universities throughout the country.



• With the Institute, moved to Lakeville (Lime Rock), Connecticut, in April 1946 following the post-war housing shortage in Chicago.



• Continued his exhaustive schedule of seminars until his death on 1 March 1950.



• His final paper, "The Role of Language in the Perceptual Processes" was published as a chapter in Perception: An Approach to Personality, edited by Robert R. Blake and Glenn V. Ramsey in 1951.