The Mysterious E. M. Jellinek

In the article E. M. Jellinek at 125: The past as prologue?, published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (JSAD), Dr. Thomas Babor, Editor-in-Chief of JSAD (2015-2023), and Dr. Judit H. Ward, Director of Information Services at the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies (2007-2016), introduced the May issue of the journal with its several commemorative features to draw attention to E. M. (Elvin Morton) Jellinek (1890–1963), one of the most influential personalities in the field of alcohol studies.

There are many truisms about the past and its relation to the future. Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it (Santayana). Study the past if you would define the future (Confucius). The future ain’t what it used to be (Yogi Berra). Suffice it to say that each generation needs to reintroduce itself to its roots. In the case of E. M. Jellinek, the past is not only a rich intellectual journey to be revisited often but is also a personal history that reflects the kind of people who are attracted to an academic field that seeks to understand one of life’s great mysteries.

The history of the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies shows Jellinek’s strong ties to the Center, the Journal, and the Summer School. Although Jellinek left Yale before the Center moved to Rutgers in 1962, “his ideas and legacy were very much alive and shaped the Center’s goals,”  pointed out Dr. Gail Milgram, Director of the Rutgers Summer School of Alcohol Studies (1983-2011). The Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies Library collected, preserved, digitized, and shared Jellinek's works on a memorial website and in a special issue of the CAS Information Services Newsletter, Special Issue #3: Bunky @ 125

An online tribute to E. M. Jellinek, this exhibit aims to provide a glimpse into Jellinek’s colorful personality and exceptional scholarship, based on the content initially compiled in the library in 2013-2015 to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Jellinek's birth. Quoting from the introductory article mentioned above:

Jellinek was more than a key figure in the emergence of “a new scientific approach to alcohol” in post-Repeal America. According to Ron Roizen, he “saw ‘the big picture’ regarding what was necessary to establish a beachhead for mainstream science’s cultural ‘ownership’ of the nation’s alcohol-related concerns” in the period following the repeal of National Prohibition in the United States. More than that, he brought the perspective of a Central European émigré to academic life in the United States. He was a man who experienced the First World War firsthand; studied in several European universities; learned to speak many languages; worked in Africa, Central America, Europe, and North America; and, through force of intellect and personality, helped to define a new discipline.

• Block quotes from: Babor, T. F., & Ward, J. H. (2016). E. M. Jellinek at 125: The past as prologue? Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 77, 369–370. (used by permission)