Alfred Schütz (13 April 1899 - 20 May 1959)
Born in Vienna where he also studied law and political economics under Hans Kelsen, Ludwig von Mises, Max Adler and later Felix Kaufmann, amongst others. In 1920 he also simultaneously attended the Vienna Academy of International Trade. After gaining his doctor title, he worked as a financial attorney for various Viennese banks from 1921, and continued to participate in the intellectual life of Vienna. In 1938 he immigrated to the USA via Paris. From 1939 onwards, he continued working in the banking industry in New York and spent his free time dedicating himself to his academic studies, as he had done in Vienna. From 1943 he also worked as a lecturer at the New School for Social Research and from 1946, as a visiting professor of sociology. In 1952 he began his professorship in sociology and later in philosophy as well. In 1956 he abandoned his ‘double life’ and concentrated on teaching and research. These activities were then greatly hindered by his developing illness. Schütz’s academic interest was directed at the foundation and continuation of a social science based on Max Weber’s interpretive sociology. He strived towards this under the influence of Henri Bergson at first, and then later more in the style of Husserl. His work established the fundamentals of one of the most effective theory of action approaches in sociology today: so called “phenomenological sociology”. Copies and originals of Schütz’s complete academic estate are available on microfilm in the Archive. In addition to this, the Archive is in possession of Schütz’s working library of approximately 3000 volumes as well as his periodical collection. The original estate is in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. The organisation and duplication of the estate was aided by the Fritz-Thyssen Foundation. The University Society of Konstanz provided the funds for the acquisition of the periodical collection and the German Research Foundation provided the funds for the acquisition of the library. All instructions, manuscripts and notes Alfred Schütz left as a draft for the completion of his planned conclusive main body of work on “Structures of the Lifeworld” and which served Thomas Luckmann as foundation for composition of the text, are kept in a special department. They are organized in such a way that the structure of the two thus emerging volumes of “Structures of the Lifeworld” is documented based on Schütz’s material.