[1][2][3] George B. Leonard was born on February 9, 1872, in Shavli (now Šiauliai), Kovno Governorate, present-day Lithuania, to Jewish parents Victor Abramson and Taube Melnick.
He was a committed socialist for decades (1890s–1910s)[1] Leonard served as a regent (1937–1939) of the University of Minnesota,[1] appointed by Governor Elmer Benson.
[3] Leonard also served on the board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), during which time he advocated for integration at University of Minnesota's School of Nursing.
[1] In 1923, the New York Times called Leonard a "master mind of the laborites... a radical and a free thinker" in his youth for whom Socialism was "a passion, a philosophy" who thought in terms of centuries about great socialist experiments in government.
[2] Leonard's papers include correspondence with: Roy G. Blakey (1935–1937), August Claessens (1935–1937), Osmond Fraenkel, Charles L. Horn (1936–1948), Philip LaFollette (1936–1939), Robert LaFollette (1936–1939), Hubert Humphrey, Max Lowenthal (1933–1950),[6] Floyd B. Olson, Gunnar Nordbye, Maude C. Stockwell (1936-1938), Oswald Garrison Villard (1935), and Sidney Wallach (1935–1936).