Brooklyn College

The Edna Ehrlich Papers, dating from 1898-2014, document the personal and professional life of Edna Ehrlich, an economist with the Federal Reserve of New York for 43 years. The collection focuses on her work as an economist expert in Asian markets and her relationships with her husband Otto Ehrlich, an economy professor, and her friend Jin Xiang, a Chinese composer. The collection contains personal documents and images relating to the Gottesman and Ehrlich families; Otto Ehrlich's interests in art and musical history; photographs, slides, albums, and other vacation documents from Ehrlich's travels; interviews, writings, and correspondence from her work as a consultant and economist at the Federal Reserve; administrative and concert planning documents for the East-West Music Exchange Association; and Jin Xiang's compositions, concert programs and reviews, and correspondence relating to royalties, organizations, other musicians, and professional opportunities.

The Otto Ehrlich Collection documents the life and professional activities of Otto Ehrlich, economist, lecturer, advertisement artist, and teacher. The collection includes brochures, booklets, clippings, correspondence, financial and immigration documents, minutes, notes, photographs, photo collages, examples of his advertisement work, printed materials and writings. Documents comprising the collection reflect various aspects of Otto Ehrlich’s personal and professional life, teaching, research and writings in the fields of economics, and to a lesser extent his involvement with the field of advertisement and music.

The collection documents the work and correspondence of Joseph A. D. Sutton and reflects various aspects of his life, personal research and writings in the field of Syrian Jewish culture and society, mainly as the Syrian Jews made their way in the United States. The collection also documents the Syrian Jewish experience of the immigrants who came to America and settled, as they are described in his two books: Magic Carpet: Aleppo-in-Flatbush and Aleppo Chronicles. An extensive portion of the collection examines the Syrian community which settled in Brooklyn, including articles by colleagues as well as correspondence.

This collection comprises trial transcripts and related documents pertaining to trials conducted by the Board of Higher Education in 1941 to 1942, in the cases of 20 faculty and staff members of City College and Brooklyn College. The charges, mostly relating to Communist Party membership and activities, were brought by the Board's Conduct Committee, based on allegations raised in investigative hearings held in 1941 by the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate the Educational System of the State of New York, a committee of the New York State Legislature commonly known as the Rapp-Coudert Committee. In addition, the collection includes a small amount of material documenting the work of the New York City Board of Education's Integration Commission in 1956 to 1957.