Adler, Cyrus, 1863-1940

Contains the minutes, reports, and financial records of the Executive Committee for the American Jewish Historical Exhibition pertaining to the planning and execution of the Exhibition, as well as printed material and member correspondence, arranged alphabetically; also includes also a collection of printed material relating to the International Exposition at St. Louis, in 1904.

The records of the American Jewish Historical Society, the oldest national ethnic historical organization in the United States, include correspondence of officers and staff as well as inter-office memos, multiple versions of the constitution and by-laws of the society, meeting minutes of administrative branches and committees, membership and financial records, reports, exhibit materials, records relating to the society’s library and archival holdings, press releases and newspaper clippings, and publications and newsletters created by the society. There are also materials from various programs, such as meetings and conferences, tours, lectures, awards and dinners, films, and educational programs.

This Collection consists primarily of English, German, Hebrew, and French language correspondence concerning Reform Judaism, Zionism; the founding of the American Jewish Historical Society; the Jewish Publication Society; B'nai B'rith; the legal position of Jews in England and the United States with particular reference to the Naturalization Acts; the religious and social life and the history of Jews in Russia and Poland; Bible readings in public schools; the study of Jesus in Jewish Sabbath Schools; anti-slavery issues in the Fremont Campaign in 1856; and other correspondence pertaining to his numerous activities.

Collection consists of first day of issue stamps issued by the U.S. Post office. Included with each stamp is a biographical or historical sketch of Jewish history as it relates to the stamp's theme. Sketches are organized alphabetically by subject.

The personal and social engagement diaries of Florence Lowenstein Marshall (1873-1916), wife of Constitution and civil rights attorney Louis Marshall and mother of lawyer James and conservationists Robert and George Marshall and daughter Ruth, span the years of 1894 until her death in 1916 of cancer. Her diaries record the events of her life—without the benefit of commentary on them—regarding social and family gatherings, theatre and music performances, her children's activities (including illnesses and vaccinations), her philantrophic meetings, and a meticulous recording of Louis's life as a leader.

Born in Arkansas and raised in Pennsylvania, Cyrus Adler was a prominent Jewish scholar, educator, and leader. A nephew of the Philadelphian Sulzbergers (Mayer and David), Adler developed an interest in libraries, Semitics, and Assyriology, going on to earn a Ph.D from Johns Hopkins. In 1888, Adler began work at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D. C., and eventually became the President of Dropsie College in Philadelphia. Adler was active in the American Jewish Historical Society, the Jewish Theological Seminary, the United Synagogue, the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Agency for Palestine, The Jewish Encyclopedia, and the National Jewish Welfare Board. He also participated in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference.

This collection represents a small portion of Adler's papers, with materials concerning Jewish activism, Conservative Judaism, and Jewish scholarship and history in America. The collection contains correspondence, page proofs, manuscripts, and published articles, clippings, notes, speeches, and ephemera.

Harry Sebee Linfield (1889-1978), rabbi and statistician, collected statistics of Jewish life in America for the Bureau of Jewish Social Research and the United States Bureau of the Census. The majority of the collection contains his research data, correspondence, and other personal papers.

Collection consists primarily of New York State Congressman Isaac Siegal's (1915-1923) correspondence with the United States War Department (1917-1919); the Jewish Welfare Board (later The National Jewish Welfare Board) regarding personnel, especially Jewish personnel in the Armed Forces; with John J. Pershing and Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt; relating to immigration, among which are letters from Louis Marshall; and regarding the observance of Flag Day and Lincoln's Birthday.

Collection also includes a paper on "The Jews in China" in manuscript form, and copies of published articles and a radio address.

Louis Marshall, a leader in the American Jewish community, was born in Syracuse, New York. He moved to New York City and graduated from Columbia Law School in 1877. In 1894 he joined the law firm of Guggenheimer and Untermyer, later becoming a partner. Marshall practiced Reform Judaism. He served as president and strategist of the American Jewish Committee; Chairman of the Commission of Immigration in New York State; and led the opposition concerning the establishment of literacy tests for new immigrants. Marshall was a defender of Leo Frank, a negotiator in the Peace Conference of 1919, and attempted to block Henry Ford's publication, the Dearborn Independent, due to anti-Semitic rhetoric. Though Marshall was a somewhat controversial figure in the American Jewish community, he worked diligently on issues regarding Jewish immigration and rights.

The collection contains correspondence, memoranda, pamphlets, minutes, reports, and copies of Congressional bills.

Lucien Wolf (1857-1930) was a diplomat, foreign affairs expert, journalist, and historian. As the secretary of the Joint Foreign Committee of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association (earlier the Conjoint Foreign Committee), Lucien Wolf took a leading role in the efforts of Western Jewry to aid persecuted Jews in Eastern Europe. He was also a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference (1919), where he helped to draft the minorities treaties guaranteeing the rights of Jews and other ethnic and religious minority groups. David Mowshowitch (1887-1957) was Lucien Wolf's secretary and aide at the Joint Foreign Committee for many years and continued to work for the Joint Foreign Committee until the 1950s. The collection consists of the papers of Lucien Wolf and David Mowshowitch, as well as fragmentary records of the Joint Foreign Committee. The material includes personal papers, correspondence, reports, memoranda, minutes of meetings, copies of articles, and press clippings. The documents pertain to the situation of persecuted Jews throughout the world, most notably the efforts of the Joint Foreign Committee of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association to aid the Jews of Eastern Europe, and to the Peace Conference at Paris in 1919 and the minorities treaties. There is also material on Lucien Wolf's and David Mowshowitch's other activities, most importantly Lucien Wolf's career as a journalist and as a historian of the Jewish community in Britain.

The Papers of Max J. Kohler (1871-1934) document his life's work as lawyer, historian, writer, researcher, and defender of Jewish and immigrant rights. Correspondents include many of Kohler's contemporaries in the field of history and immigration law including Cyrus Adler; William Taft; John Bassett Moore; Mortimer Schiff; David Hunter Miller; Baron and Baroness de Hirsch; the Straus Family including Oscar Straus; Luigi Luzzatti; Leon Huhner; and Julian Mack. Subjects include U.S. immigration law, American-Jewish history, Col. Alfred Dreyfus, Haym Salomon, Ellis Island, Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler, the publication God in Freedom, international treaties, and the Peace Conference of 1919.

The collection documents the National Jewish Welfare Board's (JWB) evolution from an organization founded in 1917 to provide support for soldiers in times of war to an agency involved in all aspects of Jewish life both in the United States and abroad. In 1990 JWB recreated itself as the Jewish Community Centers Association of North America.

University professor, historian, and scholar Oscar I. Janowsky sought to understand Jewish culture and human rights in light of modern anti-Semitism, imperialism, and pluralistic states. Throughout his robust career he was a professor of history at the City College of New York, he also served as an advisor to League of Nations High Commissioner James G. McDonald, directed and authored major studies in the fields of Jewish community centers and education. The papers in this collection include his correspondence with colleagues and friends, research notes and article drafts, and his unpublished memoirs.

Correspondence from individuals: Cyrus Adler, Joseph Barondess, Hayyim Nahman Bialik, Louis D. Brandeis, Alexander Harkavy, Mordecai Kaplan, Judah L. Magnes, Max Nordau, David de Sola Pool, Solomon Schechter, Abba Hillel Silver, Upton Sinclair, Israel Joshua Singer, Henrietta Szold, Stephen S. Wise. Correspondence from organizations. Personal documents. Manuscripts of Leavitt's writings. Photographs of friends and relatives.

The collection represents the papers of Morris David Waldman (1879-1963), a rabbi, social worker and communal leader, who was appointed executive secretary of one of the main Jewish defense organizations, the American Jewish Committee (AJC), in 1928. The executive secretary had top executive function at the organization and was in charge of working out and implementing the organization’s projects and policies regarding monitoring the civil and human rights of the Jews, and intervening on behalf of the Jews both in the U.S. and abroad. In 1942, Waldman was promoted to executive vice-president, a position he held until his retirement in 1945. The Morris Waldman Files relate to all of Waldman's activities as acting executive secretary and vice-president of the AJC.

This collection contains correspondence dealing with requests for aid from relatives of Americans in Russia and German occupied Europe obtained through the Jewish Colonization Association office in Petrograd and the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden. Those aiding in the search for relatives in America include the New England Branch of the A.J.R.C., the Philadelphia Branch of the A.J.R.C. (Cyrus Adler), the Buffalo Relief Committee, the Chicago Jewish courier, Chicago Jewish Relief Committee, Cincinnati United Jewish Charities, Hartford Central Jewish War Relief Committee, and the New York Jewish daily forward. Also contains appeal leaflets, the program of a benefit held in Carnegie Hall, addresses by Jacob Billikopf, Herbert H. Lehman, Solomon Schechter, and Felix Warburg and circulars from the Reichsverband Ostmarkenhilfe.

The Baron de Hirsch Fund Records document the organization's involvement in the planning of agricultural communities across the United States and to some extent in South America; the founding and administrative dealings of agricultural and trade schools; the establishment of the Jewish Agricultural Society; and the business records of the Fund itself. In addition, the collection documents the protection offered to immigrants through port work, relief, temporary aid, promotion of suburban industrial enterprises and removal from urban centers through the Industrial Removal Office, land settlement, agricultural training, and trade and general education. In this respect, the collection is of major interest for Jewish genealogists as it documents a number of individual immigrants. In addition, the collection contains documentation on the administration and organization of the fund, documentation on Jewish farming colonies such as the Jewish Agricultural Society, Woodbine Colony and Agricultural School, and documentation on the Baron de Hirsch Trade School. In addition, the collection contains blueprints and photographs of facilities.

The Industrial Removal Office was created as part of the Jewish Agricultural Society to assimilate immigrants into American society, both economically and culturally. It worked to employ all Jewish immigrants. The collection contains administrative and financial records, immigrants' removal records, and correspondence. A database has been constructed to search for persons removed by the Industrial Removal Office.

This collection contains programs and papers read at the Annual Meetings of 1915-1916, the resolution passed at a special meeting in 1915 regarding the founding the School for Jewish Communal Work, the pension plan proposals, and correspondence regarding the Summer School for Social Work held jointly with the Jewish Chautauqua Society. Includes correspondence with the American Jewish Committee, National Americanization Committee, National Conference of Jewish Charities, New York City Board of Education, and the U.S. Dept. of Labor Immigration Bureau relating to the work of the association. Contains also the correspondence of Cyrus Adler, Ludwig Bernstein, Louis d. Brandeis, Lee K. Frankel, Israel Friedlander, Oscar Leonard, Louis Levin, Irving Lipsitch, Minnie F. Low, Louis Marshall, Belle Moskowitz, Milton Reizenstein, H.L. Sabsovich, Philip Seman, and Morris D. Waldman.

This collection documents the research of Jewish historian Samuel Oppenheim (1857-1928) concerning the lives of colonial Jews in the Americas, and the early history of the United States. Included in the collection are his notes, transcripts of original works, photocopies of the records of the Dutch West India Company, correspondence relating to his research, his writings, and original documents from the Mayor’s Court of the City of New York that date from 1653-1760.