Wolf, Simon, 1836-1923

Contains primarily papers of Benjamin Franklin Peixotto, including: addresses to Constitution Grand Lodge of B'nai B'rith and to YMHA; a letter from Ulysses S. Grant appointing Peixotto as U.S. Consul-General to Romania; correspondence during Peixotto's residency as Consul in Bucharest and Lyons; and the estate papers of Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto.

The Records of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites (1859-1878) documents the life cycle of the Board of Delegates, a Jewish civil rights organization located in New York City. The Board served in a two-fold function: acting as a central organization for American Jews and working on behalf of Jews abroad. To the latter end, the Delegates collaborated with the Committee of Deputies of British Jews and the French Alliance Israélite Universelle to provide for the relief and aid, civil, and religious rights of Jews throughout the Americas, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, particularly Romania, Ottoman Palestine including Jerusalem, and Morocco.

In the U.S., the Delegates were partially responsible for the appointment of the first Jewish Military Chaplain and surveyed member synagogues concerning the history and size of their congregation, the first organization to systematically record this type of information in the States. The Delegates merged with the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) in 1878 and dissolved in 1925. Correspondents include Adolph Crémieux, Sir Moses Montefiore, Benjamin Franklin Peixotto, Isaacs S. Myer, the Rev. Dr. Arnold Fischel, and Maj. General Benjamin Butler. Documents include correspondence, minutes, committee reports, memorials, announcements, surveys, some printed material including clippings, and a 1932 Rabbinical thesis on the Delegates by Allan Tarshish.

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.

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.

This collection contains constitutions, by-laws, membership organizations list, minutes of the 1912 Annual Meeting, Executive Committee Minutes (1911, 1913), Committee on Confidential Exchange Minutes (1912), Committee to Discuss Medical Examinations Minutes (1912), 1912 meeting with the Jewish Immigration Committee of New York, and a special meeting on the problem of illiteracy (1913). Also includes the correspondence of the American Jewish Committee, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Jewish Colonization Association offices in Canada and Paris, and the Jewish Emigration Congress in Vienna. Also included is the correspondence of Simon Wolf, counsel to the National Jewish Immigration Council.

Primarily correspondence with members of Congress and government officials concerning anti-Semitism in the United States and abroad. Also includes correspondence with prominent American Jews, including Benjamin F. Peixotto, Jacob Henry Schiff, Oscar Solomon Straus, and Leo N. Levi; , and manuscript copies of speeches and articles, published in revised form in Selected addresses and papers (Cincinnati : Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1926).

This collection contains research Sylvan Dubow accumulated for an article on Otto Mears. In addition to articles and an obituary on Mears, Mears' military service and pension record from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is available. Copies of archival documents also include annual reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1873, 1879-1882), an annual reportof the Secretary of War (1880), documents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (1882-1883), an official compilation of the Navajo Campaign in New Mexico (1889), and the incorporation papers for the Chesapeake Railway Company. Additional material consists of Dubow's correspondence and notes concerning his research, his article "Simon Wolf: Champion of the American Jewish Fighting Men," and articles regarding a California War Paper (1861), the general and Jewish history of Colorado and New Mexico, and the Civil War in the Southwest.