Business records

This collection contains the records of Ira H. Jolles’ activities with the Cahnman Foundation, a philanthropic organization which funded projects dedicated to the preservation and care of Jewish archives, architecture, and culture. It consists primarily of correspondence relating to funded projects, including their planning and scope. Also included are several years worth of Board of Director meeting minutes and select legal documents from the Estate of Gisella Levi Cahnman.

The papers of Colonel Seymour Jacob Pomrenze (1916-2011) contain materials relating to his role as the first director of the Offenbach Archival Depot (OAD) in early 1946, as well as documentation of his career as a records management and archives consultant for the American Jewish cultural sector. It also includes a small amount of biographical material.

The collection documents the personal and professional lives of the Dorothy and Ralph LeVine, owners of Airflow Mattress Company in Brooklyn, New York. The materials highlight their mattress and furniture business as well as their personal and social lives as residents of Brooklyn. The collection contains business records, legal documents, administrative records, financial records, trademarks, business cards, fliers, correspondence, stationary, blueprints, photographs, pedigree dog certificates, a diploma, a menu, a yahrzeit calendar, real estate records, an event program, and printing dies.

This collection documents the personal and professional lives of Ella (née Kalt) and Ernst Stern. It contains official records and papers concerning their careers in Vienna until 1938 as well as documents about the dressmaking business they ran in Manhattan after their immigration to the United States.

This collection contains vital and personal documents, photographs, clippings, and correspondence pertaining to the Wertheimer and Gutmann families.

Originally from England, the Franks family were colonial merchants who settled in New York City in the 1700s. This collection documents parts of their life through correspondence, legal documents, and financial records. The correspondence is primarily written by Abigail Franks in New York to her son, Naphtali, in England. Also included in the collection are the notes and correspondence of Dr. Leo Hershkowitz, who co-edited a book on the letters of the family entitled the Lee Max Friedman Collection of American Jewish Colonial Correspondence: Letters of the Franks Family (1733-1748), written with Isadore S. Meyer in 1968.

The Germany (Vilna Archives) collection contains materials of diverse provenances pertaining to Jewish life in Germany and, to a much lesser extent, other German-speaking areas of central Europe (Austria, Bohemia, Moravia), from the 16th century until the beginning of the Second World War. It includes correspondence, financial records, official documents, business records, writings, minutes, reports, book catalogs, printed ephemera, occasional clippings, and a handful of photographs. A little more than 60% of the collection comprises personal and family papers, or individual items of correspondence (approximately 140 different name headings); and a little over 20%, portions of the records of the Jewish communities of Darmstadt, Frankfurt am Main, Filehne (Wieleń), Raschkow (Raszków), and Rybnik. The remainder of the collection consists of various printed ephemera and scattered records related to Jewish communities, organizations, or firms, including publishers and booksellers. Also included are some 15 individual older items dating from the mid 16th to the early decades of the 19th century, including Schutzbriefe (residence permits), petitions, and attestations, as well as a mohel book (registry of circumcisions). Especially noteworthy among the personal papers are those of art dealer Josef Sandel, comparative law scholar Ernst Rabel, the Henschel brothers (artists), writer and social activist Lina Morgenstern, engineer Erich Kempinski, and writer and editor Julius Rodenberg. The several rabbis represented include Josef Jona Horovitz, of Hunsdorf (Huncovce) and Frankfurt am Main; Salomon Breuer and Isidor Friedmann, both of Frankfurt am Main; and Wolf Landau, of Dresden.

This collection comprises letters, official documents, and photographs that pertain to the lives of members of the Gettinger family, specifically the brothers Isadore (Isidor) and Israel, as they attempted to emigrate from Austria amid the rise of the German Reich and the implications thereafter.

The Hal Stern family collection contains documents providing information about the related Schwartz (Schwartzbart) and Tahl families as well as the Stern-Palm family, specifically about their lives in southern Germany and their emigration to the United States from 1845 to the 1870s. The collection furthermore consists of a family tree, naturalization certificates, family correspondence, certificates of employment, travel documents, military identification documents, financial documents and photographs of the families' apartments in the United States.

Collection contains bound records from the administrative activities of the Hebrew Infant Asylum, including annual reports, board meeting minutes, reports of the admitting physicians, and the admission and discharge records of children.

This collection contains a large amount of business and legal correspondence and documents pertaining to Auerbach's tenure with Tri-Ergon AG and Tobis Tonbild Syndikat AG, most of which revolve around legal proceedings (patent and civil) in Germany, Switzerland, and the United States concerning Tri-Ergon's sound-on-film technologies which had become film industry standard. The collection also has a folder of Auerbach's personal papers, a considerable number of family and personal photographs (some arranged in albums), some personal correspondence, and a few manuscripts for film projects.

This collection documents the personal life and professional career of art director, editor, and photographer Kurt Safranski (1890-1964), who co-founded the photo agency Black Star in 1935. The collection also includes information about the career and life of Kurt’s daughter, Tina Fredericks-Koch, née Safranski (1922-2015), who worked as an art director for magazines and in real estate.

The Lithuanian Jewish Communities Collection is comprised of documents relating to Jewish cultural, religious, social, political, and economic life in approximately 150 towns in Lithuania. The bulk of the collection pertains to the period between 1919 and 1926, when elements of a system of Jewish national autonomy existed within the Lithuanian state, including a Ministry of Jewish Affairs and governmentally empowered Jewish community councils. Smaller parts of the collection relate to the periods before (1860-1918) and after (1927-1940) the autonomy.

The Hadassah Microfilm Collection consists of 16mm and 35mm reels containing images of various Hadassah publications, administrative documents, and personal archival material. Content includes on-site photographs, membership and organizational documents, regional chapter lists and histories, items relating to Hadassah’s Zionist political history, and a near-complete run of Hadassah Newsletter/Magazine. Other than the newsletter/magazine run, all images are unique within the collection.

This collection contains documents relating to the Naumann family, primarily Nathan and Thekla (née Gutmann). Personal documents from their life in Unsleben, Bavaria, are included, as are materials about their emigration to the United States via Cuba. The collection also documents the wholesale grain company Gebrueder Gaertner, which was jointly operated by Nathan Naumann and his brother Ludwig until shortly before their flight from Germany in 1938.

This collection documents the experience of the Meyer family with a focus on the years from 1933 to 1943. Oscar Meyer was a successful businessman in Essen, Germany. Unable to escape National Socialist persecution himself, he was able to send his son Gerd to England in 1939. Oscar, his wife Cypora née Bendik (alternatively Carola or Karola Bendick), and their daughter Marya (alternatively Marga) were taken to Poland on October 26, 1941 and perished outside Łódź. Gerd joined the British army to fight Germany in 1944. After the war, he moved to Israel, changed his name to Gad Meiry, and later immigrated to the United States. The collection contains photocopies of family photographs, residency records from Essen, business records, Gestapo files, the passport of Gerd Meyer, and records of the seizure of the Meyer estate used for restitution claims.

Contains correspondence, receipt books, business records, insurance policies, the will of Henry Whiteman, Jacobs' father-in-law, records pertaining to the settlement of Whiteman's estate, Jacobs' will, and material relating to the settlement of Jacobs' estate by Peter McCartee, Richard Cunningham, and Richard Ellis.

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.

Materials in this collection document both the private lives and business activities of the Nathan family, owners of shoe manufacturing companies in Frankfurt am Main and Chicago, through correspondence, documents, business records, and photographs. The collection focuses on Richard Nathan, his wife Anna Nathan née David, and their sons Franz Hermann, Erich, and Walter.

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.

The Trude Kersten Family Collection documents the family history of the Brinizters', who lived in the Altona district of Hamburg, Germany from the late 1920s until 1938. When the situation for Jews in Germany became increasingly threatening they decided to emigrate to India, Great Britain and to the U.S. Jenny Brinitzer worked as a female doctor, Eugen Brinitzer as a dermatologist, their oldest son Carl Brinitzer became famous as an author and correspondent and Ewald Kersten established an international shipping agency. Theír diverse paths of life are illustrated in several photo albums, memoirs, letters and official documents.

The collection holds the documents and correspondence of the Wimpfheimer family from Karlsruhe. The collection covers the Wimpfheimers’ emigration to Switzerland and later the United States as well as their restitution efforts regarding the family’s malting factory in Karlsruhe.