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American Tewish ARCHIVES d

Devoted to the preservation and study of American Jewish historical records DIRECTOR: JACOB RADER MARCUS, PH.D., Adolph S. Ochs Professor of Jewish History

MAXWELL WHITEMAN, Assistant to the Director

Published by THE AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, CINCINNATI 20, OHIO

on the Cincinnati campus of the HEBREW UNION COLLEGE-JEWISH INSTITUTE OF RELIGION

VOL. IX APRIL, 1957 NO. 1

In This Issue

THE KIDNAPPED AND THE RANSOMED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .KATE E. R. PICKARD 3

The stirring narrative of Peter Still, which was popular a century ago, is typical of a phase of American slave literature. It relates how a Philadelphia Negro, who was kidnapped into slavery, entrusted his life to the Friedman brothers of Cincinnati in order to gain his freedom by self-redemption. The story reaches its climax when a leader in the Underground Railroad turns out to be his own brother, who unites him with his mother. The narrative of the redemption of Peter's wife and children from slavery on an Alabama plantation is rich in drama. The Friedman brothers played an important role in Peter's quest of freedom, for which they risked their lives and forfeited their business in Tuscumbia. The Friedmans, active in the Jewish community of Cincinnati, were among the founders of Congregation K. K. Bnai Jeshurun, the present Isaac M. Wise Temple.

. . JEWISH IMMIGRANT LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA - I 890. 3 2

The Sunday Mercury of August 10, 1890, a Philadelphia newspaper published by Louis Edward Levy, describes' in some detail the life and culture of the Russian Jewish immigrants who fled the pogroms of the 1880's and took refuge in that city.

ABE GOLDBAUM AND THE GENERAL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

REVIEWS OF BOOKS

The Jewish People, Past and Present, Vol. I V - 300 Years of Jewish Life in the United States. Reviewed by Arthur Mann. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Handlin, Oscar, Adventure in Freedom - Three Hundred Years of Jewish Life in America.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reviewed by Ellis Rivkin 48

Kaplm, Mordecai M . , Questions Jews Ask: Reconstructionist Answers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reviewed by Jakob J. Petuchowski. 54

Fuchs, Lawrence, The Political Behavior of American Jews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reviewed by Maxwell Whiteman. 5 8

ACQUISITIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ILLUSTRATIONS

Peter Still, facing page 16; Cincinnati as Seen through the Eyes of Peter Still, facing page 17; Louis Edward Levy, facing page 32; A Typical Scene in the Russian Jewish Quarter of Philadelphia, facing page 33; Mordecai M. Kaplan, facing page 48; Reuben Etting, facing page 64.

Patrans for 1 9 ~ 7

ARTHUR FRIEDMAN LEO FRIEDMAN +"I BERNARD STARKOFF

Published b y THE AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES

on the Cincirmati campus of the HEBREW UNION COLLEGE-JEWISH INSTITUTE OF RELIGION

NELSON GLUECK, President

The Kidnapped and the Ransomed [How the Friedman Brothers Liberated an Alabama Slave]

B Y K A T E E . R . P I C K A R D

The literature based on the experiences of the American Negro slave is comparatively unknown today. Some of it is genuine autobiography, such as the narrative of Frederick Douglass, the great Negro abolitionist, and that of William Wells Brown, the pioneer of Negro fiction and drama. Other books are pure fiction, like Richard Hildreth's The Slave: or Memoirs of Archy Moore, and the interesting forgery, Narrative of James Williams, which John Green- leaf Whittier unwittingly committed to print. At least one book of fiction, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, distinguished itself overnight.^

The narrative of Peter Still in The Kidnapped and the Ransomed, by Kate E. R. Pickard, is as rich and moving as the better-known autobiographies of Douglass and Brown. Still was an obscure man, one of the millions doomed to slavery, yet his story is as exciting today as it was when it first appeared in 1 8 5 6 . ~ Quiet, diligent, and tactful, he rose from an ordinary plantation slave to the trusted position of a slave who could be hired out by his master as a general factotum.

In his introduction to the book, the Reverend Samuel J. Mays conveniently summarized the life of Peter Still: "Kidnapped in his early childhood from the door-step of his home in New Jersey, more than forty years a slave in Kentucky and Alabama, his unsuccessful appeal to the great Henry Clay, his liberation through

Introduction and editorial notes by Maxwell Whiteman.

3

4 AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, APRIL, 1957

the generosity of a Jew, his restoration to his mother by the guidance of the slightest threads of memory, the yearning of his heart for his loved ones, the heroic but disastrous attempt of Concklin to bring his wife and children to him. . . ."4

Seth Concklin, a devoted abolitionist, was drowned by the "Christian Wolves" (abolitionist parlance for "slaveholders") while in shackles afier his unsuccessful attempt to free the Still family. He was not the only hero of this narrative; the Friedman brothers of Cincinnati made Peter's liberation possible by buying him so that he might redeem himself.

The Friedmans, Jewish immigrants from Germany, settled in Cincinnati some time prior to 1841. Two of the brothers, Levi and Joseph, were among the signers of the call for the organization of Cincinnati's second synagogue, Congregation Bnai Jeshurun (the present Isaac M. Wise Temple), in the fall of 1841.~ Levi was one of the four trustees elected at the first general meeting of the congregation, and was intimately associated with the Jewish religious life of the city throughout the course of this narrative.' He was evidently the head of the firm operated by the brothers, under the name of Levi Friedman & Co., clothier^,^ which supplied Jewish peddlers with goods. Two of the brothers, Joseph and Isaac, acted as agents for the firm in the deep South, the West, and the North.9 Their mobility as merchants is suggested in Still's narrative, and according to him, they were probably the first Jews to settle in Tuscumbia, Alabama.

Only afier carefully observing the character and conduct of the two Jews did Peter approach Joseph Friedman with his daring plan of self-redemption. Peter gave a detailed account of the manner in which the Friedmans helped him to carry out his plans.

W e are reprinting here, without change, chapters 26, 27, and 28 of The Kidnapped and the Ransomed, indicating the place in the story where Peter's associations with his "Jew master" begin. The good citizens of Tuscumbia were shocked beyond reserve when they learned that a Jew had purchased old "Uncle Peter," lest the Friedmans should not treat him as a Christian slaveholder would. They were right! The Friedmans liberated him.

In some respects this autobiography reflects certain abolitionist

THE KIDNAPPED AND THE RANSOMED 5

stereotypes, arousing the suspicions of the critical reader as to the accuracy of the narrative. T h e Jewish characters, however, are historic individuals, and the account, though tendentious, is basically authentic.

The next year, 1846, the young master, John H. Hogun, having become of age, assumed the control of his wife's property and hired Peter to Mr. Allen Pollock, a bookseller of Tuscumbia.

Mr. Pollock had, some weeks before Christmas, proposed to Peter that he should live with him the ensuing year and hire his own time. He had not much for him to do, he said, and after cutting his wood, putting his store in order, blacking his boots, and doing such other small jobs as might be necessary, he could get work elsewhere in town; and all he earned above the eighty-five dollars hire which Hogun must receive should be his own. True, this arrangement was against the law, but if it were kept secret, it could do no harm.

For a long time Peter hesitated. Mr. Pollock was said to be a close, penurious man, and our student of human nature doubted the disinterested- ness of his motives. Still there was a chance that he might succeed in saving soniething; he might, at least, procure more comforts for his family than they had yet possessed, and he at length resolved to try.

So the bargain was concluded, openly with Mr. Hogun, privately between Mr. Pollock and the slave; and Peter entered trembling upon the new year. H e had never before occupied so respectable a position. The eighty-five dollars must be earned, and that was a great sum to be raised by dimes and half dimes for doing little jobs about town.

At a short distance from the store was Major Pope's hotel, where he engaged his board, for which he was to pay by waiting on the table. He then looked about for work, and was recommended by some friend to the teachers of the Ladies' School as a neat and careful man, who would be capable of keeping the rooms in order and of performing any other labor that might be required about the building. H e was immedjately engaged for this service, which occupied him two or three hours each day.

He also, now and then, found whitewashing to do, and when extra servants were wanted on occasion of a wedding or a party, he found profitable employment. If a cook was sick, he was competent to take her


place, and when some weary child of earth had finished his short pilgrimage, Peter was called upon to hollow his lowly grave. He was at the same time hired by the month to take care of several stores - to sweep, black boots, take up ashes, and bring water, and thus he became well known to most of the businessmen in town.

The young gentlemen frequently gave parties at the Franklin House, then the principal hotel in town. They furnished the refreshments and table furniture, merely occupying the rooms of the hotel, for which they paid a reasonable sum. On these occasions, Peter was invaluable. H e prepared the rooms and arranged the tables, and the pleasures of the evening were never marred by neglect or carelessness in his department. Then he had a quiet way of keeping things in place and of seeing that the guests were supplied with all conveniences throughout the evening, and after the gay company had dispersed, he returned all borrowed articles, and rearranged the furniture of the rooms in its accustomed order. -

His ready kindness and his promptness in executing his employer's wishes won him the confidence and esteem of all he served; still, these numerous cares and diverse occupations were extremely fatiguing. All the day long, and often till late at night, he was in active exercise of mind and body, yet though his limbs grew weary, his energies of spirit never drooped.

Thus passed the year away. Every week or two he paid his hire to Mr. Pollock, who several times proposed to act as his treasurer. These offers Peter declined, excusing himself by saying that he spent the most of his money to buy things for his wife and children, and so he had not much to keep.

"I don't see, then," said the gentleman, "any use in your hiring your time, if you spend all your money."

"Oh! that's what I work for," replied the slave, "to buy comforts for my family."

At the end of the year he had saved seventy-five dollars, besides having spent thirty-five dollars, during the year, on his wife and children. But this was a profound secret to all but Vina [his wife]. No one in Tuscumbia knew even that he hired his time. It was understood, by those for whom he labored, that Mr. Pollock permitted him to make his own bargains, and that to him he paid in all he earned.

His success this year was an astonishment to himself. It opened a new


world before him. Hitherto, his only hope of escape from slavery had been in flight, but now came other thoughts. "Seventy-five dollars in one year! How long would it take to buy myself if I could get the same chance every year? Oh! if I could be free!"

Towards the close of the year, Mr. Pollock proposed to his master to hire Peter again, but Mr. Hogun declined making a second bargain with him until he had consulted Peter.

"Well, boy," said he, a few days before Christmas, "do you want to live with Mr. Pollock again next year?"

"No, sir," replied Peter, "I don't keer 'bout livin' with him." "Why, I reckon he's used you well this year, and he offers to pay me

up now for your hire. I reckon you'll do as well with him as anywhere. It's not often that a man offers to pay money before it is due."

"Well, sir, if you hire me to Mr. Pollock, I shall have to stay with him, but there's Mr. Joseph Friedman - he'll pay you as well as Mr. Pollock, and he'd like to hire me for next year."

The young master immediately called on Mr. Friedman, and, learning that what Peter had told him was correct, he hired him to the Jew before he left the store.

The Jew! Yes, Joseph Friedman was a German Jew, who had resided in Tuscumbia for six or seven years. He came there at first with a small stock of goods and opened a store, and by untiring industry and strict economy he had now accumulated a handsome little fortune.

He was small in stature, with the black hair and keen, dark eyes peculiar to his race. Associated with him in business was his younger brother, Isaac, who was taller and handsomer than Joseph, but scarcely his equal in sagacity and force of character.

At the commencement of their sojourn in Tuscumbia, these Jews, the first that had ever settled in that region, were regarded with suspicion and dislike. But as their stern integrity and manly independence of character became known to the citizens, the prejudice excited by their peculiarities of religion and manners gradually subsided. As businessmen, they gained the confidence of the public, and though they never mingled freely in society, they were no longer exposed to rudeness or neglect.

Peter, during the past year, had been mysteriously attracted towards these somewhat isolated brothers. His thoughts had been intensely occupied in devising some method by which he might yet taste that liberty which,


notwithstanding he had been forty years a slave, he still felt was his ~ight. Day and night he had pondered this subject, but one great difficulty was ever present to his mind. He knew not a man whom he could trust. If he dared to breathe, in human ear, his wish for freedom, the bold thought might be reported to his master, and from that moment he would be looked upon as unsafe property. The consequence of this might be a sale and journey to the low country, and then the light of hope would be forever quenched.

And even if his master should be willing to sell him to himself, what security could he have that he would not deceive him, and while he took his hard-earned ransom, retain him also in his iron grasp? His long ac- quaintance with slavery in every guise had made him wary. He remembered Spencer Williams of Lexington, who three times paid the price of his own redemption, and was at last sent to the hated South in chains. No wonder that Peter trembled at the thought of such a blighting of his budding hopes. No wonder that he weighed each word that fell upon his ear, in order to discern the spirit of the speaker. Oh! that he knew a man of soul so brave that he could safely confide to him his heart's great secret! There might be many such in town, but how could he distinguish them from those whose flattering words proceeded from the deep, dark caverns of deceitful hearts?

While his ear was thus eagerly bent to catch the breath of honesty, some chance remarks of Mr. Friedman drew his attention. The Jew made no display of his opinions or declaration of his principles, but uttered merely some careless sentence which revealed his sympathy with the suffering and his hatred of injustice and oppression. Peter had often per- formed slight services for the two brothers, and whenever he was in their - presence, although no word respecting himself was uttered, he felt that he was regarded as a man.

It was this feeling which induced him, before his year expired at Mr. Pollock's, to ask Mr. Friedman to hire him for the ensuing year. If he could persuade him to do this, he could have an opportunity to become more thoroughly acq[u]ainted with his character, and perhaps -oh, how the bare idea thrilled his frame! -perhaps he should thus discover the path to liberty.

T o Peter's request the Jew readily assented, and, as before related, the bargain with his master was concluded.


On the first day of January, 1847, Peter commenced his labors under the protection of Mr. Friedman. According to their private contract he was to board and clothe himself, and then, whatever he earned above his hire should be his own. He waited on the table at a hotel, as during the previous year, to pay his board, and his clothing cost him very little - as the Friedrnan brothers gave him all their cast-off clothes, as well as occasionally the material for a new garment from the store. Besides these, he -

frequently received presents of half-worn clothing from other young men whom he was always glad to serve, or from married ladies, of discarded articles from the wardrobe of their husbands.

These clothes, however, he never wore, but sold them to slaves from the surrounding plantations, receiving in payment eggs, chickens, or any little products of their patches, which they brought into town for sale. These articles he conveyed to the hotel, where they were always in demand and so were speedily converted into money. He always appeared in the same attire: blue roundabout and trousers,>with strong shoes, and a more respectable-looking servant could not be seen in all the town.

At the opening of this year, Mr. A. E. Sloan, formerly of Syracuse, N. Y., who had purchased the interest in the school of the former principal, established the Tuscumbia Female Seminary. Mr. Sloan was a gentleman of agreeable personal appearance, scrupulously neat in his dress and sur- roundings, and orderly to fastidiousness. He determined at once to establish in the school a new system of order and discipline, and soon made inquiries for a person competent to carry out his plans in the arrangement of the schoolrooms. Peter was the first one named to him, and he immediately secured his services. This measure he afterwards found no reason to regret, for so quiet was he, and yet so prompt and regular in the performance of his duties, that soon his presence for a few hours each morning seemed indispensable to the comfort of the school. A few weeks later, Mr. G. H. King, of Northampton, Mass., came on to teach music. He, too, soon learned Peter's excellent traits of character, and gave him employment whenever he had pianos to move or any work to be done which required carehlness and promptitude.

He was now employed about the schoolrooms a much greater proportion of his time than he had been during the preceding year. His grateful love for Mrs. Stedman [the wife of the pastor in Tuscumbia, a native of New England, to whom Peter had been hired for a year] had predisposed him

10 AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, APRIL, 195 7

in favor of Northern ladies, and as at the seminary he ever received kind looks and pleasant words, he soon became warmly attached to all the teachers. Yet he never confided to one of them his secret. They regarded him as an embodiment of good humor and content, never imagining that the idea of freedom had been struggling in his breast for years. Once or twice, he says, he was on the point of opening his heart to one of the young ladies, but when he tried to speak the great hope that was swelling in his breast, something seemed to choke him, and he could not utter it. He took an opportunity, however, to sound Messrs. Sloan and King on the subject of slavery, and they represented the condition of the slaves as so far above that of the free blacks at the North that he judged it would be idle to look to them for sympathy in his one engrossing hope.

"Why, Peter," said Mr. King, "Negroes in the North do not fare half as well as you, and they are not so well thought of. Few people will employ them or trust them; they are shunned and disliked. T o tell the truth, most of them deserve no better treatment; for they are an idle, worthless set of fellows."

All this did not discourage Peter. A voice within him whispered, "Toil on! Heed not such words as these! Liberty is before you, and you have drunk too deep in slavery to believe that freedom would render you less happy, or less worthy of esteem."

The confidence between the worthy Jew and his faithful servant was constantly on the increase; yet, as the year drew near its close, and Mr. Friedman made no advances towards hiring him for the next, Peter became uneasy. Several other persons had proposed hiring him, but he had told them all that he thought Mr. Friedman wished to keep him another year.

At length, when Christmas was very near, he one day saw his young master across the street, and he resolved to terminate his suspense. So he approached the Jew. "Look yer, sir," said he, "ain't you willin' to do the same by me next year that you have done?"

"Yes, Peter." "Well, are you satisfied with the way I have done this year?" "Yes; are you satisfied?" < c Yes, sir, to be sure, I am, and if you're willin' to do agin like you've

done this year, why don't you go and hire me? Thar's my master, over yon." "I see him there, but I will not run to speak to him." "M7ell, sir," exclaimed the delighted slave, "I'll tell him you want to

THE KIDNAPPED AND THE RANSOMED I I

hire me, and we shan't have no new bargain to make. If you'll do like you have done, so will I."

The conference ended, and soon Peter was hired for another year to Joseph Friedman.

Peter commenced the year 1848 with high hopes. His last year's gains had greatly encouraged him, for he had laid up, besides expending over thirty dollars for his family, one hundred and five dollars, which, with thirty dollars which he had saved before he hired his time, and the seventy-five that he had accumulated while with Mr. Pollock, made two hundred and ten dollars now in his possession.

The hope of being free he had thus far communicated to none but his true-hearted wife, but now, as he had become satisfied that Mr. Friedman was his friend, he determined to seek his co-operation in his plan. This resolution was not formed without the most careful consideration, and yet, when he approached the counting room for the purpose of opening to the Jew his cherished plans, his head throbbed painfully, and his knees trembled so that he could scarcely walk.

"Mr. Friedman," said he, "I've got something I want to tell you, but it's a great secret."

"Well, Peter?" "I've been a thinkin', sir, I'd like to buy myself, and you've always

dealt so fa'r with me, I didn't know but you might buy me, and then give me a chance."

The Jew's countenance brightened. He had become much attached to Peter and had often wished in his heart that by some means the faithful fellow might be free, but such a plan as this had not occurred to him.

"Can you get the money, Peter?" "I reckon I could, if you didn't pay too high for me. Mars John Henry

oughm't to ask a great price for me, no how, when I've served the family so long."

"How much shall I give for you?" "I think, sir, five hundred dollars is as much as you ought to pay." "Hogun will not sell you for that price," said the Jew. "John Pollock

offered him six hundred, and he laughed at him. Some men in town would

IZ AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, APRIL, 1957

- give eight hundred dollars for you - not because you are worth so much, but because they know you."

"Well, sir, I have served the family for thirty-five years. I have earned 'em a heap of money, and have been mighty little trouble or expense. They can afford to sell me for five hundred dollars."

"Yes; well, I will speak to Hogun." The proposition of the Jew received at first but little favor. Peter was

an old family servant, and they intended to keep him in the family as long as he lived. They did not wish to sell him.

"Well," said Friedman, "I would like to buy him. He has a cough, and if he belonged to me, I would try to cure it, but while he is your property, I can do nothing for him. I will give you five hundred dollars."

Hogun turned away. He did not want to sell the boy; if he did, that was no price for him. He would bring twice that sum.

A few months after this conversation, Joseph Friedman went to the "Red River Country," where he opened a store, leaving his brother Isaac in charge at Tuscumbia. This made no change in Peter's condition. He toiled on as before, steadily adding to his precious gains, while the great hope of freedom grew stronger in his heart.

Soon after his brother left town, Isaac renewed to Mr. Hogun the proposition to purchase Peter, but with no more success. The young mistress did not want him sold, especially to a Jew, who had no higher wish than to make money. He would probably soon sell him again; for what use had he for a servant? -and then, perhaps, the poor old fellow would be carried away to the "low country."

After several attempts to purchase him had been unsuccessfbl, Peter determined to try the power of his own eloquence. Accordingly, during the last week of the year, he went out to the plantation.

His young mistress had gone with her husband to town, but they soon returned. Peter met them at the gate, and "Miss Sarah," after shaking hands with him, went in, while the young master remained in the yard to inquire after his health. His cough was particularly troublesome whenever any of his master's family were near, and now it annoyed him exceedingly. "Ugh! ugh! Mass'r John Henry, I come to see you 'bout Mr. Friedman buyin' me. I like to live with him, and he said he done named it to you."

"Yes, he did; but he didn't offer any price for you - only five hundred dollars."

THE KIDNAPPED AND THE RANSOMED

"Well, Mass'r John Henry, aint that thar enough for me?" "No - I can get a thousand dollars for you any day." "Ugh! ugh! I think you mighty hard to ask such a big price for me

when I been in your service so long. Miss Sarah done got all my arnins ever since I belonged to her great uncle, Mars Nattie Gist. Now when I'm a'most fifty years old, ugh! ugh! ugh! I think five hundred dollars is enough for me; and 'pears like, sir, you oughtent to ask no more."

"Well, Peter, you know people like to get all they can for their property, and it makes no difference to you, anyhow, whether I sell you for a big price or a little one."

"Yes, sir, it does, Mass'r John, kase if a person gives a thousand dollars for me, he 'lows he's gwine to work it out of me; but Mr. Friedman just wants me to wait on him about the store, and he says he'll cure my cough, too - ugh! ugh! He can't afford to pay a big price for me, and then doctor me up."

"Well, go 'long - I don't want to sell you anyhow; I'd rather bring you home to wait on your Miss Sarah and to drive the carriage, than to sell you for any such price."

"Yes, sir, if you and Miss Sarah was a livin7 by yourselves, I'd like that, but I don't never want to come back to work on the plantation - ugh! ugh! I couldn't stand that now. But I belong to you, sir, and of course I must do just as you say. What shall I do, Mass'r John?"

"Go back to town, and stay till I come to see about you." "Good bye, Mass'r John. Ugh! ugh! ugh!" Thus he coughed himself out of the yard. All the way back to town he

walked with a heavy heart. If his master would not sell him, all his bright hopes would yet be blasted. He had, however, done all in his power. He had used every argument that would be likely to influence him in whose young hand his destiny was held. Now he could only wait with patience the result.

When the young master was next seen in town, the Jew hired Peter for another year, and with his wonted cheerfulness of demeanor the disappointed slave entered upon the labors of I 849. Was there no sublimity in his patience? -no grandeur in his maintenance of faith and hope against the giant forces of Despair?

It was not long before the young master's aversion to sell an old family servant was suddenly removed. On the tenth of January an auction was

14 AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, APRIL, 19 5 7

held in town of certain goods, the property of his late uncle, "Old Jimmy Hogun." Among these "goods" were ten choice Negroes, two of whom were boys about sixteen years old. These boys young John Henry wished to own, and before they were put up, he called upon the Jew.

"Look here, Friedman," said he, "you want Uncle Peter, and I want those boys that are for sale today. If you will go in and bid off one of the boys for me, I will let you have Peter in exchange."

"I will think about it. How high will the boys go?" "I don't know. They're not worth as much as a tried hand like Uncle

Peter. Step in, and see how the sale goes on." He left the store, and Mr. Isaac immediately held a consultation on

the subject with Peter himself. The wary slave objected to the plan. "You are not used to dealing in slaves," said he, "and you'd best not buy the boy. There'll be some game about it. If young master wants to buy him, he'll come round, I reckon."

Soon the young gentleman called again to learn the decision of the Jew. Isaac renewed his former offer for Peter, but declined to buy the boy.

"Five hundred dollars is no price for such a servant; you may have him for six hundred, though he is worth more."

"No - I will not pay six hundred." Away went Hogun to the auction. The two boys were soon to be

put up. He grew more and more and more anxious to buy them, and at last determined to make one more effort to bring the Jew to his terms.

"Well, Friedman," said he, as he stepped into the store, "you may have Peter for five hundred and fifty dollars."

The black eyes of the Jew twinkled with delight, but he was firm. "I will give you five hundred dollars," said he. "My brother authorized

me to pay that sum." "But," argued Hogun, "he is a great favorite in town. I have been

offered six hundred dollars for him." "I say I will give five hundred! not one dollar more." The sale was going on - Hogun grew desperate. The boys he wanted

would not wait for bidders, for they were choice fellows. "Well," said he, as he walked towards the door, "you may have him

for five hundred; but it's a shame to sell him so." "Then he-is mine?" "Yes."


"For five hundred dollars?" "Yes." "Very well, your money will be ready when you want it." Hogun hastened back to the auction. The boys were just going up.

He bid off the youngest for seven hundred and fifty dollars, and the other became the property of a planter named W -, a few miles south of the town.

It was night. At his desk sat the young Jew, reviewing the business of the day. Cautiously the door was opened, and Peter entered the counting room, pausing to listen before he closed the door lest some chance visitor might be approaching. All was still.

"Now, Mr. Friedman," said the slave, while his voice trembled, and his whole frame was agitated, "I've come to pay you that money, and I reckon you won't cheat me. I'vekorked mighty hard to get it. There's three hundred dollars in this yer bag."

So saying, he drew the precious treasure from his pocket, glancing instinctively towards the corners of the room, to be sure that no spy was there concealed. He proceeded to untie the bag. It was made of leather, about twelve inches long, three inches wide at the bottom, and half that width across the top.

It contained pieces of silver of all sizes, and now and then, as they came forth with a melodious clinking, a piece of gold glittered in the lamplight.* When the bag was about half emptied, Peter paused. It would be so easy for him to lose it all, and he had known so many slaves defrauded of their hard-earned gains that it seemed impossible for him to trust. "But," thought he, "I've knowed Mr. Friedman a long time, and I never knowed him to do a mean trick. If I can't trust him, the Lord help me! I can't never be free without trustin' some person, anyhow."

He emptied the bag upon the table, and both counted it twice. I t was right : three hundred dollars.

Mr. Friedman wrote a receipt for the money and, signing it, handed

* I t was Peter's custom, when he saw a piece of gold in the hands of a gentleman whom he had served, to ask if he would not like change for that. If he received an affirmative reply, he would bring from his precious bag the amount in small silver coin. T h e writer knew him at one time to get ten dollars in five-cent pieces changed for gold. His habits of industry were so well known that such a request excited no suspicion. T h e small amount thus changed at once was presumed to be the sum of the poor fellow's wealth.

I 6 AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, APRIL, 1957

it to Peter. Poor fellow! He could not read it, but he believed it genuine, and a load was lifted from his heart. After all, he might be deceived. He was in this man's power, but he resolved to trust and to go to work with all his might to earn the balance of the sum required to make him a freemirn.

The next day Mr. Hogun received the stipulated five hundred dollars, and gave a bill of sale, of which the following is a copy:

"S~oo. For the consideration of five hundred dollars, paid to me this day, I have sold to Joseph Friedman a Negro man named Peter. I bind myself and heirs to defend the title of said Negro, Peter, to the said Joseph Friedman and his heirs against all claims whatever.

Given under my hand and seal this I 5th January, I 849. JOHN H. HOGUN.,)

Great sympathy was felt in Tuscumbia for "Poor Uncle Peter." It was so strange that Hogun would sell such a faithful old man to a Jew. Of course, Friedman wanted to make money out of him; and when he became no longer profitable, he would not scruple to carry him off and sell him.

Thus spake gentlemen and ladies; and soon their children caught the tone. "Don't you think," said one bright-eyed little girl to another, as they walked to school, "Uncle Peter is sold!"

"Sold? I'm so sorry! Who's bought him? Are they going to carry him off?"

"No - no, not now. Mr. Friedman's bought him; and 'ma says he's a Jew, and she says Jews will sell their own children for money. Pa says he don't doubt that Mr. Friedman will sell him the very first chance he gets to make money out of him, and then, perhaps, he'll be taken off to the rice swamps."

"Oh! that will be too bad! Aunt Milly says that in the rice swamps they don't care no more for killing black folks than they do for pigs and chickens. Oh! I'm so sorry for poor Uncle Peter! But what did they sell him for? He didn't run away, nor his master didn't die."

"I don't know what made them sell him. His master wanted the money, I reckon. Oh! I wish my Pa owned him - he wouldn't sell him, I know. Ma says she thinks it's a pity for black folks to be sold at all, but sometimes it can't be helped."

"Well, I think it ought to be helped, for they feel so bad to be carried

Reprodlrced f ~ o m " T h e Underground Kean Archives. Philadelphia Railroad" by W d l i a m Still

PETER STlLL

Redcemed from Slavery by the Friedman Brothers of Cincinnati

THE KIDNAPPED AND THE RANSOMED I 7

away off from everybody that loves them. Just think - if Mr. Friedman should sell Uncle Peter away off where he never could come back - Oh! wouldn't it be too bad?"

Said a gentleman: "Why didn't you let me know, Peter, that your master wanted to sell you? I'd not have let that Jew get you. He'll sell you again, or perhaps work you to death."

"No, sir, I reckon not," replied Peter. "Mr. Friedman's always been mighty good to me, and I reckon he'll use me fa'r. Leastways, I belong to him now, and he'll do just as he thinks best."

Such was the judgment pronounced upon the noblehearted Jew by men and women who had bought and sold, and beaten, and oppressed the poor until their cry had gone up to heaven. ~he~'considered it their right thus to trample on their darker brethren. They were born slaveholders, and when their servants neglected their duties, or so far forgot their station as to speak improperly to their superiors, they must be beaten, though their heads were grey. Money, too, was sometimes "tight," and then the sale of a few of the young Negroes that were "really in the way about the kitchen" would help to fill the purse. These were their rights under the Constitution, but for a Jew to have such power over a choice, old servant was quite too bad. "A foreigner, too! How could he know the feelings of tenderness cherished by a true Southerner for his slave?"

Meanwhile the despised and suspected Jew was arranging, with the object of all this sympathy, their hture relations to each other. "You may work, as you did before," said he to Peter, "but you may keep your earnings. When you get two hundred dollars more, I will give you free papers, and you shall go where you like. I do not want your work, get all you can for yourself."

Did the heart of the slave bound at these words? Did the tears of gratitude sparkle in his eye, and the bright beams of hope irradiate his countenance? Ah! there is One "who seeth not as man seeth," and in His eye the generous truthfulness of the slandered Jew outshone the gaudy hypocrisy of his traducers.

Peter continued his usual labors with a light heart. He had now no hire to pay; his earnings were all his own.

The night after paying his three hundred dollars to Mr. Friedman, he went out to make his usual semi-monthly visit to his wife. How her heart throbbed when he told her all! Again and again she asked him if he were

I 8 AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, APRIL, 19 5 7

sure Mr. Isaac would be true. The children, too, had their hundred questions. Their father was very dear to them, and now he possessed new dignity, even in their eyes. "Just think, he would soon be free!" No selfish dread that thus he might be lifted above them dimmed their transparent hearts. They loved their father, and they could not doubt him.

A few months later a heavy sorrow fell upon this loving group. The third son, William, who, at Peter's solicitation, had been hired, as waiter to Captain Bell, in Tuscumbia, was found drowned in the Spring Creek, just below the town. It was a warm morning in July, and he had obtained permission to go out fishing. Several boys were near him bathing, but after a while they all left him and went some distance down the creek. Here they continued their play till about dinner time, when, as they came up, one of them noticed a boy's clothes on the bank. "They're William's clothes," said two or three at once. "Where is he?" Alas, they could obtain no answer to their question, and they ran up to town and gave the alarm. A crowd of men and boys hastened to the creek, and after diving for some time, they found him at the bottom.

That night the sorrowing father conveyed the lifeless body of his son to the cabin of his wife, whence he was buried beside the little ones that in their infancy had sunk to happy slumbers.

Poor Vina's heart was almost crushed by this affliction. William was her darling; indeed, he was a favorite with all who knew him. "Oh!" sobbed his mother, "I could a seen him die if I'd thought it was the Lord's will, but to think o' his strugglin' and goin' down thar all alone, 'pears like it's more'n I can b'ar."

In September of this year, Joseph Friedman returned from Texas, and soon after, Peter paid to him one hundred dollars, which he had earned since January. The Jew seemed delighted at the success of his humble friend and congratulated him on the prospect of soon becoming free. Only one hundred dollars was now lacking, and that, if he were prospered, he soon could earn, and then he should be free.

Patiently he toiled on. His brow was all unruffled, and no trace of care was visible on his cheerful face. He moved so quietly in his accustomed course that men forgot their jealousy of the Jew, and little maidens ceased to pity "poor Uncle Peter."

Late in the evening of the sixteenth of April, 1850, Peter sought, once more, the counting room of Mr. Friedman. His hand might well tremble

THE KIDNAPPED AND THE RANSOMED '9

as he raised the latch, for his all was now at stake, and he was helpless. He entered. There sat the little Jew, looking at him with his keen, black eyes. Timidly he drew forth his leather bag and commenced counting out the money.

A footstep approached. Mr. Friedman quietly laid a pile of papers over the coin, and Mr. S-, the auctioneer, walked in.

"What, Peter," said he, "are you paying up?" l l Yes, sir. Mass'r Joe make me pay him up close." << How much do you have to pay?" "Well, sir, he makes me pay him half a dollar a day." "That's pretty tight, but it's the best way, after all." "Yes, that is so. I like to keep all close. Peter must pay me promptly." When the neighbor's chat was ended, and they heard his receding

footsteps on the sidewalk, they finished counting the money. How beautiful it looked to Peter, that little heap of coin, as he shoved it towards the Jew and felt that now his fate hung entirely on the will of the little man before him.

Mr. Friedman took up his pen and wrote a receipt in full, together with a Certificate of Freedom, as follows:

Received, Tuscurnbia, January 26th, 1849, of my boy Peter, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . three hundred dollars. $ 3oo.00

Jos. FRIEDMAN. ..... Received September I st, I 849, of my boy Peter,. $88.00

............. Eighty-eight dollars and twelve dollars $I z .oo. I 00.00

. . . . . . . . Received March 29th, I 8 50, of Peter, sixty dollars,. 60.00

Jos. FRIEDMAN $460.00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Received, April 16th, I 850, forty dollars,. 40.00

$~00.00 For, and in consideration of the above five hundred dollars, I have

this 16th day of April, 1850, given Peter a Bill of Sale, and given him his freedom.

JOSEPH FRIEDMAN. Tuscumbia, Ala., April I 6th, I 850.

Precious was this paper in the eyes of the self-ransomed slave, and yet he felt not all secure. The habit of doubting that truthfulness of which he had so seldom seen an illustration could not at once be overcome.

He had five dollars left, with which he bought a trunk of Mr. Friedman, and then in one old silver dollar, which he had kept for many years, con- sisted all his store. Mr. Friedman had charged him no interest on the two hundred dollars which he had advanced to purchase him of Mr. Hogun, and during the last year he had bestowed upon him many little presents. Jew though he was, and sometimes quoted as a miser, yet he knew the happiness of being a blessing to the poor.

Immediately after receiving this last payment from his servant, Joseph Friedman started for California, leaving Peter in the care of his brother Isaac. The whole transaction was still a secret; no mortal save the two brothers and Peter's own family were aware that he had even wished for liberty.

He was one day engaged in cleaning the church, when two or three ladies came in to superintend his labors. Among them was Mrs. D., one of the most excellent ladies in town. "Peter," said she, when she had finished giving him some direction, "you ought to be free. You have been a faithful servant for a great many years, and now that you are getting old, you deserve to have your freedom, instead of being sold to those Jews."

"Oh!" replied he, "what use would it be for me to be free?" "Why, then you could do as you chose, and go wherever you liked." "What! Now I've got to be an old man, a'most fifty, I've got no house

nor garden, and if I was free, I'd have to hire a house, and buy my own clothes; and then if I should be sick, there'd be nobody to take care of me. No, ma'am, 'taint no use for me to think of bein' free. I'm too old to be turned off to take care of myself."

Thus carefully did he conceal his real feelings, lest he should place in greater peril that freedom which he had so dearly won.

At the approach of summer, Mr. Isaac Friedman decided to sell out his stock of goods in Tuscurnbia, in order to remove to Cincinnati, where his brother Levi then resided.

Peter no sooner learned this plan than he requested leave to accompany him as far as Louisville. In all his intercourse with the Jew, he had never revealed to him his early history, or breathed to him his own great wish, that of seeking his parents, and his childhood's home. But he had often talked of Lexington, and now he said he should like once more to visit "the old place." Mr. Friedman readily assented, and Peter commenced his preparations for the journey. His earnings since he had finished paying

THE KIDNAPPED AND THE RANSOMED i t

for himself, together with his receipts from the sale of a few articles which he no longer needed, amounted to eighty dollars. That, he thought, would be sufficient to meet his expenses on the way.

The Tuscurnbians again became excited. Some gossiping oracle "reckoned" that Joseph Friedman had failed, and straightway that important reckoning was announced to be a fact. Joseph had failed, and Isaac was about to sell off his goods at auction and quit the country. Uncle Peter, too, was to be dragged off and sold, or, as some said, to be hired out upon a steamboat, and thus exposed to all the frightful sickness that then raged upon the Western rivers. "Now, Uncle Peter," said one, "if you find out that those Jews are about to sell you, just let me know, and I will buy you."

"It will be too bad for them to speculate out of you," said another, "but I expect that it's what they bought you for."

T o all these kind expressions of interest in his welfare, Peter had but one reply. "Mass7r Joe and Mass'r Isaac always has been good to me, and anyhow, I belong to them, and they can do what they like."

"What a contented old fellow he is!" said one who listened to this quiet answer. "I'd like that some of the abolitionists should hear him talk; they would be obliged to own that niggers' pining to be free is moonshine."

The Saturday before Mr. Friedman intended to leave town, Peter went out to pay a farewell visit to his family. T o them he unburdened all his heart. His great hope had been, if he could once be free, to find his own relations, whom he always thought of as living in or near Philadelphia. Then, if they were able, perhaps they might assist him in the purchase of his wife and children, and so, at last, they could all dwell together.

This hope had so inspired the little family at Bainbridge that their grief at parting with their beloved father was lost in the bright vision of a speedy reunion in the dwelling of the free. They knew nothing of the difficulties to be encountered, or of the time requisite to perfect such a work, even if their father were successful in his search. He had bought his freedom; and in their eyes, such an achievement proved him equal to the attainment of any end. Not thus sanguine was their father, but he was strong in his fixed resolve to work while he had breath for the redemption of his loved ones.

In sweet, though somewhat mournful, conversation passed the hours of this precious visit. They were all too short for the utterance of the many last, fond words, and on Monday morning, when the father was obliged to leave them, they had not found time for half they wished to say.

2 2 AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, APRIL, 1957

The loud horn called them to their labors, and the children said "Good- bye," and hastened out, but Vina lingered. Oh! it was hard to see him go away alone, but still she would not bid him stay. She mounted her mule, and rode toward the field, while Peter walked for a short distance by her side.

His heart was very heavy, but he uttered not his gloomy thoughts. He would fain leave her cheerful, for he knew that ere his return her heart would oftentimes be shadowed. So he spoke hopehlly of the future and bade her never fear for him. "I will come back," said he, "whether I find my people or not, I will come back and let you know. Now take care of yourself and the children; and mind they don't tell the secret."

Too soon their paths diverged. When they came opposite the half- plowed field they stopped. "Well, Peter," said the brave-hearted wife, "this yer's your road, and yon's mine. Good-bye." One pressure of the hand, one last, earnest look, and they each pursued a separate road, the one to slavery's dreary labors, the other toward that Paradise of hope, Th North.

On the twentieth of July, all preliminaries being arranged, Mr. Friedman and his servant took the boat for Louisville.

"Now, Peter," said Dr. W- , as he shook hands with him upon the sidewalk, "mind what I tell you. If those Jews go to sell you, just telegraph to me."

"Thank you, sir, I will; but I reckon they ain't gwine to sell me, anyhow ."

Several other gentlemen, as he passed along, gave him similar assurances, and with the kindest wishes of all the citizens he left the town.

"That is outrageous," said a kindhearted gentleman, who watched the faithful servant as he passed out of sight, "for that Jew to carry off such a

, fellow as old Peter, and to have a right to sell him whenever he likes." Peter paid his fare to Louisville by working on the boat - "The Greek

Slave" - Captain Francis [in command.]. When they reached that city, the cholera was raging fearfully, and Mr. Friedman thought best to make no stop, but to hasten on to Cincinnati. Thither also Peter obtained permission to accompany him, and at six o'clock on the morning of the twenty-sixth of July, the free soil of Ohio was pressed by his weary feet.

THE KIDNAPPED AND THE RANSOMED 2 3

Now, for a time, he threw off his pretended bonds, and gave way to his emotions of delight. Springing from the boat, hc clapped his hands in ecstasy, shouting: "I'm free! I'm free! This is free ground! The water runs free! The wind blows free! I am a slave no more!"

"Hush! Peter," said Mr. Friedman. "People will think you are a fool!" That day, in the house of his brother, Levi Friedman, Peter revealed to

his late master the story of his life. He told him all that he remembered of his early childhood: of his being stolen, of his brother's life and death, and of the one hope which had animated all his labors, that of returning to the spot where he was born, to find, if possible, his kindred, and to see his.mother7s grave. Friedman listened with astonishment, and when Peter described, as well as he was able, his early home, which he located at Philadelphia, the Jew could not believe the tale. "No, no!" cried he. "You came from Kentucky, your master told me so."

"Yes," replied Peter, "so I did come from Kaintucky; but I was stolen and carried there when I was a little boy. I remember the Delaware river; it was not far from my mother's house, and that river is at Philadelphia - leastways, so people has told me. And now I want to go and see if I can find my relations."

The wonder of his auditor was intense. He could not comprehend how, during all these years, so cruel a wrong had been suffered to go unredressed.

"I do not like to have you go away alone," said he to Peter. "The cholera is raging on the river, and you might be sick and die among strangers."

But his fears could not detain the enthusiastic freeman. "Never mind," said he. "If I die, nobody don't lose nuthin by me. I'm my own man, anyhow, but I reckon I won't die. 'Pears like, now I've got so fur, my work ain't gwine to be lost."

After spending a day and a half at a colored boardinghouse in Cincinnati, where he had his clothes all put in order, he started for Pittsburgh. A cousin of Mr. Friedman accompanied him to the wharf and saw him on board the boat.

How anxious was his heart as the steamer dashed away! He was all alone and utterly ignorant of the perils he might meet. But he trusted in the Lord, and kept a cheerful countenance.

His characteristic caution prompted him to observe closely the movements of his fellow passengers, and one of them soon absorbed his attention.


This was a short, dark man, with a disagreeable expression of countenance. Peter remembered seeing the same man on the boat from Louisville to Cincinnati, where he had made several attempts to draw him into conversation, without, however, learning anything further in answer to his question than that Peter was going to Cincinnati. Now he renewed his advances, striving to draw him into conversation, and at last asked him if his owner were on board.

"I don't need any," said Peter, as he walked away. Soon an elderly gentleman, very genteelly dressed, approached him,

and asked if his master were on board. < c I have no master," replied he. "Who said I had a master?" "But you are a slave," persisted the gentleman, "or at least have been

one. I knew it as soon as I saw you. Where are you going?" "I am gwine to Pittsburgh, and then to Philadelphia; and I am a free

man. Who said I had a master?" "Where did you come from?" "From Cincinnati." His interrogator left him in no pleasant mood. Two colored barbers on

the boat had told him that the short, dark man was watching all his movements. H e was whispering, too, they said, among the other passengers, that he knew that fellow was a runaway, and he would take him up, if he had not other business to attend to. He was hunting, he said, for a rascal who had escaped from prison, and he could not undertake another job.

When the boat approached Wheeling, several individuals came to Peter, and offered their advice. The short, dark man kept his eye upon him, but said nothing. One young gentleman with a pleasant countenance stooped down and said in a low voice: "Now, my friend, there are a great many watching you; and if you are free, stand to it. Don't leave the boat; just say that you are free." Seeing some one approaching, the young man rose up, and walked to another part of the boat. "I thought," said Peter, as he narrated this incident, "that the Lord sent that young man, and that he was a true friend, so I determined to take his advice."

Soon came another. "See here, my friend," said he, "the people tell me that you are running away. Now, I am a friend to colored people. Here is five dollars; you'd better not stop in Wheeling, for they talk of taking you up. You take this five dollars, and walk across the bridge, and you'll be in a Free State, where they can't hurt you."

THE KIDNAPPED AND THE RANSOMED 2 5

"No, sir, I thank you," said Peter, "I have paid my passage to Pitts- burgh, and I shall not leave the boat. Let 'em take me up if they like. I can telegraph to my friends in Cincinnati, and I reckon they can make 'em pay for the time I'm hindered. Yes; let 'em take me up, if they think best."

Notwithstanding the bravery of his bearing, he felt extremely uneasy, and as Mr. Friedman had given him no instruction respecting the proper method of procedure in such cases, he was forced to rely alone upon his own judgment. He readily suspected the hypocrisy of the very kind friend who offered him five dollars, and advised him to hasten across the bridge. Had he accepted the gift and counsel, he would tacitly have acknowledged himself a runaway, and so he might have become an easy prey to the vultures that pursued him.

But he was not arrested. H e saw groups of men whispering together in different directions, and he knew they watched him constantly; but he seemed to regard them with such cool indifference that they did not venture to attempt the execution of their plots.

The boat arrived at Pittsburgh early in the morning, and Peter was conducted by a colored fellow passenger to the house of a friend of his, where they took breakfast. After remaining about five hours in the city, he took the stage to cross the mountains. He was anxious to reach Phil- adelphia as soon as possible, for he was told in Pittsburgh that there would be a great turnout of the colored people there [in Philadelphia] on the first day of August, and that, he thought, would be a favorable time to seek his kindred.

He paid for a seat inside the stage, but it being crowded with passengers, he was requested to ride outside. He accordingly seated himself beside the driver, where he rode all day. The grand scenery of the mountains was new to him, and wonderful. Wife and children were behind. He could hear their voices, now sad, now trustful, as they talked of "father," while their mother cooked their scanty supper. Subdued were the tones of their dear voices, for on no strange ear must fall the cherished secret that he was free. They little dreamed that he was riding now over these wild, rough mountains. How strange the scene! The tall hemlocks which sheltered the highest peaks seemed stem and unloving, but the warm sun looked down upon them all. The same sun even then was shining upon his toiling loved ones, and oh, perhaps it also shone upon the graves of all those


whom he had come so far to seek. Such were his thoughts as, hour after - hour, he gazed upon the ever-varying grandeur of the Alleghanies.

After travelling by stage about twenty-four hours, he took a seat in a railroad car. This was another wonder. His previous ideas of railroads had been gained from the only one he had ever seen: that extending the length of the Muscle Shoals and connecting Decatur and Tuscumbia. On that he had been accustomed to see, once a day, two or three little, rickety cars come jolting into town, loaded chiefly with freight, but occasionally bringing also a few tired passengers. These cars were drawn by two or three sleepy looking mules or horses, for the snake's-heads [defective rails] were so numerous upon the road that the wheezing old locomotive, which sometimes came down with freight alone, rendered the journey too perilous for passengers.

w h a t a-contrast to all this was now before him! The bright locomotive, the long trains of elegantly furnished cars, and the smooth, level track of Pennsylvania road astonished him, while the frequent villages he passed, the highly cultivated fields, and the substantial farmhouses, with their great stone-based barns, impressed him with still greater wonder.

On the afternoon of the first day of August, the train reached Phil- -

adelphia. Peter sprang to the ground; and, getting possession of his trunk, he stepped aside, and stood an amazed spectator of the noisy scene. Porters accosted him with: "Where you want to go, sir?"

"I don't want to go no further than yer." The crowd began to scatter. Friends met friends and departed in their

company; every one seemed in haste. He only was alone and purposeless. Far away on every side stretched the great city, the goal of all his hopes, perhaps their grave.

He stood still by his trunk, till his fellow passengers had all dispersed. He knew not where to go. He had been advised, while in Pittsburg, to go to a certain boardinghouse in Philadelphia, but the name he could not now remember. "Suppose," said he to himself, "some [anti-]abolitionist should come along now, mighty friendly, and tell me where to go, and so I should be entrapped and sold again. I must be careful."

After he had stood alone for more than half an hour, an elderly colored man came up, and kindly accosted him. "Do you wish to go to some part of the city, friend?"

"Yes," replied Peter, "I was recommended, in Pittsburg, to go to a


boardin'house, kept by a Christian man, a preacher, and I would like to find it."

"What is his name?" "I can't think. I've been a studyin' all the time since I stood here, and

I can't remember it. I only heard it once in Pittsburg; but he is a Christian man, and a minister."

The stranger suggested many names, and at last mentioned "Dr. Byas." "Thar - that's the man - I knowed I should remember it, if 1 heard

it spoke." "Well," said the stranger, "I know where he lives, and I will carry

your trunk there for a quarter." Peter assented and followed him. With the trunk upon his shoulder,

the stranger led the way through the handsomest part of the city, but the beautiful buildings which they passed scarcely won a glance of admiration from Peter. His dear, dead brother's features were in his mind's eye; and, in the face of every colored man he met, he looked to find their counterpart. He gazed in vain. No lineament of that well-remembered face could he discover among the passersby, and he was glad when his guide stayed his steps before the modest residence of the good doctor.

Philadelphia appeared strange and bustling to Peter. Half- frightened of white people and distrustful of Negroes, he found his way to the office of the Underground Railroad. There he told his story in detail to the young Negro attendant. Although Peter did not know it, it was his own younger brother, William Still, to whom he was relating it. William, who was familiar with the records of the hundreds of Negro children kidnapped from the Phil- adelphia area and sold into slavery, became excited when he heard Peter's story. T h e necessary details o f identification were established, and within a very short time the almost impossible took place: Peter was reunited with his mother, his brothers, and his sisters.

T h e joyous reunion did not make him forget that his wife and children remained in slavery. Peter returned to Cincinnati to obtain his free papers from his former masters, the Friedmans. His plan was to go back to Alabama and discuss with his wife the ways and means of the family's escape. Isaac Friedman was delighted with


this new project and offered to help Peter purchase his family's freedom.lo T h e original document which legally freed Peter cannot be found, but the text reprinted below appeared in The Kidnapped and the Ransomed.

State of Ohio, ss. City of Cincinnati. 1

Be it known that before me, Henry E. Spencer, Mayor of said City, personally appeared Isaac S. Friedman, who, being duly sworn, deposes and says: that he has been acquainted with a colored man named Peter Still, alias Peter Friedman, for the last five years; that the said Peter was formerly a slave belonging to John H. Hogun, residing about three miles from Tuscurnbia, in the State of Alabama; that Joseph Friedman, of Tuscumbia, hired the said Peter for about two years of the said John H. Hogun, and afterwards bought him, and held him as a slave for about two years longer, when Peter bought his freedom from his master, the said Joseph Friedman, brother of this deponent, by paying him the sum of five hundred dollars; as fully appears from a bill of sale given by said Joseph Friedman to said Peter, and dated Tuscumbia, Ala., the 16th day of April, 1850, which bill of sale this deponent fully recognizes as genuine.

And further this deponent sayeth not. ISAAC S. FRIEDMAN.

The foregoing affidavit of the above named Isaac S. Friedman, to the freedom of the within named Peter Still, having been duly sworn to and subscribed before me,--

I therefore do declare the above named Peter Still, alias Peter Friedman, to be a free person, and entitled to all the privileges of free persons of color, according to the laws of the State of Ohio.

Said Peter Still is about forty-nine years of age, is five feet seven and a half inches in height, of a brownish black complexion, and without any marks or cuts.

Given under my hand, and the Corporate Seal of the City of Cincinnati, this 22d day of August, I 850.

H. E. SPENCER, Mayor.


Peter was now legally free and had the precious document to prove it, but in order to carry out his plans to gain his family's freedom, he returned to Tuscumbia in the guise of a slave. A "pass" from Isaac Friedman directed to a "Mr. Alexander" requesting that he serve as Peter's guardian removed all suspicion of his new status." T h e narrative continues:

Many were the friendly greetings he received as he passed through the streets that day. Many questions were asked him concerning Mr. Friedman - his business prospects, etc. T o all these Peter replied as he had been instructed. Mr. Friedman would be there before Christmas, and if Peter worked till that time on a steamboat, he should then come with him. Mr. Friedman said he could earn him more money upon a boat than anywhere else, and had promised to give him something for himself if he did well.

Many gentlemen questioned him very closely respecting the Free States; how he liked Cincinnati, and whether he saw there any Abolitionists.

His ideas of these "desperate characters" had been greatly modified during the week which he had spent among his relatives; but he answered in accordance with his old ideas - ideas which are carehlly inculcated in the minds of slaves. He was "mighty skeered," he said, all the time he was in Cincinnati; and did not dare to go out "after night." One night, he "reckoned" he heard the "Abolitionists fightin' in the streets"; but he was away up stairs, and "too badly skeered to come down."

T o all these questionings he answered as truly as he could, and keep his secret; but they made him very uneasy. He saw that the moment he should speak a word in favor of the Free States, he would be suspected, and all his movements watched. Then, if the secret of his freedom should be discovered, his kind friend, the Jew, would be drawn into trouble, as the citizens would at once accuse him of sending back a free negro to poison the minds of the surrounding slaves.

At about this time Seth ~ b n c k l i n offered to help the Still family in their escape, and Peter's wife, Vma, was advised of the plan. While Peter returned to the North, Concklin left Philadelphia to execute his dangerous plan. T h e escape itself succeeded, but when the runaways reached Vincennes, Indiana, they were detected and

3 O AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, APRIL, 1957

arrested, and their owner notified. Arrangements were made to return the fugitives to Alabama, and Seth Concltlin, who could have escaped, went with them. On the boat trip to Alabama, Concklin "accidentally" fell overboard and drowned in the Cumber- land River, in spite of the fact that he was chained and shackled.

When this distressing news reached Peter in Philadelphia, he immediately went to Cincinnati to obtain help from Isaac Friedman. Isaac was away on a trip to Illinois. "Levi, however, warmly espoused his [Peter's] cause, and would have gone himself to Tuscumbia to try what could be done for the relief of the family, had he not been kindly warned that such a step would be both hazzardous and futile." One of his friends in Franklin County wrote him that the citizens of Tuscumbia were highly incensed against Levi Friedman and Peter. People in Tuscumbia regarded the Friedmans as instigators of the escape.I2

Peter was undaunted by this failure and all the more resolved to liberate his family. He planned to do this by raising enough money to purchase their freedom. Many good people, now distinguished in history, came to his assistance. Among them were Salmon P. Chase, later Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury; Levi Coffin, leader of the Underground Railroad; William Lloyd Gar- rison, fiery abolitionist; Harriet Beecher Stowe, authoress, who may have known the Friedmans while she lived in Cincinnati; and Edward Everett Hale, author of the American classic, The Man Without a Country. Equipped with letters of recommendation, including two from Stowe and Hale, Peter went on a fund-raising tour. Eventually, he collected enough money to begin negotiations for the purchase of his family, and at long last succeeded in obtaining their freedom.

SUPERSTITIONS

The superstitions between nations are railroaded and steamboated away.

ISAAC M. WISE The Israelite, I (I 8 5 s), 3 64.


NOTES

Brief descriptions and critical evaluations Directory (= C D ; Cincinnati, 1842), 35 : of these books can be found in Vernon Cor. 5th and Sycamore, where Levi Loggins, The Negro Author, His Develop- Friedman first conducted a dry goods store. ment in America (New York, 193 I). C D (Cincinnati, 1843), 126, and sub-

sequently, Cincinnati Business Directory Kate E. R. Pickard, The Kidnapped and (Cincinnati, 1844)~ I 26: dry goods store,

the Ransomed (New York, 1941). The cor. Sycamore and 5th. personal recollections of Peter Still and C D (Cincinnati, 1846), 170: Levi his wife Vina, after forty years of slavery. Frledman and Co. Clothiers, 9 E. Front The narrative appeared serially in 1850 and Ws. bet. and 2d. in the Pennsylvania FTeemrm, and was first CD (Cincinnati: 106: clothier, published in book form in 1856. The e' S' 'ycarnore bet' 2d and LLower1

Market. introduction to the 1856 edition of the CD (cincinnati, r851), 94: N. S. 5th book, by the Reverend ~ a m u e l J- May, bet. Sycamore and Broadway. was omitted from the 1941 edition. C D (Cincinnati, I 8 5 3), 1 34 : Levi Fried-

Inan as Monheimer & Friedman, 58 E. 5th. "Samuel J. May (1797-187 1)" Die- CL) (Cincinnati, 1855)~ 79: 209 Broad-

tionary of American Biography, XI, 447-, 448 w " E l ~ (Cincinnati, 1856), 95: 20 Broad-

way. 4 Pickard, op. cit., xvii-xviii.

9 This may have been the same Joseph 5 Seth Concklin to William Still, Eastport, Friedman [Freedman] who went to Miss., February 3, 1851. Citedin William California, as described by Peter Still, Still, The Underground Railroad (Phil- and who appeared in Detroit, Michigan, adelphia, 1872), 27. with his brother Solomon as dry goods

merchants. (Letter dated Detroit, Novem- Minute Book of the Board of Trustees ber 13, 1851, from joseph ~ ~ i ~ d ~ ~ ~ to

of Congregation K. K. Bnai Jeshurun, Isaac Leeser. Original at Dropsie College, Cincinnati, no date, I 841. Philadelphia; copy in the American Jewish

7 Ibid., September 19, 1 8 ~ 1 . Levi Fried- Archives.) These two brothers were

man's name continues to appear up to among the men who founded

1856. Dates beyond the period of the Beth the first congregation in

narrative were not checked. Detroit.

8 Besides Levi, Joseph, and Isaac, there I o Pickard, 264' were Solomon, who also signed the call ,, pickard, tit., 266. to organize Bnai Jeshurun, and Raphael, who is listed as a peddler in the Cincinnati Ia Pickard, op. cit., 3 I I.

WORLD CONGRESS O F JEWISH STUDIES

The Second World Congress of Jewish Studies will be held in Jerusalem on July 2 8 - August 4, I 957. Address all inquiries to: The World Congress of Jewish Studies, P. 0. B. I 255, Jerusalem, Israel.

Jewish Immigrant Life in Philadelphia From The Sunday Mercury, August 10, 1890

The most stirring historical event in the life of American Jewry was the coming of the East European Jews to the United States. This immigration, which began as a trickle in the 185o's, became a mass movement by the end of the nineteenth century. The East Europeans came first by the hundreds, then by the thousands and the tens of thousands, for the bloody upheavals in Russia spurred the persecuted refugees to seek a haven in this country. Fleeing from the social decay of Russia, they arrived penniless and bedraggled. But with a courage that always distinguished them, they settled in the major cities of the United States and began to rebuild their lives.

A large number of these Russian immigrants settled in Phila- delphia. The first few hundred who arrived were easily absorbed into the community. But as their number and needs increased, the demand for the services of an agency to help them became apparent, and in 1884 the Association of Jewish Immigrants of Philadelphia was founded. The object of the association was not only to supply the immediate requirements of food, clothing, and shelter, but also to provide dignified employment.

This organization, one of the many forerunners of the HIAS (Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society), was founded by Louis Edward Levy (I 846-19 19) and functioned on a local level. However, Levy's organizing acrivities were nationwide. In I 890, he was one of the founders, in Philadelphia, of the short-lived Jewish Alliance of America with its thirty-one branches throughout the country.

Louis Edward Levy had a distinguished record of service in both the civic and the philanthropic fields in Philadelphia, where he finally settled, but he is best remembered for his many scientific achieve- ments. As a young man he lived in Detroit, where he improved the type of compass used by the pilots on the Great Lakes and furthered

Cotrrlesy o i M r s . I f o v l e n s ~ A?tirnm. P l ~ o l o by Rlins C ,ldeirr/<y. Pi i i ln i l~lphin IVn,shiitylon. D . f.

LOUIS EDWARD LEVY

Author, Publisher, Scientist, and Humanitarian

the knowledge of microscopic photography. He later moved to Baltimore where, in partnership with Max Bacharach, he invented a photochemical engraving process known as Levytype. In 1877 he moved to Philadelphia. There he collaborated with his brother Max, an inventor, and earned for the Levys many enviable scientific honors and awards. Chief among their contributions was the im- provement of the halftone process for rapid photographic reproduc- tion.

Levy worked closely with the firm of Brockhaus of Leipzig, which issued the valuable Iconographic Encyclopedia of the Arts and Sciences. In addition to their work in the field of photography and etching, the Levy brothers established a publishing department. Among the many books issued under the Levytype imprint, The Jews of Philadelphia, by Henry S. Morais ( I 894), has the distinction of being the first Jewish local history published in the United States. Book publishing at that time was but a step away from newspaper publishing, and Levy's extended activities included the acquisition of two newspapers, the Philadelphia Evening Herald and The Sunday Mercury. In those publications he demonstrated the effectiveness of the Levytype photographic methods in illustrating current events. The Sunday Mercury, a popular weekly, recorded the events of the week with a graphic richness which was the envy of its contem- poraries. Its newsy reports of political events, social life, and the activities of the city's civil servants were vividly illustrated by the halftone process.

The plight and progress of the Jewish immigrant, in which Levy was greatly interested, was the feature of one issue of The Sunday Mercury. The story was in sharp contrast to the description, published in an earlier issue, of the dignified Hebrew Charity Ball, a Jewish social event of the year. The proceeds from that ball were earmarked to aid the poor immigrants. The account dealing with the newcomers from Eastern Europe discussed religion, politics, trade unions, squalor, and faith in the world to come, and reflected Levy's sympathies with those humble Jewish immigrants.

This detailed sketch appeared in The Sunday Mercury of August 10, 1890. It is reprinted here from a unique copy in the possession of Maxwell Whiteman.


Since 1882 [188 I], when the bloody uprising of the Russian ex-serfs against their Jewish neighbors started the great modem exodus of the Russian Jews, the emigration to this country has steadily continued, until now there are considerably over a hundred thousand of these refugees settled in this country. Of these it is estimated that eighty thousand are settled in New York City alone. Philadelphia has about ten thousand of them, Chicago nearly twice that number, while another twenty thousand are spread through the other towns and cities of the Union.

The recent revival of the spirit of persecution which has made that country a vast Ghetto for the three millions of Russian Jews is now attracting the universal attention of the civilized world. The news recently cabled from Europe, that the horrors of 1882 are to be repeated now at the instigation of the Russian Government, has been officially denied at St. Petersburg, but the details of recent atrocities now arriving by mail, openly printed in Russian newspapers, and particularly such as are conveyed in private correspondence from various points of the Empire, clearly demonstrate that the worst statements of the situation are true, and that the official denials are merely a formal subterfuge, of a character for which Russian diplomacy has become proverbial.

The stories of unbridled villainy contained in some of the printed reports simply corroborate the recitals of horrible excesses which private letters from the affected districts convey to the refugees on this side of the water. From Odessa, where out of a population of z50,ooo over 70,000 are Jews; from the districts of Mohileff, where more than a third of the inhabitants are of that race; from Kiev and Kovno, and from others of the sixteen districts of Russia in which the Jews are allowed to dwell, and to which they are restricted, come tales of outrage, rapine, and murder, to which these wretched subjects of the Russian Czar are subjected.

The more or less guarded editorial comments on the news from these districts, in the Russian papers of St. Petersburg, Odessa, and Warsaw, now at hand, all conclude with allusions to the general movement towards emigration, which the disturbances had occasioned. From past experience it may reasonably be anticipated that the present ebullitions will subside when the purposes for which the local officials had incited them have been duly subserved, but that the upheaval will cause a sort of tidal wave of emigration of the surviving victims of the persecution is simply a matter of course.

There is much talk of directing the refugees to a settlement in Palestine. But, besides the fact that the Ottoman Government, for political reasons, is opposed to any considerable influx of infidel population, whether Christian or Jewish, there is another factor militating against their coming, even more potent than the government. That factor is one similar to the situation in Russia; the local populace is but imperfectly controlled by the government of the Porte, and disturbances similar to those latterly reported from Erzeroum, where the Christian Armenians were slaughtered in their cathedral by their Moslem neighbors, would become more imminent, to the serious discomfort of the Sultan and his advisers. The conditions of security, for want of which the refugees flee from Russia, are equally wanting among the Turks, and the result is that Western Europe, especially England, is made the goal of all who can get away, and in the end all those countries become merely stations on the roadway of the great exodus to these western shores.

The history of those Russian Jews who came to America in 1882, and since, has been one of great poverty and struggle, and though of slow, yet, withal, of a steady and marked regeneration. There exists among them a strong desire to become owners of their own homes, and to a very appreci- able extent a yearning towards agricultural pursuits. The few hundreds who were then aided to form the settlements near Vineland and Bridgeton, N.J., have, since the founding of the colonies, been reinforced by a large influx of newcomers, who have purchased their holdings, some of them of quite considerable extent. Not a few of these farmers have prospered considerably, while the great majority have attained a fair measure of comfort and independence. Of the great masses settled in the cities many eke out a scant subsistence in various of the semi-skilled occupations, while quite a fair proportion have succeeded in successfully establishing themselves in some line of trade and traffic.

The fact that the already considerable numbers of these people now settled among us is likely soon to be increased by the refugees from the present persecution renders a review of the situation here of timely interest. For that purpose a reporter of The Mercury, accompanied by our staff photographer, made several visits to the southern section of the city, where the great majority of the Russian Jewish residents of this city are located, and the salient features of what they noted and observed are herewith reproduced.


A line drawn from the Delaware River up Pine Street to Broad, from thence to Washington Avenue and back again, will enclose the habitations of the vast majority of the Russian Jews of this city. Although the colony numbers all told but 10,000 individuals, they have set their impress upon this section, which was at one time the hotbed of native Americanism and afterwards degenerated into the Whitechapel of Philadelphia.

It was only a few years ago that the ring of a pistol shot was a daily occurrence in this section, and many a man has been borne out of the neighborhood feet first, whose murder is still unavenged, and whose murderer today stalks the streets a power in politics, or else fills a grave to which he was sent by the bullet of a man like unto himself. For many years certain portions of this section were a stench in the nostrils of the decent people of Philadelphia. No man who cared for his life would venture there save under police protection, and no woman's honor was safe who strayed through its streets save in broad daylight.

The worst spot of the whole was that which includes such streets and alleys at [as] Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Pine, Lombard, South, Bain- bridge, Alaska, Spofford, St. Mary's, Baxter, and. Emeline. They represented a terra incognita, and only the enthusiastic missionary ever explored them. Policemen shuddered when put upon the beats, and merchants sooner let cases go by default than attend the courts located there. From this neighborhood came forth the celebrated criminals of Philadelphia; this was their nursery, and from there they were hurried into the penitentiaries of the country. Such a thing as an honest election was unknown, and in a word it was the home of the vicious, unfortunate, and abandoned.

In 1882 [1881] the first great influx of Russian Jews came into the neighborhood, bringing with them their habits of industry and sobriety, their love of family, and their desire to improve their condition. Slowly but surely the leaven they put into the mass has worked until today many of the crowd of loafers, who once made the different corners their lounging places, have largely disappeared, and their places have been taken by laughing, gleeful children whose auburn hair and scintillating eyes tell of their birth and their ancestry.

When the desire to come to the United States seizes upon a new people it is generally felt first by the dregs of the population, and the American people leam of their coming by seeing them working on the streets, the railways, and the buildings for even a more meagre pittance than that paid

to their predecessors. Such at least has been the rule with the Irish, Italians, Chinese, and Hungarian pioneers of emigration to this country, and when in I 882 [I 88 I] the first batch of Russian and Jewish refugees came to our shores, the same thing was expected of them. The papers made a great sensation of the event, and then the Russians dropped out of sight. People had forgotten all about them until a few months ago, when the cloakmakers' strikes in this city and New York called their attention to them again. During this time they had grown from a mere handfil to nearly 150,ooo people, 80,000 of whom had settled in New York, and the rest had located in the other great cities of the Union, and in no place had their coming disturbed any previous condition.

In the meantime the Chinese question, the Italian question, and the Hungarian question had attracted the attention of the political economists, but no one had even thought of the Russian Jewish question, and for the simple reason that these people came here with the intention of becoming citizens and giving their children a birthright of liberty.

In their own country they had not been the scum of the population. On the contrary, they were the real artisan class of Russia. They were the tailors, shoemakers, butchers, bakers, carpenters, and what not of the great empire, and, coming here, each man went to the trade he had learned.

Here and in New York many of them engaged in cloakmaking, and coming from a country where any association of the working people is looked upon as a seditious movement to be downed either by the sword or scimitar, the right to meet as they pleased, without let or hindrance from the authorities, became very precious to them, and they hold it to their breasts as closely almost as their religion. It is this feeling that brought them victory in New York and makes them unconquerable here despite privations and misery.

If one wishes to know these people, let him do as a Mercury reporter did last week: go among them, hear their stories, learn their beliefs, and see their homes.

They came here as strangers and after great sufferings, persecuted at home, like the tribes in Egypt of old; they heard stories of the promised land beyond the sea, where every man was his neighbor's equal and where a man could worship his father's God in his father's way. Then, gathering their families together, each man with his wife and children, and leaving behind him all of his memories, they started on the new exodus. Robbed, beaten,


and maltreated on every hand, they never faltered, and finally, after privations and sufferings of which no pen can ever give a picture, they reached the place they had been brought to believe was the home of the downtrodden and persecuted.

In their old home they had been of the better class, but, forgetting all this, they were content to take the lowliest place and the humblest home, in the confident belief that time would right them. That their belief in this ultimate justice was not founded on nothing is proven by the position they hold in this city today. The two thousand families of this city own five hundred houses, and while many of them live in rented rooms, a still greater number have followed the Philadelphia plan and rented houses of their own. As soon as the head of the family finds himself in the condition to afford it, he gets away from the slums and becomes a householder. He sends his children to the public schools, and at the very moment that the law permits he is naturalized.

It is safe to say that not a single Russian Jew who has the right to be a citizen of this country has failed to avail himself of that privilege. But nobody ever hears of the Russian Jew vote. For among these people every man thinks for himself and votes accordingly. Perhaps it is a pity that they do not band together. If they did, such scenes as have been enacted by the police during the recent strike would never have been enacted.

T o show how these people have assimilated themselves a few statistics may not be altogether dry reading. Since they came here they have not only started several literary societies like the Hebrew Literary [Society], the Russian-American League, the Progress Club, and the Tourgenieff Club, several social lodges and labor unions, but many of the younger ones have gone into the learned professions. Four of them are druggists, eight are students in the medical colleges, one is a student in the engineering department of the University of Pennsylvania, three are students of the West Chester State Normal School, and two are recently-graduated physicians. Several of the students are ladies.

Among their organizations are the Michael Heilprin Lodge, I.O.B.B. [Independent Order B'nai B'rith]; the Hebrew Literature Society, the Down Town Beneficial Society, the Working Men's Lodge; Sexennial League, the Liberty Lodge, O.B.A. [Order Brith Abraham], the Dorshe Sphath Ever ["Furtherers of the Hebrew Language"], Association of Jewish Emigrants, and congregations: B'nai Jacob, B'nai Abraham, Rodfe

Zedek, B'nai Reuben, Anshe Nyezin, Kurlander, B'nai Israel, and Anshe Shavel.

At 3 16 South Fourth Street is the Industrial School. All of the pupils are children of Russian Jews, and every pupil attends the public schools of the city before going to the lectures at the Industrial School. There has been purchased lately the property at the southwest corner of Tenth and Carpenter Streets, and in a short time ground will be broken for the erec- -

tion of a new schoolhouse, which will give accommodation to I ,500 children. It will contain apartments for the young women, young men, and kinder- garten, lectures, and a library, and space for the manual training of males and females, together with baths for the sexes. In this work the Jewish population generally will take part, and it will be under the auspices and direction of the Hebrew Education Society.

If one wishes to learn more of the people, let him go among them, as a Mercury reporter and an artist did on Thursday, visit them at their homes, and see their children at play on the sidewalks. At present the strike, which involves nearly one-fifth of the entire colony directly and many more indirectly, has to a great extent cut down the financial resources materially, and consequently there are many more evidences of destitution to be seen than at more prosperous times; yet, unlike strikers of other races, the saloons are not crowded with the men out of work nor are the corners and other meeting places packed with loudmouthed debaters . . . .

The loungers as a rule are either children or the people of other nativity than that of the Russian Jews. The men, who in most other cases would be found on the streets, are absent for the simple reason that they, notwithstanding what they believe to be the righteousness of their cause, are around town seeking in various ways to add to their little store and thus be able to overcome the men who they think are trying to grind them to the earth.

As the newspaper man and the artist passed through Emeline Street . . . they were greeted by a crowd of children of both sexes and all nationalities, who beseeched the man with the camera to take their pictures. A slat- tern[l]y woman, with a baby at her breast, lounging on the step of one of the poor little houses, looked up at this, with a sneer on her face and an oath on her lips, and said: "Oh, they don't want nothing but Sheenies." And then there came from a half dozen other slatterns various views as to the advisability of transporting all the other Sheenies to the nether regions.

4O AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, APRIL, 195 7

Just a few steps beyond this the reporter happened to glance into the window of another house and there, unconscious of the noise and filth outside, sat an old man, with the long white beard and the clear-cut features of a patriarch, pointer in hand, teaching the Law to a little fellow not yet in his teens. It was a picture for a Millet, and nobody but a Hogarth could have done justice to the other.

The contrasts that Mercury men found everywhere between the Russian Jews' homes and those of their Gentile neighbors in the slums was, to say the least, astonishing.

Here were men who, for a time at least, had given up their regular means of subsistence, and yet their homes were scrupulously clean. The kettle was hissing on the stove and the odor of health-giving food touched the noses of the newspaper men with a force that made each of them long for a taste of the unknown dainty. In the other houses dirt and filth reigned; the women, as a rule, were on the streets and the children in the gutters; what men were about were either at home drunk or in the nearest saloon trying to reach that condition.

The reporter stopped at a neighboring butcher shop and asked the proprietor as to what the Jews lived on. "The best I've got," he answered, "and what is better, they pay cash for what they get. They do not buy as much as some of the Irish and Americans do when they are in cash, but they utilize everything they get and let nothing go to waste. They buy very close, but if they want a thing they will pay a good price for it. They are good neighbors as a rule, and their children are about the streets less than any others."

On South Street the Russians have made themselves at home. They are gradually beginning to put their impress on the street, and before long, if they have their wayunmolested, it will be as much theirs as theirown homes. These people are very clannish and hang together as closely as possible. They are heart and soul engaged in the cloakmakers' strike and mean to see it out to the end. One of their leading men, a highly educated gentleman, whose business puts him beyond the wants of the many, said to the Mercury man in a talk the latter had with him about the strike: "Our people are in this thing as a matter of principle. They think their cause is a righteous one and would sooner starve than give in. It is the principle they are con- tending for, and they are as earnest in the matter as were the men who carried through the Revolutionary War.

"They believe that if they give in to the employers now, thattheir freedom is over and that henceforth they and their children will be doomed to the same slavery from which they fled. This feeling sometimes drives them to extravagant expressions of which their enemies are quick to take advantage. Only the other night one of the leaders, in talking about the strike, exclaimed: 'I have six children, and sooner than give in I would kill them one by one and eat them to keep me alive.' Of course this was extravagance, because in no race in the world are the family ties dearer - than they are with this people, yet someone swore out a warrant and arrested this man on the charge of threatening to kill his children, and he was held to bail by a magistrate. -

"Understanding the language not any too well, they are misunderstood by the authorities, and their enemies keep inciting the people against them. Only a little while ago the strikers were holding a meeting at Fifth and Gaskill Streets when suddenly the doors were burst open and the police raided the place. They made a break for the people on the platform and arrested them, and then drove the audience out of the building, amusing themselves in the meantime by smashing the flying men's heads with their clubs. Many of the audience were severely handled, and yet these people were only meeting together under the rights guaranteed them by the Constitution of the United States. The speaker of the occasion, a man by the name of Stahler, was hustled to a police station, kept over night, and then put under the exorbitant bail of $2,500.

"Do you think that the police would have dared to break up a meeting of Irishmen or Americans in the same way? Mind you, these men are not Anarchists or Socialists. They are simplystrikers, A d yet the authorities, without writ or warrant, treat them as though they were no more than stray dogs. I could fill a page of your paper with stories of a similar or even worse character had I the time or you the space. They may be mistaken in their demands, but they do not think so, and are just as much entitled to a fair hearing the same as any other people. Come with me if you have the time and see some of the homes I can show you, and say then whether you do not think that these men believe in the righteousness of their cause."

Then he led the newspaperman up flights of rickety stairs, along dark and noisome courts and dreary yards, and showed him how some of the victims of the great strike managed to live and keep their hearts. Unlike the homes the reporter had seen before, no cheerful kettle hissed upon the


hob, and no savory soup sent out its invitation to the hungry. Here grim and haggard want had set its seal, and here poverty had made its home.

One bearded Russian, in broken English and translated Russian, told the tale of his weeks of fighting off the hunger wolf. He had been making fairly good wages, enough to keep his children healthy and [to] encourage him in the hope that some day he might be able to rent a home of his own. Then he went on the strike, and little by little he saw his hopes fly away. He saw wan faces and the hungry eyes of his little ones glare at him as he came home penniless night after night.

He did everything a strong man could do to put a little into their empty stomachs, but it was only a little, and the griping of his own told him each day of how his precious little ones must suffer; yet during all these weary weeks not a word of complaint had come to him, nor had thought of surrender come into his head. He, like others, preferred martyrdom to surrender. This tale is only a sample of what the reporter saw and heard among these victims of Russian cruelty and American rapacity. ,

The Russian Jew is as stubborn as a man can well be, and if he gives in this time will do so simply to save the lives of his children . . . .

Now! Available Free! E X H I B I T S O N

Ohio, Colonial Jewry, the Civil War, and American Jewry.

These Exhibits are excellent for CONGREGATIONS, RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS, WAR VETERANS' POSTS, INSTITUTIONS, CLUBS, ETC.

How to Obtain Them Simply drop a note to us at the address below, requesting either one, or all, of these exhibits. They will be sent to you immediately (if not already in use), express prepaid and insured. There is no charge.

The American Jewish Archives CINCINNATI 20, OHIO

Abe Goldbaum and the General An Incident of the Old West

Harsh words and a drawn pistol in a crowded hotel did not frighten Abe Goldbaum. A son of the old untamed West, he was prepared to meet any challenge. His parents were among the first settlers to arrive in Tucson, Arizona, about 1856. There, in the Southwest, their seven children were born and reared. The elder Goldbaum did business in Tucson and in Benson. In I 886 he was killed in an Indian raid, and the business which he had established passed into the hands of his sons.

During a business trip to Mexico, Abe Goldbaurn had a brief encounter with General Charles P. Eagan, of the United States Army, who made some uncomplimentary remarks about Goldbaum and the Jews of Tucson. General Eagan had previously been involved in the commissary meat scandal of the Spanish-American War.

T h e incident of the conflict between Goldbaum and Eagan is described in a typescript which was prepared probably by a reporter. It may well have been published in a contemporary Arizona newspaper. T h e story is reprinted here from a copy received by the American Jewish Archives through the courtesy of Dr. Moses Joel Eisenberg, Chestnut Hill, Mass.

Hermosillo [Mexico], June xgth, 1902. During the dinner hour a t the Hotel Cambuston on Friday, June xgth,

there occurred an episode that for a short time threatened to result very seriously. Mr. Abe Goldbaum and his parmer (of the firm of Monteverde and Goldbaum) were seated at one of the tables with four or five other guests of the hotel when Gen. Charles P. Eagan (of embalmed beef fame) and his son-in-law, a Mr. Cole, entered and seated themselves at an adjoin- ing table but a few feet distant from Mr. Goldbaurn and his friends.

The dining room was filled with guests of the hotel at the time, and everything was passing quietly when the attention of the guests was


directed to a conversation which was being carried on between Gen. Eagan and his son-in-law in a loud and somewhat boisterous manner, which evidently was designed to call the attention of the guests at the different tables. Gen. Eagan indulged in extremely insulting remarks, being somewhat under the influence of liquor, making particular reference to Jews from Tucson, and as nearly as can be recollected by those who heard the remarks, Gen. Eagan said "he (evidently referring to some person, the subject of conversation between Gen. Eagan and his son-in-law) is as worthless as a Tucson Jew without credit" [and] "I have no more use for him than I have for that Tucson Jew who has no credit." This remark, and several similar in character, was repeated by Gen. (who always kept looking at Goldbaum) Eagan several times in a loud voice so as to be distinctly heard by all the guests of the hotel seated at the several tables. Among the guests were several Jews who could not fail to hear the above remarks.

Your correspondent learns that Mr. Goldbaum has been for the last year associated with Mr. W. C. Greene and his associates who own the Cananea mines, and, as is well-known, Mr. Greene for some time past has been in litigation with Gen. Eagan and his associates on account of certain coal properties in the State of Sonora [Mexico]. As a result of this litigation a very bitter feeling has been engendered between the rival parties. On account of these differences Mr. Goldbaum and his friends naturally assumed that Gen. Eagan's insulting remarks were directed towards him. It is claimed by those who witnessed the entire controversy that [neither] Mr. Goldbaum nor any of his friends had done anything whatever to provoke insult.

When Gen. Eagan, at the conclusion of his dinner, arose from his table he passed in front of Mr. Goldbaum who was seated in the hall, making again the above remark, when Goldbaum called him a liar and demanded an apology for the alleged personal insult. Whereupon the General assumed a threatening attitude when [and] for a few moments a general mix-up was threatened. At this juncture Eagan's son-in-law, who had gone to the General's room, rushed out and slipped a six-shooter into the General's hand. Mr. Goldbaum was at the time unarmed, but stood his ground, - threatening to use his fists if the General advanced towards him.

The moment the revolver was placed in Gen. Eagan's hand he rushed towards Goldbaum with it, when quick as a flash Goldbaum darted under the General's hand and wrested it from his hand, thus disarming Gen.

ABE GOLDBAUM AND THE GENERAL 45

Eagan in the twinkling of an eye. At this point Mr. Luis Cambuston, proprietor of the hotel, approached Goldbaum from the rear. Whereupon Goldbaum passed the revolver to Cambuston, saying at the time that "Eagan had drawn the gun on me and I took it from him." Cambuston immediately threw open the breach and threw the cartridges on the floor. The combatants were both now unarmed.

By this time all the guests of the hotel were thoroughly excited. Gold- baum insisted that Gen. Eagan apologize to him for the insulting remarks concerning the Jews. Gen. Eagan insisted that he did not know Goldbaum (notwithstanding the fact that he has seen Goldbaum almost continuously for the past year, and knew that he [Goldbaum] was in the employ of Mr. Greene during the trial of the coal cases above referred to) and did not even know who he was. Goldbaum explain[ed] that he was of Hebrew extraction and that his home, until recently, had been in Tucson and that he had a brother engaged in the mercantile business in that city. And he also told the General that he had, until recently, acted as Mr. Bernard's private secretary, who was Mr. Greene's personal representative in the state. Several guests of the hotel intervened at this juncture for the purpose of restoring order, and the parties were finally separated.

Gen. Eagan, of course, is liable under the laws of Mexico for carrying or attempting to use concealed weapons, and it is possible the public authorities may take the matter up.

There is no doubt but what Mr. Goldbaum has the sympathy of the community on his side, and that the assault provoked by Gen. Eagan was uncalled for and, to say the least, ungentlemanly on the part of an American officer.

COHEN AND ISAACS O F RICHMOND DEAL W I T H EDMUND RANDOLPH

Gentlemen :

Please send by the bearer z5 lbs. of soap, 5 Ibs. of brown sugar, 4% gallons of molasses, I lb. of best hyson tea, I lb. of common tea, and place it to account of - and 4 bbls. of allum salt.

Messrs.ZCohen & Isaacs

Your obedient servant, EDM [UND] RANDOLPH

May 8th, 1787.

Reviews of Books

T H E JEWISH PEOPLE, PAST AND PRESENT, Vol. IV - 300 YEARS OF JEWISH LIFE I N T H E UNITED STATES. New York: Jewish Encyclopedic Handbooks, Inc. 1955. ix, 280 pp. $10.00

Even in this age of specialization and collaborative scholarship, 300 Years of Jewish Lye in the United States commands attention. The fourth volume of The Jewish People, Past and Present, it rests on the labors of a five-man editorial board, a six-man board of editors, one executive director, two literary editors, five translators, and eleven contributors. Also worthy of mention is the Marstin Press, which has manufactured a dignified yet handsome book.

Anita Libman Lebeson sets the stage with a fifty-five-page "History of the Jews in the United States," and then follow chapters by Jacob Lestschinsky, "Economic and Social Development of American Jewry"; Jacob Agus, "Current Movements in the Reli- gious Life of American Jewry"; Philip Friedman, "Political and Social Movements and Organizations"; H. L. Lurie, "Jewish Com- munal Life in the United States"; Mark Wischnitzer, "The Impact of American Jewry on Jewish Life Abroad"; Samuel Niger, "Yid- dish Culture in the United States"; J. K. Mikliszanski, "Hebrew Literature in the United States"; Abraham Menes, "The Jewish Labor Movement"; Max D. Danish, "The Jewish Labor Move- ment - Facts and Prospects"; and Joshua Trachtenberg, "American Jewish Scholarship."

The expenditure of such effort, talent, and money makes it exceedingly unpleasant to report that Three Hundred Years falls short of the mark. Neither in format nor in data will it do as an encyclopedia; and it lacks the unity, organization, and perspective to qualify as a synthesis. Indeed, in view of the wealth of editorial talent, one is surprised that there is no introduction to pull the volume together, apart from a perfunctory preface by the publishers. The result is a hodgepodge of facts (frequently undigested) and

REVIEWS OF BOOKS 47

essays of varying quality (often repeating each other) resting on the tired and old idea that Jews are interesting simply because they are Jews.

The first chapter is the worst offender in this respect, and should prove - if it needs further proof - that "ancestor-on-the- brain" is not sufficient cause to break into print. The usual kind of name-dropping ethnic history, it consists largely of disconnected vignettes of famous Jews from Christopher Columbus (Columbus is presented as one who acted suspiciously Jewish) to Emma Lazarus. Mrs. Lebeson serves no good historical purpose by ending her account with Miss Lazarus, any more than she does in resur- recting Morris Jacob Raphall, the Bible-quoting, pro-slavery New York rabbi who is somehow significant because he "made a wartime journey to Washington to ask Lincoln to promote his son from a second to a first lieutenancy, a request which the President granted without hesitation." Mrs. Lebeson's hortatory prose goes with her material, as do the interspersed pictures of the Statue of Liberty, the Signing of the Declaration of Independence, George Washington, Rebecca Gratz, and other saints in the American Jewish hagiography.

The volume as a whole suffers from the failure properly to relate Jewish history to American history. Thus Philip Friedman mangles the Know-Nothing Movement, its dates, its purposes, its causes, its principal events, and its impact on American Jews. His notes show no evidence that he has read the standard accounts of this outburst of nativism in the United States. Similarly, the chapters on intellectual history, although full of interesting detail, are unrelated to the intellectual histories of other Americans, and are little better than narrowly conceived bibliographical essays. As important, the period before 1890 is so slighted that one misses the significant shifts in the past and feels that one is reading current events rather than history. And far too often America is divided conveniently but unrealistically into Jews and the "general American population," whereas it should have been emphasized throughout the volume that the Jews are one of the many immigrant groups that settled and make up America. If one is to write about American Jews in particular, and not about Jews in general, then America with all its complexity and diversity must get into the story.


There are exceptions, happily, to these common weaknesses. Abraham Menes raises interesting questions about the uniqueness of Jewish trade unionism in the American labor movement; Jacob Agus is on firm ground in calling attention to the pragmatic and moralistic bent in American religions; and Jacob Lestschinsky does the best that one can with the limited statistics on the economic adjustment of Jews as compared to other ethnic groups. None of these men, however, is original in his conclusions. The most imaginative and stimulating of the essays is the one by H. L. Lurie on communal life. Mr. Lurie's insights are perceptive, and he ranges creatively into related areas.

More than a quarter century has passed since Marcus L. Hansen opened immigration history as a field for historical research. The harvest has been meager, and it will continue to be so until immigration history rises above narrow racial pride and comprehends the total social process. Only in this way will we come to understand both the unique and general characteristics of each of the nation's varied ancestral groups. All this Hansen understood in the ~gzo's, and that his warnings and advice need to be repeated at this time is all the more a pity. Smith College ARTHUR MANN

ADVENTURE I N FREEDOM - THREE HUNDRED YEARS O F JEWISH LIFE I N AMERICA. By Oscar Handlin. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. 1954. ix, 282 pp. 53.75

Oscar Handlin's Adventure in Freedom is a perplexing book. It is perplexing because it reveals a paradoxical approach: on the one hand, the sharp, pointed insights of a talented historian; on the other, the tract-like compilations of a journalist. The Handlin of the earlier chapters is strangely out of joint with the Handlin of the later chapters. Whereas Handlin's treatment of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is marked by a critical and discerning eye for major structural changes, he envelops the problems of the twentieth century in a haze of impressionism and in a mist of chatter.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS 49

The analytical Handlin has made a valuable contribution towards our understanding of the patterning of American Jewish history, especially in the nineteenth century. He makes vividly clear that the immigration of the Jews to this country is directly related to the development of capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe. He clearly demonstrates that it was the breakup of the old economic, social, and political order which impelled both Jews and non-Jews to move. He demonstrates that German Jews did not emigrate in large numbers until the nineteenth century, although the conditions of the Jews in Germany were very bad in the eighteenth. They did not move until the basic agricultural economy had been disrupted by the rise of capitalism. He furthermore shows that East European Jews did not emigrate until the Polish and Russian economy was likewise dis- located. Handlin thus makes clear that the sources of emigration are not to be looked for primarily in persecution or even in poverty, but in the shattering of an economic structure in which the Jews had had their place.

Handlin likewise clarifies the pattern of Jewish settlement in the United States in the nineteenth century, by placing it in the frame- work of a society expanding rapidly westward. Jewish immigrants are swept up by this pattern and they follow close on the heels of the immigrant and native farmer as distributors of commodities. The Jew thus easily becomes an enterprising peddler, merchant, and shopkeeper, and ultimately settles down in the burgeoning urban centers of the South and the Middle West. During this phase there is no need to prod the Jew to leave the eastern seaboard, for the beacon of opportunity beckons him from the interior.

The East European Jews, however, come onto the scene afier the westward expansion has used up the free land and after the process of initial middle-western urbanization has already taken place. The opportunities for immigrants are now restricted to factory work or to the supplying of the consumption needs of vast metropolises. The Jews thus conform to the limits set by the economy, and they either tend the machine or they become peddlers, storekeepers, or jobbers in the very big cities. They do not move to the West in any large numbers because the economic pattern has changed in the course of the years.


Thus Handlin himself conclusively shows that the major developments in American Jewish history are themselves the consequences of major changes within the economy both in Europe and in this country. How is it, then, that the Handlin who writes of the post- World War I years no longer considers such changes to be of value or concern? Those forces to which he attributes such great significance in the nineteenth century did not come to an end . -~he economic changes in Europe in the twentieth century, especially in Poland and in the Balkans, had effects very similar to those which disrupted populations in the nineteenth century. Nor did the economy in the United States stand still. By the end of World W a r I the economy of the United States wag no longer capable of absorbing large numbers of immigrants, and for this reason immigration was restricted by law. When, therefore, displaced populations in Europe need to emigrate, but at the same time economic developments elsewhere in the world preclude immigration, then the surplus population stays where it is, and, in the case of the Jews, ultimately suffers annihilation. Had Handlin continued the analytical method of the early chapters, he would have been forced to drive this truth home. yet-so f i r has Handlin strayed from his analytical approach that he does not even see restrictive immigration acts as a demand of the economy, but only as a reaction to fear of foreigners (pp. 202-4) ! Indeed, restrictive immigration is seen as a cause of the depression (p. 204) ! And by 1 952 the Jews remaining in Eastern Europe are not even seeking to come here (p. 257)!

It is truly amazing that the development of the American economy after 1914 and its complete transformation of the class structure of American Jewry are ignored by Handlin. Many pages are devoted to Jewish merchants in the eighteenth century, and to Jewish peddlers, manufacturers, department store owners, and proletarians in the nineteenth century, but not even a full page to the economic transformation of the Jews in the twentieth. W e are merely re- assured that Jewry has become middle class, but Handlin makes no effort to describe the process, or to assess its vast implications.

Handlin's treatment of the twentieth century thus represents a flight from analysis. This flight is most vividly apparent in two aspects of Handlin's methodology: (I) his periodization of Amer-

REVIEWS OF BOOKS s 1

ican Jewish history after 1880; and (2) his treatment of anti- Semitism.

N o historian can escape the problem of periodization, and the periodization which he adopts reveals the essence of the historian's method. Through periodization the historian conveys to the reader his assessment of that which dominates, or organizes, or gives meaning and coherence to a segment of time.

The early chapters follow a conventional periodization long recognized by American historians, but beginning with 1880 a significant change occurs. A chapter on anti-Semitism is inserted immediately after Chapter Seven, "Americanization: I 880-1 9 20."

Yet the chapter on anti-Semitism covers the time span I 890 to 1941. This is truly perplexing in view of the fact that the history of the Jewish community from 1919 to 1941 has not yet been narrated!

What undergirds anti-Semitism during the period 1880 to 1941 ? What central theme does it enclose? What insight does this periodization give us as to the processes at work? Why, if no unifying theme is intended, does i t end in 1941, and not in 1954? Surely anti-Semitism in the 1930's was far from being identical with that which flourished in the 189o's! Handlin has forcibly extracted anti- Semitism from the historical processes and has treated i t as though i t were a thing in itself. Such a periodization obstructs any attempt to see anti-Semitism as dynamically related to the changes occurring within society. This is even more apparent when an analysis of the chapter shows that no effort is made to break down this period into smaller units of time related to changes within the structure of American society.

T h e same criticism can be leveled at Handlin's periodization of the succeeding two chapters. These chapters are "The Reordering of Jewish Communal Life: 1920-1954'' and "The Sources of Stability: I 920-1 954." During these years American Jews passed through a series of widely divergent phenomena: the post-World W a r I Reaction, the Great Prosperity, the Great Depression, World W a r 11, and the Cold War . Each of these major configura- tions had a significant impact on the reordering of Jewish life and on the sources of stability. Handlin's overextended periodizatioli produces only a blur, for even within these chapters there is no

52 AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, APRIL, 19 5 7

attempt at treating each of these phenomena as a unit. It is paradoxical that as Handlin comes nearer to the present, where clarity is so crucial a matter for his readers, he dissolves distincmess in the fuzziness of facts thrown together haphazardly.

A similar flight from analysis is evident in Handlin's treatment of anti-Semitism. It has already been poimed out that Handlin's periodization, I 890 to I 94 I , obscures the significance of the phenomenon. Handlin's actual treatment of the phenomenon makes it clear that the periodization was no accident. The closer Handlin comes to the present, the less space he devotes to anti-Semitism. Twenty- seven pages (pp. 174-201) are devoted to anti-Semitism prior to I 9 14, and nine pages to anti-Semitism from I 9 I 8 to I 941 - the years which witnessed not only Henry Ford and the Dearborn Independent, but also the legal restrictions on immigration, the spread of the quota system, and the popularity of Father Coughlin! The Leo M. Frank case, which affected the Jews adversely in only one state, is given two pages @p. zoo-~oI), while Henry Ford is given one sentence (p. 203), and Father Coughlin one paragraph @p. 2083)! At the end of the book the McCarran-Walter Act is opposed by the Jews, not because it affected them as a group, but because "its monstrous racist provisions grossly contravened the ideals of justice and human equality" (p. 257), as if any other "race" had ever been subjected to annihilation! The significance of the Walter-McCarran Act is precisely that its racist provisions did not prevent its passage through Congress, nor have such provisions led to its quick repeal!

Handlin can achieve this amazing disproportion only because he does not see anti-Semitism as a phenomenon linked inextricably to the patterns of change within society. He minimizes its significance because he considers the anti-Semitic charges as shopworn, patently false, the sort of propaganda that appeals to the uncritical or to the gullible (cf. pp. 202-3, 208). He shrugs aside the problem because he cannot understand how anyone could believe such stupid nonsense. However, any serious student of anti-Semitism in its historical manifestations knows that the false, stupid, and shopworn character of the propaganda is no protection against its effectiveness when a society is undergoing major stresses and strains. Anti-Semitism

REVIEWS OF BOOKS 5 3

waxes and wanes in direct relationship to economic and social stability. The first major anti-Semitic outbreak in this country occurred in conjunction with the farm crisis of the I 880's and I 890's. When this crisis was overcome, anti-Semitism was dormant until the years of uncertainty which followed the end of World W a r I. The prosperity of the latter 19~0 ' s once again weakened anti- Semitism, but the Great Depression unleashed it with an intensity never known before. World War I1 and the continuation of full employment and prosperity since then have effectively kept anti- Semitic tendencies in check.

This, of course, does not mean that anti-Semitism completely disappears even in the relatively stable times, but it does most definitely mean that it can be effective only in times of crisis. In such times it achieves a success commensurate with the intensity of the crisis and with the adequacy of the steps taken to meet the crisis. Anti-Semitic propaganda at such times is effective not because it is true, but because it appears to give a satisfactory explanation of why breakdown has occurred. The ability to link Jews with international finance on the one hand and with international communism on the other is the crucial reason for the success of antisemitism in the crises of our own day. The power and the frightening success of outworn clichks are starkly attested by the annihilation of millions of Jews. Fraudulent assertions are so potent that the Soviet regime does not hesitate to spread the falsehood of international Jewish power whenever its crisis-ridden structure is endangered.

An analysis of Advmture in Freedom thus reveals two Handlins: the sober, keen, and critical Handlin who pierces the surface phenomena in the search for meaningful explanations and vital correlations, and the chatty, optimistic, and naive Handlin who parades the surface phenomena as though powerful structural realities did not exist. The latter Handlin may succeed in reassuring the Jews of our day, but the former Handlin might have armed them with understanding. Hebrew Union College - Jewish ELLIS RIVKIN

Institute of Religion


QUESTIONS JEWS ASK: RECONSTRUCTIONIST AN- SWERS. By Mordecai M. Kaplan. N e w York: The Recon- structionist Press. 1956. xv, 532 pp. $4.75

What is original about this volume is not so much its contents, which, in one form or another, we have encountered before, both in the writings of Dr. Mordecai M. Kaplan and in the pages of T h e Reconstructionist. But the presentation is something new in modern Jewish theological literature. By choosing the "Questions and Answers" method as his medium, Dr. Kaplan provides us with a twentieth-century link in the long chain of responsa literature. Yet here we immediately notice a difference. Theological questions were not altogether unknown in the responsa of the past (it suffices to recall that Maimonides, too, contributed to this branch of literature), but problems of a ceremonial and legal nature had an overwhelming preponderance. Kaplan7s "responsa," on the other hand, while likewise devoted in some instances to ritual practice and the practical aspects of Jewish life, deal first and foremost with the ideological content of Judaism.

This in itself is evidence, if evidence were needed, that the old way of life, which accounted for the legal questions dealt with in the earlier responsa, has been left behind, and that the questions asked by the modern American Jew are much more likely to be concerned with the "why" of Jewish observance and of Jewish identification than with the "how" of concrete ritual practice. Reconstructionism arose by way of answering this "why," asked by a generation which could no longer take Jewish self-identification as a matter of course, and whose thinking in the categories of modern thought precluded its wholehearted acceptance of traditional Jewish belief.

Reconstructionism was not, of course, the first answer to be given. Reform Judaism preceded it by about a century, and to a certain extent, though it seems to have been more concerned with tradition than with theology, Conservative Judaism, too, must be recognized as an attempt to answer the same problem. But if, as it has rightly been said, Conservative Judaism is simply the "Reform Judaism" of the Eastern European immigrant, what are we to make of Reconstructionism, which historically is an offshoot of the Con-

REVIEWS OF BOOKS 55

servative movement? Is it merely an attempt to speed up the time-lag (of some sixty odd years) that separates Conservatism from Reform, or does it perhaps represent an advance even over the latter? Both parts of this question may be answered in either the affirmative or the negative, depending only upon whom one asks.

It is undoubtedly true that Reconstructionism represents a closer approximation to certain fundamental planks in the Reform platform than would be acceptable to the more traditional element within the Conservative movement. "What is right about Reform," says

<<. Kaplan (p. 439), 1s its acceptance of evolution, its recognition of the historic processes by which Judaism changes in response to changing conditions, and yet retains its identity, by virtue of the sense of historic continuity." But, from the Reconstructionist point of view, there is also a great deal wrong with Reform, particularly with Reform in its more "classical" formulations so lacking in appreciation for Jewish national aspirations and "the secular aspects of Jewish culture."

Basically, Kaplan's dissatisfaction with Reform stems from the latter's God-centered interpretation of Jewish life and destiny. While the piety of the ghetto was, as the late Dr. Leo Baeck has pointed out, a Milieu-Friirnmigkeit, which was liable to disintegrate the moment the individual was removed from that particular environment, Reform endeavored to make it possible for the Jew, qua Jew, to step out into the world. As a consequence, the emphasis shifted from what Kaplan called the "sancta of the group" to the religious convictions of the individual. T o the extent to which Reform managed to build up Jewish life in America, as it were de novo, enabling the individual Jew in isolated communities to remain conscious of his religious distinctiveness, while in all other respects identifying himself with the world around him, Reform's endeavor must be pronounced successful.

But Kaplan is writing out of a different context. He is writing after the mass immigration from Eastern Europe had taken place, and he sees Judaism in terms of milieu. Moreover, he finds that neither religious beliefs nor ritual observances can be described as factors which bind all Jews. For there is no single belief and no single observance which is shared by all people calling themselves "Jews."

s6 AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, APRIL, 1957

(Kaplan himself has departed significantly from the traditional Jewish belief in God.) The common denominator, therefore, is "peoplehood." Judaism is a "civilization" of which religion is only a part, albeit a significant one. The individual Jew can "fulfill himself' only through the "civilization" of his "people." Yet the concept of "peoplehood" must not be taken to imply the consequences which the more rabid nationalists would derive from it. American Jews owe no political allegiance to the State of Israel, and Kaplan emphatically champions the right of Diaspora Judaism to exist vis-a-vis the Israeli "negators of the diaspora." And so we find Kaplan walking precariously on a tightrope stretched between the extreme poles of "classical" Zionism and "classical" Reform. Unfortunately for Kaplan, the only analogies which he can find for his concept of Jewish peoplehood are the setups of the Roman Catholic Church and, to a lesser extent, of the Protestant denomina- tions, which is, after all, precisely what "classical" Reform claimed, without beclouding the issue by harping on the theme of "peoplehood."

In the past, the Jew would not have worried so much about precise definitions of his status and the finding of suitable analogies. It was sufficient for him to know that his position was unique, because Israel was the Chosen People of God. But Kaplan rejects the idea of the Chosen People.

However, reading between the lines, one discovers that Kaplan's "people" is more of an ideal than a reality. The upbuilding of the State of Israel, which assumes such a central importance in Kaplan's scheme of things, is seen in the proper perspective once we realize that it is about the only thing which all members of Kaplan's Jewish People could do together. And when Kaplan outlines a grandiose scheme for representatives of all of world Jewry to get together in order to reconstitute themselves as a "people," he virtually admits that the "people" of Reconstructionism is as little a present reality as is, in his view, the "religious brotherhood" of Reform.

Kaplan's "Reconstructionist Answers" are, therefore, likely to appeal primarily to the Jew who, though emancipated from the faith of his fathers, has never left the (transplanted) Jewish environment, and who is consequently looking for some rationale of his emotional

REVIEWS OF BOOKS 5 7

"Jewishness." These answers are less likely to appeal to, say, a third-generation Reform Jew, who, incidentally, must be quite surprised to be told that the "Jewishness" of his religion is determined by his adherence to the sancta, rather than by the nature of his beliefs and convictions.

Yet Reconstructionism arose primarily to satisfy the needs of a third type of Jew, the unaffiliated Jew on the road to total assimila- tion. One wonders if such a person, who remains undeterred by considerations of loyalty to the God of the fathers, and who finds cultural satisfaction outside of the Jewish Tradition, will be won over (and won over to what?) when he is told that he has a "moral obligation" to work for the survival of the Jewish People, if not through the synagogue, then at least by means of Israeli dances.

In other words, seeing that the "people" itself must first be ( L reconstituted," is there any need for such a "people" other than in either the nationalistic or the theological terms with which we are already familiar? Kaplan, who is fond of analogies, reminds us of earlier "covenants" which inaugurated new epochs in Jewish history, the covenants of Moses and of Ezra. The latter, however, should give Kaplan pause to think. For that "covenant" reconstituted Israel in terms of an ecclesia, the "congregation of Israel" being identical with "the congregation of the Lord." Where this identity is rejected - and it is implicitly rejected in Kaplan's denial of the Chosen People and the Mission of Israel - it is hard to see how, in the long run, an apotheosis of nationalism can be avoided.

For while at a superficial glance Kaplan's rejection of the mission of Israel may make him appear very liberal and modern, the fact remains that where, as in Reform Judaism, the doctrine of the Chosen People is maintained, we are dealing with a universalistic concept of religion. Where, on the other hand, the doctrine is rejected, we see the path cleared, not at all to a more broad-minded understanding of the Jewish heritage and the raison d'8tre of Jewish existence, but, on the contrary, for a return to tribalism, and to that outgrown stage of early Israelitish religion, before the time of the great prophets, when Jewish peoplehood, like every other peoplehood, was conceived of in terms of "blood and soil," and when religion had not yet tran- scended its concern with particular races and localities.

s8 AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, APRIL, 1957

But, if Kaplan's schemes for the reconstitution of Jewish peoplehood do not sound too feasible, the book nevertheless creates the impression that Kaplan is very much, and very honestly, concerned with present-day Jewish realities in America. Typical of many of his "Reconstructionist Answers" is the one he gives to the following question: "If a Jewish boy has time to devote only to one organization, to which organization, a Boy Scout troup or a Young Judea, should he belong?" (p. 3 3 3) . After some hemming and hawing, and with the necessary qualifications stressing compliance with the Boy Scout movement's sponsorship of loyalty to religion, Kaplan comes out in favor of the Boy Scouts: "Inasmuch as, from an educational viewpoint, we must assume that the American Jewish child will continue to live in America, it would seem that, educationally, the Boy Scout movement would offer him more for his personal self- realization than would Young Judea" (p. 3 34).

A detailed index at the back helps to make this volume a con- venient vade mecum of Reconstructionism. Hebrew Union College - Jewish JAKOB J. PETUCHOWSKI

Institute of Religion

THE POLITICAL BEHAVIOR O F AMERICAN JEWS. By Lawrence Fuchs. Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press. 1956. zoo pp. $4.00

A study of the political behavior of American Jews has been a desideratum for quite some time. As a part of American Jewish history it is of basic importance, although its relationship to the totality of American political history is insignificant.

The title of this work is, unfortunately, misleading. It is a study of the political conduct of American Jews in certain geographic areas and within specific periods, rather than an overall picture, as the title implies. Beginning with the colonial period, which is dis- posed of in a page, the author states that "except in South Carolina, Jews in the colonies were not permitted to vote or hold office," and "Jews in New York could vote up to I 737." These are generaliza- tions and do not tell a complete story. The names of Jews in New York are to be found on election rolls after 1737, and in South

REVIEWS O F BOOKS 59

Carolina, where they could not vote or hold office in the middle- eighteenth century, Francis Salvador held an appointive post on the eve of the Revolution. There is no proof that he was elected by a formal vote. Facts such as these are not easily ascertained, but if these were the only inaccuracies they could be overlooked. There are, unfortunately, other errors.

The treatment of the Federal period, where the author presents Jews as "Jeffersonians All," is the product of incomplete investigation and the use of unevaluated secondary materials. Dr. Fuchs declares emphatically: "There is no record of a single prominent Jewish opponent . . . to Jefferson." If Jews were solidly behind Jefferson, how then can one explain the support given to his oppo- nents, the Federalists, by the wealthy Isaac Moses of New York, the powerful Gratzes of Philadelphia, and the influential Moses Myers of Norfolk, to cite only a few? All these men were prominent within and beyond Jewish circles, and at least one, Moses Myers, questioned the conduct of Jefferson. The majority of the Jews were his supporters, but it is impossible to accept the author's view that this support was monolithic. An examination of the contemporary press ( I 800-1 8 I 2) will reveal the support given to the Federalists by many Jews. Nor can Reuben Etting, a Jeffersonian appointee to Federal office in Maryland, be described as "grown wealthy as founder of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad" (p. 29). He was a pensioner of his Federalist brother-in-law, Simon Gratz. Etting was neither wealthy nor a founder of the railroad - it was his brother Solomon, with whom he is confused. Reuben Etting actually ran for office on an independent (non-Jefferson) Philadelphia ticket in I 8 I 6, and on the eve of the election withdrew from the race.

To portray the activities of Jews in nineteenth-century politics, the author parades a number of officeholders on a local, state, and national level, but fails to mention many whose importance cannot be neglected in the scope of such a work: Jacob Henry of North Carolina, the Mosses and Phillipses of Philadelphia during the 1830's and 184o's, the Know-Nothing Naars of New Jersey a decade later, and Michael Seligson, the Orthodox Jewish mayor of Galveston, Texas, in 1853.

The political impact of the Civil War upon Jews, North and


South, is brushed over lightly, and the Reconstruction period is scarcely understood. The most influential Republican leader of the West, Edward Rosewater, of Omaha, Nebraska, is not mentioned, and neither is his son Victor, who became national chairman of the same party in 1912. Such a list should include also Isador Bush of Missouri and Simon Guggenheim of Colorado.

No attempt is made to compare the situation of the Jews in politics in the Midwest and Far West with the Jews of the East. The Western Jew was a part of the indigenous growth of that section, and from the beginning he was an integrated part of the new pioneering communities, participating actively in its political life. The crowded urban communities of the East, with their controlled political machinery, made i t much more difficult for the Jewish newcomer to attain political recognition. Only the socially and financially well-established Jew could hope for political preferment in the East. In the West, the immigrant Jew did not fear competition from an immigrant German or Irishman; he was on the same level. Even the Yankee migrant accepted this new plane ofpolitical equality.

T h e sections of the book which deal with Jews as supporters of radical trends require further study. This is equally true of the political conduct of the Russian Jewish immigrant, whose treatment reveals an incomplete knowledge of the period. T h e motivations which lured an insignificant number of Jews to the anarchist movement, enticed them to the Socialists, or, later, allowed them to be duped by the Communists, are not even presented. Some of the Yiddish periodicals which served these ends, Di Wahrheit, Di Arbeiter Zeitung, Di Zukunft, The Forward in its early days, and the more recent Freiheit, were evidently not examined by the author.

In summarizing the "socialist tradition" among Jews, the author refers to an undocumented Department of Justice study of 1947 which purports to show that 56.5 per cent of the Communist Party membership was Russian-born. Does he mean to imply that they are Jews? Does the Department of Justice make such a statement? The belief that this older "socialist tradition" among Russian Jews has influenced political behavior among their descendants cannot be substantiated, and any conclusions built on that thesis are to be viewed with suspicion.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS 6 I

In the discussion of Jewish political alignments, the statement is made that "The Republicans joined Tammany and the Zionists joined the Communists in 1919 to beat [the socialist] Meyer London." The description of such strange political bedfellows should be documented. Without proof we must continue to believe that the Communists were without political power at that time, and that the Zionists were politically inactive.

In analyzing the national election of 1952, Dr. Fuchs brings much that is worthwhile to this study. The statistical tables in this section are valuable. The material on Boston, New York, and Chicago shows carehl investigation and thoughtful interpretation. His views demonstrate a careful approach to this material. It indicates that the author's transition from historical material to sociological method has brought him to a field with which he is more familiar.

I t is in the area of definition and interpretation that Dr. Fuchs is subject to criticism. The analysis of the "sources of Jewish internationalism and liberalism" is misleading, and lacks an understanding of the real causes of why Jews lean to liberalism. At no time is it clear what the author means by "internationalism." Does he mean what the Russians imply, the Henry Ford connotation, or interest in foreign affairs? The absence of a clear-cut definition of this term is not helpful.

The author's inattentiveness to spelling is disconcerting. One may attribute the misspelling of Benjamin Nones (Noanes), The Occident (Occidental), Lewis 'N. Dembitz (Dembritz), and Henry Hyams (Hyans) to typographical error or hasty proofreading, but when the name of Jacob H. Schiff is spelled as Shiff six successive times (pages 5 2 -54), the student of the period is tempted to question the other sections of this work.

I t is the opinion of this reviewer that there is no effective, united "Jewish vote" in the United States. Only when there arises an issue which can militate against them as Jews is there a chance that they will unite in an effort to vote against a specific candidate, but the areas where this is possible are relatively limited.

A definitive study of Jewish political behavior in the United States is yet to be written. American Jewish Archives MAXWELL WHITEMAN

Acquisitions SELMA STERN-TAEUBLER, Archivist

Congregation B'nai Sholom, Huntsville, Alabama, Cash Book, 1876-1903; Manu- script

Congregation B'nai Sholom, Huntsville, Alabama, Ledger, 1896-1899; Manu- script

Congregation B'nai Sholom, Huntsville, Alabama, Records, Vols. I-V, 1876- 1948; Manuscript

Congregation B'nai Sholom, Huntsville, Alabama, Sunday School Records, 1892 ; Manuscript

Congregation Beth Israel, Macon, Geor- gia, Minute Book, I 859-1925; Photostats

Congregation Temple Israel (Ahavas Achim), Lafayette, Indiana, Minute Books, V0l.I. 1-111, 1904-1954; Photo- stats

Congregation Temple Israel (Ahavas Achim), Lafayette, Indiana, Ledgers, Vols. 1-111, 1876-1925; Photostats

Congregation Shangarai Chassed, New Orleans, Louisiana, Temple Pew Stubs, Vols. 1-11, 1890-1920; Manuscript

Congregation Anshe Amonim, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Minute Books, Vols.

1-11. I 869-192 I , German and English; Manuscript

Congregation Anshe Amonim, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Ledgers, Vols. 1-11, 187 1-191 3; Manuscript

Congregation Beth Jacob, Newburgh, New York, Minute Books, Vols. I-II, 1864- I 93 I , German and English; Manuscript

Congregation Beth Jacob, Newburgh, New York, Account Book, I 864-1 9 I 7; Manu- script

Congregation Beth Jacob, Newburgh, New York, Membership and Financial Re- cords, I 867-1903 ; Manuscript

Congregation Beth Jacob, Newburgh, New York, Receipts and Disbursements Books, I 864-1 875; Manuscript

Congregation Beth Jacob, Newburgh, New York, Treasurer's Record Book, I 893- 192 5 ; Manuscript

Congregation Beth Israel, Tacoma, Wash- ington, Vols. 1-11, 19 I 2-193 I ; Manu- script

Congregation Beth Israel, Tacoma, Wash- ington, Membership and Dues Record Book, 1903-1910; Manuscript

Esora Lodge, No. 236, I.O.B.B., Hunts- ville, Alabama, Minute Book, 1882- I 886; Manuscript

Esora Lodge, No. 236, I.O.B.B., Hunts- ville, Alabama, Cash Account Books, Vols. I-II, 1875-1904; Manuscript

Esora Lodge, No. 236, I.O.B.B., Hunts- ville, Alabama, Business and Miscel- laneous Correspondence, Vols. 1-11, 1877-1902; Manuscript

Esora Lodge, No. 236, I.O.B.B., Hunts- ville, Alabama, Ledger, 1875-1890; Manuscript

Esora Lodge, No. 236, I.O.B.B., Hunts- ville, Alabama, Membership Record, 1877-1879; Manuscript

Ladies Aid S o c i e y Temple Israel (Aha- vas Achim), La ayette, Indiana, Minute Book, Vols. 1-11, 1906-1939; Photostats

Society of Brotherly Love (Hebrah

ACQUISITIONS

Ahabath Achim), South Bend, Indiana, Minutes of the Board of Trustees, Vols. 1-11, 1859-1942; Photostats

Cemetery Association, South Bend, In- diana, Record of Interments, 1859-1905; Photostats

Hebrew Hospital and Asylum Association, Baltimore, Maryland, Minutes of the Board of Trustees, Vols. 1-111, 1868- 1905; Photostats

Congregation Anshe Amonim, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Minutes of the Hebrew Sunday School, 1887-1918; Manu- script

Yiddish Cultural Ring, Newark, New Jersey, Minute and Account Books, Vols. I-IV, 1947-1955; Yiddish; Manu- script

Maccabee Lodge, No. z t , Order Kesher She1 Barzel, Newburgh, New York, Receipts, 1876-1 888; Manuscript (Gift of Rabbi Maurice J. Bloom, New

York, N. Y., formerly of Newburgh.)

Federation of Zionist Associations of Greater New York, draft of the constitution, minutes of organizational meetings, and membership lists, 1897-1898; Manu- script

(Gift of the family of the late Dr. B. C. Ehrenreich, Chicago, Ill.)

Ohave Zion (First Zionist Organization), Cincinnati, Ohio, Minute and Account Books, 1900-1906 (Established in 1897); Yiddish and English; Manuscript (Gift of Dr. Samuel Schmidt, Cin-

cinnati, Ohio.)

Congregation Bene Israel Sisterhood, East Liverpool, Ohio, Minute Book, 1925- I 9 3 3 ; Manuscript

United Hebrew Charities, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Minute Books, Vols. I- 111, 1857-1882; Photostats

Association for the Protection of Jewish Immigrants, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Records, I 884-192 I ; Microfilm; Re- strictcd

B'nai B'rith Lodge, No. 741, I.O.B.B., Tacoma, Washington, ca. 1913-r9zo; Manuscript

Judith Montefiore Society, Tacoma, Washington, Vols. 1-11, Minute Books, I 890-1 9 20; Manuscript

Temple Beth Israel Sisterhood, Tacoma, Washington, Minute Books, Vols. I-VI, rgrq-1939; Manuscript

Columbus Lodge, No. 3, I.O.B.B., Co- lumbus, Georgia, Charter, I 866; Photostat

(Gift of Temple Israel, Columbus, Ga.)

Hebrew Benevolent Society, Baltimore, Maryland, Charter, I 856; Photostat

(Gift of the Associated Jewish Charities, Baltimore, Md.)

Congregation Beth Jacob, Newburgh, New York, Constitution and Bylaws, 1868, 1893, 1924; Manuscript

(Gift of Rabbi Maurice J. Bloom.)

Maccabee Lodge, No. zt , Order Kesher Shel Barzel, Newburgh, New York, By- laws, I 87 3 ; German; Manuscript

(Gift of Rabbi Maurice J. Bloom.)

Congregation Brith Achim, Petersburg, Virginia, Constitution and Bylaws of the Congregation and Its Cemetery Asso- ciation, 1908; Typescript

(Gift of Louis Ginsberg, Petersburg, Va .)

64 AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, APRIL, 1 9 5 7

ANDERSON, EUGENIE; Letter, I 95 5, Red Wing, Minn.; Typescript

The former United States ambassador to Denmark informs Albert G. Minda about the activities of G. F. Duckwitz, German anti-Nazi, in saving Danish Jewry from persecution and destruction.

(Gift of Rabbi Albert G. Minda, Min- neapolis, Minn.)

BELL, D. B.; Letter, no date, Baltimore, Md. ; Photostat

T o Kitty Etting on personal matters. (Copy from the Maryland Historical

Society, Baltimore, Md.)

BERKOWITZ, HENRY; Addresses, cor~espmd- ence, notes, poems, and sermons, Vols. I-VI, I 875-1 924; Manuscript and typescript

(Gift of Max E. Berkowitz, Mount Vernon, N. Y.)

BERKOWITZ, HENRY; Collection; Corrcrpmd- cnce, I 889-19 19; Manuscripts

Correspondence (about zoo items) of Henry Berkowitz, Morris Jastrow, David Philipson, and Max Senior with Elmer Baker, Henry Bernstein, I. Mortimer Bloom, Maurice Bloomfield, Solomon Solis-Cohen, Max C. Currick, William H. Fineshriber, Abraham Flexner, Leo M. Franklin, J. Walter Freiberg, Ephraim Frisch, Louis Grossmann, Julius Kahn, Isaac Landman, Louis Marshall, Claude G . Montefiore, Julian Morgenstern, Henry Morgenthau, Adolph S. Ochs, William Rosenau, Lionel de Rothschild, Max Senior, James Speyer, Oscar S. Straus, Felix M. Warburg, Woodrow Wilson, Simon Wolf, and Louis Wolsey, dealing mostly with the Balfour Declaration; a statement addressed to the Paris Peace Conference protesting agalnst the estab- lishment of Palestine as a Jewish home- land, stating that "We do not wish to see Palestine, either now or at any time in the future, organized as a Jewish state." Also a petition to President Woodrow Wilson prepared by Henry Berkowitz, expressing the same sentiment (19 19).

Included are letters written to Henry

Berkowitz by Bernhard Felsenthal, Kauf- mann Kohler, Moses Mielziner, Louis Naumburg, and others, on literary, personal, and rabbinical matters (1889-1908); also manifests, reports, and statements.

(Courtesy of Irving Levitas, Director of Education, Congregation B'nai Jehudah, Kansas City, Mo.)

BLOCK, SAMUEL; Sixteen letters, I 866-1 887, Gemany; N e w Orleans and Trinity, La.; N e w York; Paris; Photostats

Personal letters, written to his wife Mathilda, describing a trip to Germany.

(Gift of Mrs. Morton J. Stone, Gates Mills, Ohio, and Rabbi Myron Silverman, Cleveland, Ohio.)

BROCHES, SAMUEL; Collection; Vols. I- XXI; Photostats and Typescripts

Vol. I. Correspondence of Aaron Lopez with Haim Isaac Carigal (no date); Isaac Da Costa, Charleston, S. C. ( I 761-178 I) ;

Moses Gomez, Philadelphia, Pa. (178 I ) ; David Lopez, Jr., Providence, R. I. (1779- 1782); Joseph Lopez, Leicester, Mass. (1781); Samson Mears, Norwalk, Conn. (1779); Abraham P. Mendes, Newport, R. I. (1779-1781); Benjamin Seixas, Philadelphia ( I 78 I ) ; Moses Seixas, New- port, R. I. (1780-1782); Aaron Lopez correspondence ( I 764-1779) ; articles of agreement, deeds, lawsuits, and miscellaneous papers concerning Aaron Lopez (1761-178 I ) ; Aaron Lopez Letterbook (1781-1782).

Vol. 11. Business correspondence of Aaron Lopez, 1781-1782; an index of Lopez letters; death certificates, property claims, and Probate Court records, of Newport, R. I., 1779-1844.

Vol. 111. Documents of Judah Hays; correspondence, documents, notes, and family records of Moses Michael Hays, I 768-1 8 I 3 ; correspondence of Jacob Rodriguez Rivera, I 769-1 773; records on Jews in the General Court of Trials, I 67 1-17 24, records of the Land Evidence Book, 1735-1762, Newport Town Re- cords, Superior Court Records, Newport, R. I.

Corrrlesy of Mrs. E . A'evall Jackson, Londoit Silhourlle by Auguslin Edouorl

REUBEN ETTINC United States Marshal for Maryland

Appointed by Thomas Jefferson, r 80 r , when Jews were not permitted to hold state offices in ~Maryland

ACQUISITIONS 65

Vol. IV. Legal cases, notes, and wills concerning Abraham and Judah Touro; documents, notes, and records pertaining to Colonial Jewry; miscellaneous Colonial papers; miscellaneous nineteenth-century correspondence; congregational papers relating to Boston Jewry.

Vol. V. Manuscript histories of Jews of: New Hampshire; Rhode Island; Lawrence, Leicester, Lowell, Peabody, and Worcester, Mass.; also notes on nineteenth-century Massachusetts Jewry.

Vol. VI. Minutes of the Boston Jewish Community Council, 1944-1946; survey of the Boston Jewish Community, 1873- 1930; report of the Y.M.H.A. in Boston, I 9 1 3-19 14; correspondence of Solomon R. Kagan, 1943-1948; Jewish social conditions in Massachusetts.

Vol. VII. Correspondence of Abraham Alpert, 19 I 1-1937; the Damascus ritual murder case, 1840; articles, excerpts, newspaper clippings, and notes on "Jews around the World."

Vols. VIII and IX. Correspondence and minutes of the Grodno Relief Society of Greater Boston, 1946-1949 (mostly Yid- dish).

Vols. X-XIII. Correspondence and papers of the Brezner Beneficial Society of Boston, 1932-1949 (Yiddish).

Vol. XIV. Minutes of the Bessarabian Society of Boston, 1937-1948 (Yiddish) ; of the Boston Jewish Culture Congress (Yiddish); of the New England Ukraine Relief Association (Yiddish) ; letters of the United Hebrew Benevolent Asso- ciation of Boston to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York.

Vol. XV. The Avuka Student Zionist Organization, Minutes, 192 5-1926; the Boston Zionist Council Committee of Education, 1908-19 10; Louis D. Brandeis correspondence, 193 8-1 939; Haifa Tech- nical School records, 191 3; Theodor Herzl School, Record Book, 1909-19 r o.

Vols. XVI-XXI. Printed matter Nid- dish).

(Gift of Samuel Broches, Boston, Mass.)

BROWNE, LEWIS; Seven letters, 19 2 7-1 92 8, New York, N. Y.; Portland, Oregon; Savannah, Ga.; Manuscripts

Correspondence with Ernest R. Tratmer relating to Browne's work on Heinrich Heine, his Bible atlas, and his lectures.

(Gift of Dr. Ernest R. Trattner, Los Angeles, Calif.)

BUSH, S. (OLOMON) ; ASHETON HUM- PHREYS; BENJAMIN NONES; Letter, 1785 (Philadelphia); Photostat

A request to rent a building belonging to The Library Company of Phila- delphia.

(Copy from The Library Company of Philadelphia through Edwin Wolf, 2 nd .)

CENTRAL CONFERENCE OF AMERICAN RABBIS; Papers (Supplement); 1950; Type- script

The sixty-first annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Cincinnati, June 7-1 2, I 950.

(Gift of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.)

COHEN, CECILIA E.; Letter, 1913, Balti- more, Md.; Photostat

To Aaron Friedenwald, relating to family affairs.

(Copy from the Maryland Historical Society.)

COHEN, JOSHUA I.; Letter, I 8 I 8, Baltimore, Md.; Photostat

T o E. S. Thomas, a member of the Committee appointed by the House of Delegates of Maryland at the session of 1818 to bring in a Bill "to extend to persons professing the Jewish religion the same civil privileges that are enjoyed by other religious sects." The letter is an appeal by Cohen for a change in the legislation limiting the rights and privileges of Jews.


COHEN, JOSHUA I.; Lctter, 1819, Baltimore. Md.; Photostat

T o Mordecai Manuel Noah, concerning - the "Jew Bill."



CROCKETT, DAVID; TWO letters, I 8 34-1 8 3 5, Washington, D . C.; Photostats

T o his publishers, Edward L. Carey and Abraham Hart, concerning his forth- coming book.

(Copy from the Rosenbach Foundation, Philadelphia, Pa.)

DAVID, DAVID; Letter, 1 8 I 7, Mmtreal, Canada; Photostat

T o A. Reaume, concerning commercial matters.

(Copy from the Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa.)

DE CASTRO, ADOLPHE (Adolphe Danzi- ger); Three letters, 1954, Los Angeles, Calif.; Typescript

De Casuo, on his ninety-sixth birthday, describes to Samuel M. Silver his long and eventful life, his youth in Russia, his academic years in Breslau, under the tutelage of Heinrich Graetz, in Berlin, where he attended the lectures of Abraham Geiger and Moritz Steinschneider, and where he met Emil G. Hirsch and Felix Adler, and his studies at the University of Bonn. In I 883, he emigrated to America, where he became a writer of philosophical books and magazine articles. Mentioned are Isaac Mayer Wise, Moses Gaster, Max Nordau, and other interesting per- - . sonalities.

(Gift of Rabbi Samuel M. Silver. New

EINSTEIN, ALBERT; Seven k t t e r ~ , 1946- 1954, Princeton, N e w Jersey; German; Photostats

In these letters, addressed to Siegfried Pirker, Einstein refers to the Austrian writer, Josef Popper-Lynkeus. He advises his correspondent to give Popper's unpublished manuscripts to the University of Jerusalem.

Included are: a letter from Albert Einstein addressed "To Whom It May Concern," and another letter to George Wise, president of the American Friends of the Hebrew University, on the same matter.

(Gift of Siegfried Pirker, New York, N. Y.)

EINSTEIN, ALBERT; Four letters, 1954, Printetm, N . J.; German; Photostats

T o Henry Wachtel, concerning the introduction to his book Security for Al l and Free Enterprise, and his study on the writings of Josef Popper-Lynkeus.

(Gift of Dr. Henry Wachtel, New York, N. Y.)

EPPSTEIN, JULIUS PAUL; Collectim; Seventy- two items, I 850-1 887, Frankfort-cm-Main and Stuttgart, Germany; Louisville, K y . ; N e w York, N . Y.; Sun Francisco, Calif.; English and German; Photostats

Correspondence of Fred H. Cohn, Henry Cohn, Fred Eppstein, Julius Epp- stein, Max Eppstein, Sam Eppstein, Sol- omon Haas, Henry Kohn, Amalia B. Stettheimer, S. Stettheimer (a Stuttgart banking firm), Joseph Strouse, and others, on personal and business matters. (Also referred to are: Charles Altschul, the father of Mrs. Herbert H. Lehman, and Harry Altschul, retired partner of Lazard Frhres.) Included are interesting observa- tions on the New York bank crisis and the collapse of the stock market, on economic and political conditions in Amer- ica after the Civil War, especially in California, and on congregational affairs in San Francisco.

(Gift of Julius Paul Eppstein, Phila- delphia, Pa.)

FORD, HENRY; Letter, I 9 27, Dearborn, Mich.; Photostat

Retraction of anti-Semitic charges which Ford had made in the Dea~born Independent. The letter is addressed to Earl J. Davis, and a copy was sent to Louis Marshall.

(Gift of Morris Fine, New York, N. Y.)

FRANKS, DAVID SALISBURY; Five letters, 178 1-1 782, Brtst and L'Orient, France; Photostats

T o Benjamin Franklin about his activities in France. H e also complains about the uncivil reception given him upon his arrival in the country.

(Copies from the Library of Congress.)

Twelve lette~s, I 7 8 1 - I 7 8 5, B~es t , L'Orient, and Nantes, F ~ m c e ; Photostats

ACQUISITIONS

T o William Temple Franklin, the grandson of Benjamin Franklin, regarding personal matters and friends, and his wish to sail to America as soon as possible. "I should not be at all anxious about myself, but the dispatches I carry justify my impatience."


Letter, r 7 8 5, no place; Photostat To William Short, concerning Benjamin

Franklin. (Copy from the Library of Congress.)

Scvcn lcttcrs, r 785- I 787, Bordeaux, LC Havrc, and Paris, France; N c w York, N . Y . ; Photostats

T o Thomas Jefferson, describing the European political situation, and Franco- American relations. Also that he had delivered to John Jay the dispatches entrusted to him.


Lcttcr, I 787, LC Havrc, France; Photostat

T o John Jay about his difficulty in obtaining assage on a French boat.

(Copy from the Library of Congress.)

GIRARD, STEPHEN; P ~ ~ c T s ; V0'ol~. 1-111, 1789-1829; Baltimore, M d . ; London, Eng- land; N c w York, N . Y . ; Norfolk, Pctcrsburg, and Richmond, Va.; Philadclphia, Pa.; Photostats

Vol. I . Letters to Stephen Girard from: Moses Levy, I 796 (one) ; Isaac Moses and Sons, I 806-1 8 I 6 (twenty-five) ; Joshua Moses, I 8 I 5-1 816 (eleven) ; Solomon Moses, r 8 I 1-1 82 I (eleven) ; Frederick Myers, 1820-1829 (twenty-five) ; John Myers, 18161817 (three); MosesMyers, 1789-1827 (sixty-eight); Samuel Myers, 1789-1792 (twenty-six); Samuel Myers, Jr., 1816 (one).

Included are two letters from Isaac Moses and Sons to J. H. Roberjot, 1815.

Vol. 11. Letters from Stephen Girard to: Isaac Moses and Sons, 1804-1816 (nineteen) ; Joshua Moses, I 8 I 5 (three) ; Frederick Myers, r 827-1 829 (seven); John Myers, 1816-1817 (two); Moses

Myers, 1789-1820 (thirty-one); Samuel Myers, 1789-1791 (fourteen).

Included are one letter from Thomas M. Bayley to Moses Myers, 1805, and two letters from John Stratton, Jr., to Moses Myers, 1792.

Vol. 111. Letters to Stephen Girard from: William Adgate, 1808-18 I 3 (four) ; Charles N. Bancker, 181 I (one) ; Baring Brothers, I 8 I 5-1 8 I 6 (fifteen) ; William Cramond, I 8 I 5 (one) ; Joseph Curwen, I 8 I I (two) ; William James Douglas, 1791-1795 (two); JO Hattersby, 1791 (three); Isaac Heyer, 1813 (one); Frederick Montmollin and Solomon Moses, 181 I (one); Thomas Newman, 18 18 (one) ; Samuel Nicholas, I 809 (one) ; John Stoney, 18 I 6-1 8 19 (two) ; William Thomas, I 804- I 8 I 9 (three), mentioning Joshua Moses, Isaac Moses, Solomon Moses, Moses Myers, Samuel Myers, and other Jewish merchants.

(Copies from Girard College, Phil- adelphia, Pa.)

GRANT, ULYSSES S.; Lctttr, 1870, Wmh- ington, D. C.; Photostat

Introducing Benjamin Franklin Peixotto as United States Consul to Roumania.

(Copy from the American Jewish Historical Society, New York, N. Y.)

GUTHEIM, JAMES K.; Lcttcr, 1858, N e w Orleans, La.; M a n u s ~ i p t

A love letter to his fiancte. (Gift of Henry S. Jacobs, New Orleans,

La.)

HARRISON, RICHARD; Lcttcr, I 78 I, Cadiz, Spain; Photostat

Richard Harrison offers David Salisbury Franks a partnership in his export business.

(Copy from the Franklin Papers, the American Philosophical Society, Phil- adelphia, Pa.)

HART, HENRY J., and MYER S. ISAACS; Petition, 1862, N c w York, N . Y . ; Photostat

The Board of Delegates of American Israelites petitions Abraham Lincoln regarding the need for Jewish chaplains in the Union Army during the Civil War.



HAY, JOHN; Letter, I 864, Washington, D. C.; Photostat

John Hay informs Myer S. Isaacs that there was no "interview between certain gentlemen of the Hebrew faith" and Abraham Lincoln. "No pledge of the Jewish vote was made by these gentlemen and no inducements or promises were extended to them by the President."


HELLER, MAX; Twenty-seven letters, I 9 I 3- 1929, N e w Orleans, La.; Manuscripts

T o Samuel Rosinger, relating to Jewish problems, social work, and Zionism.

(Gift of Rabbi Samuel Rosinger, Beaumont, Tex.)

HIMBER, HIRSCH; Sixteen letters, ca. I 888- 1895, Russia and South Africa; Yiddish; Manuscripts

Correspondence with his brother, J. Himber, about life in South Africa, at first as a peddler, then as the proprietor of a second-hand furniture store, and of a coffee house, while his wife and children remained in Russia. Hirsch Himber en- courages his brother, who was not successful as a businessman in Philadelphia, to join him in Africa.

(Gift of the Hebrew Union College Library, Cincinnati, Ohio.)

HIRSCH, THEODORE; E l m n letters, I 856- I 867, Chicago, Ill.; Manuscripts

Correspondence of Theodore Hirsch, a member of the firm of Sylvester, Hirsch and Co., manufacturers of railroad and steamboat machinery in Chicago.

(Gift of the Hebrew Union College Library.)

HORWIT~, JONATHAN; Letter, I 8 I 8, Phil- adelphia, Pa.; Photostat

T o Thomas Jefferson, applying for the position of Professor of Oriental Literature at the University of Virginia.

(Copy from the Alderman Library, the University of Virginia.)

ISAACS, MYER S.; Letter, 1864, N e w York, N . Y . ; Photostat

The editor of the Jewish Messenger and

secretary of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites tells Abraham Lincoln that any group promising a "Jewish vote" is wrong in doing so, for there is no "Jewish vote."


JEFFERSON, THOMAS ; Three letters, I 78 5- I 7 87, Paris, France; Photostats

T o David Salisbury Franks, stating that he is unable to lend him money as he himself is in debt. H e also advises Franks about political matters, and about affairs in Morocco.

(Copies from the Library of Con- gress.)

KENNEDY, JOHN P.; Letter, 18 19, An- napolis, Md. ; Photostat

T o Jeremiah Sullivan, relating to the "Jew Bill."


LAUTERBACH, JACOB Z.; Letter, 1929, Cincinnati, Ohio; Typescript

Responsum, addressed to Isaac Land- man, concerning Jewish burial in mau- soleums.

(Gift of the Hebrew Union College Library.)

LEESER, ISAAC; Letter, 1862, Philadclphia, Pa.; Photostat

Isaac Leeser asks Abraham Lincoln to appoint Jewish chaplains in the Union Army durin the Civil War. Notes written by loin Hay, and by the Surgeon- General, Joseph R. Smith, are attached.


LEVY, ARTHUR C.; Correspondence and papers, I 860-1 866; Photostats

Letters, memoirs, and certificates of a Confederate soldier. Post-war conditions in the South are also described.

(Gift of Mrs. Sol Schapiro, Columbus, Ga.)

LEVY, HAYMAN; Letter, 1760, N e w York, N . Y . ; Photostat

T o William Neate, relating to business and financial matters.

ACQUISITIONS 69

(Copy from the Rhode Island State Archives, Providence, R. I.)

LIEBMAN, MEYER; L c ~ ~ c T , 1951, NCW York, N . Y . ; Manuscript

T o the American Jewish Archives, describing the participation of his father, Herman Liebman, in the Civil War .

(Gift of Meyer Liebman, New York, N. Y.)

LILIENTHAL, MAX; T w ktters, 1870- 1876, Cincinnati, Ohio; Photostats

T o Lucy Webb Hayes, the wife of Rutherford B. Hayes, transmitting a copy of a sermon, and congratulating her on the nomination of her husband as President.

(Copies from the Hayes Memorial Library, Fremont, Ohio.)

LISAN, MANUEL F.; Papers; Correspondence, 1907-1952; Photostats

Relating to Zionism and Zionist organizations in and around Philadelphia.

(Gift of Manuel F. Lisan, Philadelphia, Pa.)

MAGIL, JOSEPH; CoIIectim; Twenty-three items, I 896-1954; English and Yiddish; Photostats

Correspondence and memoranda on Zionism and Hebrew education.

(Gift of Mrs. Oscar G. Bender, Phil- adelphia, Pa.)

MAHONEY, JOHN J.; Letter, 1944, Melvin Hills, N . H . ; Manuscript

T o S . Joshua Kohn, describing the heroism of Chaplain Alexander D. Goode during the sinking of the "Dorchester."

(Gift of Rabbi S. Joshua Kohn, Trenton, N. J.)

MARCUSON, ISAAC E.; Cowcspondencc, ca. 300 items, 192 I- I 92 2 ; Manuscripts

Relating to the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

(Gift of Mrs. Isaac E. Marcuson,

Macon, Ga., and the Hebrew Union College Library.)

MARKS, BERNHARD; Eighteen Icttcrs, I 85 3- 1857, Cold Spring, Placcrvillc, and Spanish Hill, Calif.; Typescripts; Restricted

T o Jacob Solis-Cohen, relating to his experiences in California.

(Gift of Jack Solis-Cohen, Jr., Phil- adelphia, Pa.)

MARSHALL, LOUIS; Twenty letters, 191 2-

1917,. Saranac Lake, N . Y . ; Typescripts; Rcstrzcted

In this correspondence with Cyms Adler, Louis Marshall discusses international and diplomatic matters; the Balkan question; the Mendel Beilis case; defense against anti-Semitism; the Jewish Colonization Association (1CA) ; the for- mation of the United Synagogue; the acquisition of the Giinzburg Library in Russia; Zionist controversies; the Amer- ican Jewish Conference and the American Jewish Committee; the immigration policy of the United States; and personal matters.

(Gift of James and George Marshall, New York, N. Y.*)

MAYER, HARRY H.; Letter, 1954, Atlantic City, N . J.; Manuscript

T o William Schwartz, informing him of the invitation extended to Professor Louis Ginzberg in 1899 to come to Amer- ica and teach at theHebrew Union College.

(Gift of Rabbi Harry H.' Mayer, New York, N. Y.)

MOSES, BARNARD; Lettcr, I 783, N e w York, N . Y . ; Photostat

T o Sir Guy Carleton, British com- mander-in-chief in New York, assuring him that he was a loyal British subject who had fled from Charleston, S. C., to Jamaica. H e petitions for asylum in Nova Scotia.

(Copy from the Public Archives of Canada.)

*The donors of the Louis Marshall Collections were listed erroneously in the Acquisi- tions contained in Vol. V1, No. I , and in Vol. VIII, No. I . They should read: Gift of James and George Marshall, New York, N. Y.

7 O AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, APRIL, 1957

OHEB SHALOM CONGREGATION, BALTI- MORE; Letter, I 858, German; Manuscript

The congre ation informs Ludwig Lewyson that f e has been unanimously elected as its new spiritual leader.

(Gift of Dr. Kurt Wilhelm, Chief Rabbi of Sweden.)

PHILLIPS, MANUEL; Nineteen letters, I 809- I 824, No7folk, Va.; Philadelphia, Pa.; Washington, D. C.; Photostats

Correspondence with the Secretary of the Navy relating to a request for leave to go to India, and the granting of the request; report of Phillips' return to America; application for the rank of surgeon and assignment to Philadelphia; and an order to appear for a naval hearing.

(Copies from the National Archives, Washington, D. C.)

PRICE, JULIUS J.; Collection; ca. I 749-1850; Manuscripts

Valuable unpublished material collected in the Public Archives of Canada by Rabbi Julius J. Price. Documents relating to Samuel Jacobs, 1759; newspaper comments on the Samuel Hart case, Toronto, I 8 30; unpublished correspondence between Arthur Wellington Hart, the son of Benjamin Hart, and Lord John Russel, 1839; and manuscript copies of "The Jews of Northern Ontario," "The Nord- heimers of Toronto," and "The Rossin Brothers of Toronto," written by Julius J. Price.

(Gift of Dr. Julius J. Price, Toronto, Canada.)

RIVERA, JACOB RODRIGUEZ; Letter, I 78 3, Newpon, R. I.; Photostat

T o William Henshaw, commenting on the liberal steps being taken by the Spanish government and the possible influence of the American Revolution on Spain and other countries.

(Copy from the Newport Historical Society, Newport, R. I.)

RIVINGTON, JAMES; Lett67, 1770, N e w York, N . Y . ; Photostat

T o Moses Michael Hays about business matters.

(Copy from the Theodorus Bailey Myers Collection, the New York Public Library.)

ROBINSON FAMILY; Papers; I 858-189 1, Pctcrsburg, Va.; English, German, Yiddish; Photostats

Business notes and papers; the cash book of Isaac Robinson, 1858-1867; genealogical records.

(Gift of I. I. Robinson, Baltimore, Md.)

ROSEWATER COLLECTION; VOIS. I-XXIX, I 8 54-1 9 3 7 ; Manuscripts

Vol. I. Edward Rosewater. A-K. 1876- 1905. Biographical and Civil War ma- tenal; lectures delivered at Cornell University; interviews with Jefferson Davis and Thomas A. Edison; the Joel T. Griffin case.

Vol. 11. L-P. Masonic certificates, I 878-1908; the mayoralty campaign in Omaha; the David H. Mercer case, 1896- 1903; the Nebraska Senate campaign, 1900; the Omaha campaign, 1895; the Omaha Indians; Rosewater's "Personal Recollections of the World Famed Elec- tricians"; petition for United States senator, 1899; political activities, 1894- 1899.

Vol. 111. R-W. Addresses concerning the railroad, 1905; a member of the Nebraska House of Representatives, I 870; lectures, 1873-1895; tax reform, 1903; telegraphy, 1862-1890; trade union relations.

Vol. IV. 1887-1906. Miscellaneous correspondence; biography by Victor Rosewater.

Vol. V. Rosewater family, 1841-193 5. Birth and marriage certificates; genealogy; and family history.

Vol. VI. Victor Rosewater (son of Edward Rosewater). Political frauds, 1901-1905; election reform proposals, 191 1 ; Republican candidates, 1914; the Republican National Convention m Cleve- land, 1914; the Presidential campaign, 1928.

Vol. VII. Correspondence with: Isaac Markens, 1904-1908; the American Jew- ish Committee, 1906-1910; Oscar S.

ACQUISITIONS 7'

Straus, 191 I ; Louis Marshall, 1910-1919; Jewish War Relief, 191 6-1917.

Vol. VIII. Political correspondence, 1920; published articles, 192 I ; correspondence with universities, 1926.

Vol. 1X. Correspondence with: Willis T. Abbot (Christian Science Monitor), 193 2-193 3 ; Chester H. Aldrich (Gov- ernor of Nebraska), 191 2; Norris Brown (United States senator), 1906-19 10.

Vol. X. Correspondence with: Columbia University, 1937; Charles H. Dietrich (United States senator), 1901.

Vol. XI. Correspondence with: Myron L. Learned, 1922; Silas A. Holcomb (Governor of Nebraska), 193 I.

Vol. XII. Miscellaneous correspondence.

Vol. XIII. Correspondence with Charles D. Norton (secretary to President William Howard Taft), 1910.

Vol. XIV. Correspondence with: the Treasury Department, 1920-192 z ; George Sylvester Viereck; Oswald Garrison Villard.

Vol. XV. Papers concerning the Repub- lican National Convention, 19 I 2, of which Victor Rosewater was National Chairman.

Vol. XVI. Political and historical matters; the Nebraska political campaign, 1912-1914.

Vol. XVII. Corres~ondence with The- odore Roosevelt, 19 I;-19 19; the William Howard Taft campaign, 1907-1908; the Republican National campaigns, 19 I 6 and 1920.

Vols. XVIII-XX. Miscellaneous papers. Vol. XXI. Correspondence with: Calvin

Coolidge, 1924; Herbert Hoover, 19 17- 193 5; Theodore Roosevelt, 1902-19 19; William Howard Taft, 1908-1926.

Vols. XXII-XXIX. Miscellaneous addresses, articles, correspondence, papers, reports, and reviews.

(Gift of Edward Rosewater, son of Victor Rosewater, Elkins Park, Phil- adelphia, Pa.)

SABATH, ADOLPH JOACHIM; Collection; Vols. I-V, 1907-1952; Printed

Vol. I, 1907-1918 Bills introduced in the House of Representatives; Con- gressional records.

Vol. 11, 1919-1934. Congressional records and resolutions; speeches.

Vol. 111, 1935-1946. Congressional minutes and records; public hearings.

Vol. IV, 1946-1952. Congressional minutes and speeches.

Vol. V, 1907-195 2. Miscellaneous papers.

(Gift of Rabbi Leonard J. Mervis, Chicago, Ill.)

Papers; I 9 14-1 9 5 z ; Manvscripts Correspondence with: Ralph Hurley,

1916; Richard Kaminskie, 19 14-19 I 6; John McMahon, 19 I 5-19 16; Franklin D. Roosevelt, 19 I 6, concerning Navy De- partment cases, and an alleged insult to Sabath by a Navy officer. Included is a book of memorial addresses delivered in Congress on the occasion of Sabath's death, 1952.

(Gift of Rabbi Leonard J. Mervis, Chicago, Ill.)

SCHERCK, ISAAC; Letter, I 864, Lovejoy Station, Ga.; Photostat

T o J. I. Meyer about General William Tecumseh Sherman's ride through At- lanta.

(Gift of Henry J. Scherck, St. Louis, Mo.)

SOLOMON, L. AND B. S., AND CO.; Letter, I 8 I 6, Montreal, Canada; Photostat

T o George Jacobs, relating to business matters.


SZOLD, BENJAMIN; Collection; Eighty-five items, I 858-1902, English, Hebrew, GCT- man; Manuscripts

Letter from Oheb Shalom Congrega- tion, of Baltimore, stating that Szold was unanimously elected as rabbi, with the express stipulation that he must "embrace the historically moderate Reforms," I 859. Szold's election for life by the congregation in 1865. Resolution of thanks of B'er Chayim Congregation, of Cumberland, Md., to Szold for dedicating its new synagogue, 1867. Certificate issued by Zecharlas Frankel in Breslau, Germany,

72 AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, APRIL, 1 9 5 7

1865. Certificate of recommendation by Heinrich Graetz, Breslau, Germany, 1858, citing Benjamin Szold as "a man of a highly moral character." Rodeph Shalom Congregation of Philadelphia informs Szold about his election as rabbi, 1865. Shaare Emeth Congregation of St. Louis, Mo., asks Szold's opinion about the affair concerning Dr. Solomon H. Sonneschein; Szold's reply to Jacob Furth, president of the congregation, that "A difference between a rabbi and his congregation, even on questions of doctrine, can be adjusted and decided only by the congregation"; letter from Isaac Mayer Wise stating that he is "outraged" about the affair, and saying that "One can't constitute an inquisition in 1886 without inviting a sentence of condemnation of liberal people who, in this case, would be the entire rabbinical profession," 1886. T h e Wash- ington Hebrew Congregation informs Szold that it has adopted his Prayer Book, and thanks him for the sermon delivered at the rededication service of the temple. Letter of thanks from Beth Israel Con- gregation, Atlantic City, N. J., 1893, to Szold for his services.

(Gift of Dr. Isaac M. Fein, Baltimore, Md.)

VOORSANGER, ELKAN C.; Collection, I 9 I 7- I 920; Manuscripts

Correspondence, military documents, and papers.

(Gift of Dr. Elkan C. Voorsanger, San Francisco, Calif.)

WEILL, A.; Letter, 1893, Bakersfield, Calif.; Manuscript

T o an unknown addressee, relating to business matters. Included are two letters to the American Jewish Archives from Samuel Sokobin, giving a description of the Weill brothers, their association with Norman Angell, the English writer and Nobel prize winner, and their activities in Bakersfield.

(Gift of Samuel Sokobin, Atherton, Calif.)

WISE, ISAAC MAYER; Letter, 1858, Cin- cinnati, Ohio; German; Manuscript

Isaac Mayer Wise congratulates Lud- wig Lewyson, a German, on his election as rabbi of Congregation Oheb Shalom in Baltimore, observing that he will find there a sphere of activity "which cannot be found in Germany. . . . Here the word is free like the air, and with electric speed it hurries through the vast and glorious country."

(Gift of Dr. Kurt Wilhelm, Stockholm, Sweden.)

WISE, STEPHEN S.; Six letters, 19 I 7-1934, New York, N . Y.; Manuscripts

T o Samuel Rosinger, relating to Zionism and to religious and personal matters.

(Gift of Rabbi Samuel Rosinger.)

GOLDSTEIN, EMNUEL L.; Biography, I 8 20-1 89 2, written by Tillie Acke~man, I 9 5 I ; Photostats

At the age of ninety, the daughter of Emanuel L. Goldstein tells of her father's participation in the development of the West, and of his activities in San Francisco during the 19th century.

(Gift of Mrs. J. Sidney Salkey, St. Louis, Mo.)

KUSSY, SARAH; "The Story of Gustav and Bella Kussy of Newark, N . J." A Family

Chrmicle prepared by Sarah Kussy, rpqo; Typescript

A vivid description of Jewish life in Bohemia and Germany before Miss Kussy's family came to America, ca. I 850.

(Gift of the late Miss Sarah Kussy, Newark, N. J.)

LANZIT, JACOB SAUL; Diary, I 858-1 859, German; Photostat

Since the acquisition of this diary, extracts from it have been published in Memoirs of American Jews, 1775-1865,

ACQUISITIONS 7 3

Vol. 111, pp. 33-37, edited by Jacob R. Marcus.

(Gift of Robert G. Lanzit, Cohoes, N. Y.)

MORDECAI, EMMA; Diary, I 864-1 865, no place; Microjilm

Since the acquisition of this diary, extracts from it have been published in Memoirs of American Jews, 1775-1865, Vol. 111, pp. 324-348, edited by Jacob R. Marcus.

(Copy from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N. C.)

MORDECAI FAMILY; Biographical and gmealogical data, supplied by Mrs. Arthur Konzelman, St. Louis, Mo.; I 707-1955; Photostats

Relating to Moses Mordecai and his descendants.

(Gift of Louis Ginsberg, Petersburg, Va .)

MOSES, RAPHAEL J.; Autobiography, r 8 I 2-

I 89 3, no place; Photostats Since the acquisition of this auto-

biography, extracts from it have been published in Memoirs of American Jews, 1775-1865, Vol. I, pp. 146-202, edited by Jacob R. Marcus.

(Gift of Charles J. Bloch, Macon, Ga.)

OPPENHEIM, MAX; Brief biography, 1954, no place; Photostats

An account of a poor immigrant who rose to civic distinction in Niagara County, N. Y. H e was one of the organizers of tlie Niagara Falls Real Estate Board, founded the Oppenheim Zoo, and was an active member of the Jewish community of Buffalo.

(Gift of Lloyd Hahn, and of Rabbi Albert Plotkin, Phoenix, Arizona, formerly of Spokane, Wash.)

ROSENBERG, JULIUS; Biographical data, I 863-1 95 5, no place; Manuscripts and Photostats

The story of a German immigrant who served successfully as mayor of Granite City, Ill., from 1898 to 1902.

(Gift of Mrs. Perle R. Barnfield, Peoria, Ill.)

SEASONGOOD, ALFRED AND EMILY; Auto- biographies, r 844-19 14, Cincinnati, Ohio; Typescript

Since the acquisition of these autobiographies, extracts from them have been published in Memoirs of American Jews, 1775-1865, Vol. 111, pp. 50-72, edited by Jacob R. Marcus.

(Gift of Mrs. Max Stern, Cincinnati, Ohio.)

ABRAHAM, LEVI; Naturalization petition, 1806, Philadelphia, Pa.; Photostat

(Copy from the Department of Records and Archives, Philadelphia.)

ALLEN, LEWIS; Naturalization petition, 1809, Philadelphia, Pa.; Photostat

(Copy from the Dept. of Records and Archives, Philadelphia.)

BAER FAMILY; Papers; Docummts, I 825- I 87 3', Cleveland, Ohio; Gemany; Photostats

T h e citizenship paper of William Baer, I 863 ; the passport of William Baer, I 866; the citizenship paper of Michael Weiner, 1844; the passport of Wolf Renglaender, I 8 3 7; a letter from Abe Weiner to Bertha

and William Baer, 1873; a letter from Lewis Weiner to Bertha and William Baer; engagement notices, marriage certificates, reports, and other papers.

(Gift of Miss Myrtle Baer, Milwaukee, Wis.)

BARNETT, JOSEPH; Naturalization petition, 1806, Philadelphia, Pa.; Photostat


BLOCH, ABRAHAM AND DAVID; TWO ICOSCS, 188 I, 1886, Cincinnati, Ohio; Man- uscripts

Leases made between David Sinton and Abraham and David Bloch.

74 AMER LICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, APRIL, 1957

(Gift of Herbert R. Bloch, Cincinnati, Ohio.)

BLUMENBERG, LEOPOLD; Doc~rnents, I 862- I 876 ; Photostats

Commission as major of the Fifth Regiment of Maryland Volunteers, 1862; Oath of Allegiance to the United States upon his appointment as major, 1862; Appointment as provost marshal for the Third Congressional District of Maryland, 1863; Resolution on the death of Leopold Blumenberg, I 876.

(Gift of Mrs. Harold Stein, Newton Highland, Mass., through Dr. Bertram W . Korn.)

CADET, LEON; Naturalization petition, I 807, Philadelphia, Pa.; Photostat


CONTENT, SIMON LEVY; Naturaliza- tion petition, r 8 r o, Philadelphia, Pa.; Photostat


DALSHEIMER, DAVID; Passport, I 84 I , N e w Orleans, La., French; Photostat

(Gift of Hugo Dalsheimer, Baltimore, Md.)

DAVID, JACOB; Natura~izationpetition, 1805, Philadelphia, Pa.; Photostat


GITELSON, NEHEMIAH; Certifiate, I g to, N e w York, N . Y . ; Hebrew; Photostat

Certificate of Nehemiah Gitelson's rabbinical ordination. issued bv Rabbi Pesach Perlman.

(Gift of Dr. M. Leo Gitelson, New York, N. Y.)

GOLDSCHMID, HENRY; Citizenship paper, I 842, Cincinnati, Ohio; Manuscript

(Gift of Emil Goldsmith, Cincinnati, Ohio.)

HEYMAN, ISAAC L.; Ctrt@cate, I 885, Baton Rouge, La.; Manuscript

His election as an alderman of Clinton, in the Parish of East Feliciana, La.

(Gift of Mrs. S. Ralph Schwarzschild, Wyncote, Pa., through Dr. Bertram W . Korn.)

ISRAEL, ABRAHAM E.; Naturalization petition, 18 I I, Philadelphia, Pa.; Photostat


LAZARUS, ISAAC; Natura~ization petition, 1806, Philadelphia, Pa.; Photostat


LYON, BENJAMIN; Contract, I 78 I, no placc; Photostat

Contract with the Chippewa Indians for the sale of Michilimackinac Island for five thousand pounds New York currency. Benjamin Lyon was one of the signatories of the document.

(Copy from the Haldimand Papers, Public Archives of Canada.)

MENDELSSOHN, SIGMUND, AND ISABELLA WEILMAN; Marriage certificate, I 87 I, N e w Orleans, La.; Photostat

(Gift of Rabbi Julian B. Feibelman, New Orleans, La.)

MORGENTHAU, HENRY; Certifiate of naturalization, I 85 3, State of Kentucky; Manuscript

(Gift of M. Herbert Oettinger, Cin- cinnati, Ohio.)

Moss, JOHN; Naturalization petition, 1803, Philadelphia,. Pa.; Photostat

( 9 p y from the Dept. of Records and Arch~ves, Philadelphia.)

MYERS, MYER; Receipt, 1784, no place; Manuscript

Receipt from William Ludlow for mending two silver spoons.

(Gift of Robert Rosenbaum, Phil- adelphia.)

MYERS, SAMUEL, AND BROTHERS; 1n- denture, 1794, Petersburg, Va.; Type- script

ACQUISITIONS

(Copy from the Hustings Court, Petersburg, Va.)

NASSY, SAMUEL; Deed, 1700, Amsterdam, Holland, Dutch; Photostat

Concerning the boundary line between Surinam and Cayenne.

(Copy from the Algemeen Rijksarchief, 's Gravenhage, Holland.)

NATHANS, NATHAN; Receipt, I 8 I 5, Phil- adelphia, Pa.; Manusuipt

(Purchased.)

NONES, BENJAMIN; Afidavit, I 8 2 2 , Phil- adelphia, Pa.; Photostat

Oath of Henry White, notarized by Benjamin Nones.

(Gift of Maxwell Whiteman, Cin- cinnati, Ohio.)

OKLAHOMA JEWISH PIONEERS; L~cC~UCS, 1 87 0- I 9 3 8 ; Typescripts

Issued to Mark S. Cohn, Samuel J. Scott, and Samuel Strauss to trade with the Indians.

(Copies from the Indian Archives Division, the Historical Society, Okla- homa City, Okla.)

OPPENHEIMER, MANUEL; Naturalizatiun pctition, I 805, Philadelphia, Pa.; Photostat


PARDO, SAUL; Certificate, I 790, Dutch; Photostat

Insurance certificate issued to Saul Pardo by Dirk Luden for the shipment of goods from Cura~ao to Amsterdam, Holland.

(Gift of Walter Hart Blumenthal, Phil- adelphia.)

PENHA FAMILY; Charter, I 697, ' s Gravm- hage, Holland, h t c h ; Photostat

Charter issued to the Penha family by William of Orange.

(Gift of Rabbi Harold I. Saperstein, Lynbrook, N. Y.)

SAVANNAH LADIES GERMAN BENEVOLENT SOCIETY; Act of incorporatiun, I 895, Savmmah, Ga.; Photostat

(Gift of D. A. Byck, Savannah, Ga.)

SPANISH TOWN, JAMAICA, BRITISH WEST I NDIES; Certificate, I 845, Hebrew and English; Photostat

Signed by +bbi Benjamin Cohen Carillon, certifying the dedication of the temporary synagogue in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

(Gift of Rev. Henry P. Silverman, Jamaica, British West Indies.)

SPYERS, MOSES; Naturalization petitim, I 8 I 1, Philadelphia, Pa.; Photostat


STUTTGART, ISAAC; Naturalizatim petition, I 8 10, Philadelphia, Pa.; Photostat


VALENTINE, SIMON; Naturalizatiun Ctrtif- icate, I 697, Charlestan, S. C.; Photostat

(Copy from Sales Book D, Grants, 1703-1709, the Historical Commission of South Carolina.)

VALENTYN [VALLENTINE], SIMON; Three land grmts, I 696, I 699, Charles Town, South Carolina; Photostat

(Copy from the Columbia Records, Grant Book, 1696-1703, the Historical Commission of South Carolina, Columbia, s. C.)

WEST INDIES; Legal documents; Typc- SM@S

Barbados, Forty-six affidavits, grants, and letters of administration, 1708- 1711.

Barbados, Eight indentures, 1680-1747. Cura~ao, One power of attorney, 1785. Jamaica, One power of attorney, I 7 3 I.

Demarara, British Guiana, One power of attorney, 1796.

Included is the burial register of Jews of Bridgetown, Barbados, B.W.I., 1690- 1885.

(Copies from the Calendar of Records, Colonial Archives, Spanish Town, Jamaica, B.W.I., and Registration Office, Barbados, B.W.I.)


ALTMAN, ISRAEL; Marriage ct~tifcate, I 89 I, HEINE, LEWIS; Marriage certificate, I 868, New York, N . Y.; Manuscript Hamilton County, Ohio; Manuscript

(Gift of Rabbi Jacob Bosniak, Brooklyn, (Gift of the Hebrew Union College N. Y.) Library.)

CARDOZO, ISAAC; Kctubah, I 854, New York, N . Y., Hebrew; Manuscript

Isaac Cardozo was the uncle of Chief Justice Benjamin Nathan Cardozo.

(Gift of Miss Nellie Cardozo, St. Paul, Minn.)

DE LEON, JACOB; Kctubah, 1789, New York, N . Y.; English translation; Copy

(Gift of Mrs. J. P. Sheridan, Scarsdale, N. Y., and Rabbi Daniel L. Davis, New York, N. Y.)

LEVY, SOLOMON; Ketubah, 1789, New York, N. Y.; English translation; Copy

(Gift of Mrs. J. P. Sheridan and Rabbi Daniel L. Davis.)

SILBERBERG, ALEXANDER D.; Birth certificate, I 862, Bradford, Pa.; Manuscript

One of the original founders of Beth Zion Congregation, Bradford, Pa.

(Gift of the Misses Miriam and Rebecca Silberberg, Bradford, Pa., through Stanley Chyet, Hebrew Union College.)

FEIGEL, JOSEPH B.; Kctubah, 5652 (1891). VICTOR, LENA; Confirmation certificate, Philadelphia, Pa., Hebrew; Manuscript 1874, Cincinnati, Ohio; Manuscript

(Gift of Miss Miriam E. Levy, Phil- (Gift of Dr. J. Victor Greenebaum, adelphia, Pa.) Cincinnati, Ohio.)

BOARD OF DELEGATES OF AMERICAN ISRAELITES; Statistics of the Jews of the United States, I 875-1 876; Manuscripts

Contains material not present in the published volume, Statistics of the Jews of the United States (Philadelphia, 1880).

(Gift of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.)

DALSHEIMER FAMILY; Gmealogical rtcords; I 8 I 0- I 8 59, English and Hebrew; Photostats

Extracted from a prayer book. (Gift of Hugo Dalsheimer.)

DRYFOOS FAMILY; Records of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, I 8 14-1920; Photo- stats

(Gift of Frank E. Joseph, Cleveland, Ohio.)

EPSTEIN, LOUIS H., FAMILY; Records of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, I 840-1 87 2 ,

German and Yiddish; Manuscript Contained in Notiz- und Erinnerungs-

Buch, Wollstein (Germany), 1844.

(Gift of Mrs. Louis H. Epstein and Rabbi Dudley Weinberg, Milwaukee, Wis.)

GOLDSMITH, JOSEPH; Family data, Hebrew and German; Photostats

Extracted from a prayer book. (Gift of Rabbi Jerome D. Folkman,

Columbus, Ohio.)

GUGGENHEIMER FAMILY TREE; I 779- I 9 5 3 ; Typescript and Printed

(Gift of Mrs. Gustav Lichtenfels, Asheville, N. C.)

HART FAMILY; Records of Births, Mar- riages, and Deaths, I 8 I 9-1 854, Richmond, Va.; Manuscripts

Extracted from the Leeser Bible owned by Leonora Levy, 1866.

(Gift of Mrs. Amy Hart Stewart, Norfolk, Va.)

HYAMS FAMILY; Genealogical material; Mmuscript and Typescript

ACQUISITIONS 7 7

(Gift of Mrs. James M. Forgotson and Louis Ginsberg.)

ISAACS FAMILY; Geneabgical notes; Photostats (Gift of Joseph L. Andrews, Reference

Librarian of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.)

LEVY, ABRAHAM R.; Collection; Records of Births and Marriages, 1878-1908, Ger- many; Athens, Ga.; Austin, Tcx.; Chicago, Ill.; Erie, Pa.; Manuscripts

(Gift of Rabbi Samuel Schwartz, Chicago, Ill.)

PLAUT FAMILY; Notes, 18 30-1908, Hcbrcw and English; Photostats

Extracted from a Biblical commentary. (Gift of Rabbi Albert A. Goldman,

Cincinnati, Ohio.)

SOLOMON, EZEKIEL; Genealogy; Photostat (Gift of Eldon P. Gundry, Flint, Mich.,

and Irving I. Katz, Detroit, Mich.)

SUMMIT, MISSISSIPPI; C m t e r y records; Typescripts

(Gift of Rabbi Charles Mantinband, Hattiesburg, Miss.)

NATHANSEIXAS FAMILY; Records of Births, ZALKE OF TRASCUN; Genealogy; Manu- Marriages, and Deaths, I 78 2-1 895; Manu- script scripts and Photostats Zalke of Trascun, Lithuania, an ancestor

Extracted from the family Bible. of Dr. Jonas E. Salk. (Gift of Joseph Solomon, New York, (Gift of Rabbi Abraham I. Jacobson,

N. Y.) Haverhill, Mass.)

BARBADOS, B.W.1.; Ninety-four wills, I 654-1 797; Typescripts

(Copies from the Registration Office, Bridgetown, Barbados, B.W.I.)

ISAACS, JOSHUA; Will, 1744, N e w York, N . Y . ; Photostat

Witnessed by David Machado, Jacob Pinto, Samuel Pinto, and Myer Myers.

(Copy from the Surrogate's Court, County of New York, N. Y.)

JAMAICA, B.W.I.; One hundred thirty- seven wills, I 692-1 798 ; Typescripts

(Copies from the Liber of Wills, Jamaica, B.W.I.)

LYON, HANNAH; Lttcrs of administration, I 8 I 6, Philadelphia, Pa.; Photostat

For the estate of her late husband, Eleazer Lyon, who died intestate.

(Copy from the Register of Wills, No. 258, Book L., 325, Philadelphia, Pa.)

MORDECAI, MOSES; k t t ~ r s of administration, 17 81-17 82, Philadclphia, Pa.; Photo- stats

Witnessed by Jacob Mordecai, Isaac Moses, and Barnard Gratz; Elizabeth Mordecai, executrix. Accounts and in- ventory of the estate.

(Gift of Louis Ginsberg, Petersburg, Va.)

NONES, BENJAMIN; Lemrs of administration, 1885, Philadelphia, Pa.; Photostat

Although Nones died in 1826, his estate was not probated until 1885 by his son, Joseph B. Nones.

(Copy from the Register of Wills, Philadelphia, Pa.)

78 AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, APRIL, I 9 5 7

EARLY SAN FRANCISCO JEWRY, 1955, Sun HISTORY OF JEWISH PIONEERS OF MIN- Francisco, Calif.., ' by Edgar M . Kahn; NESOTA, 1890-1955, by Mrs. Morris Typescript Greenberg; Typescrapt

(Gift of Edgar M. Kahn, San Francisco, (Gift of Mrs. Harry W . Davis, Duluth, Calif.) Minn.)

HISTORY OF BOSTON JEWRY, NOTES ON

THE, 1880-1914, by J. Jacob Neusner; Typescript, Photostats

(Gift of J. Jacob Neusner, Hartford, Conn.)

HISTORY OF CHARLOTTESVILLE (VA.) JEWRY, RANDOM NOTES ON THE, by Malcolm H . Stem; Typescript

(Gift of Rabbi Malcolm H. Stem, Norfolk, Va.)

HISTORY OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF

FOND DU LAC, WISCONSIN, 1790-1954, by Alfred D. Sumberg; Typescript

(Gift of Alfred D. Sumberg, Racine, Wis.)

A HISTORY OF THE JEWS OF ITHACA, 1955, by Anita Shafer Goodstein; Mimeographed

(Gift of R. Konvitz, Ithaca, N. Y.)

A HISTORY OF TEMPLE BETH ISRAEL, MACON, GEORGIA, 1955, b y NtWton J. Friedman; Typescript

(Gift of Rabbi Newton J. Friedman, Macon, Ga.)

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF NELSON- VILLE, OHIO, 1907-191 I ; Typescript

(Gift of Rabbi Abraham I. Jacobson.)

JEWS OF DULUTH, MINNESOTA, 1955, by Walter Eldot; Typescript

(Gift of Mrs. Harry W . Davis.)

HISTORY OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF PIONEER TYPES IN LOUISIANA AND MIS- MANITOWOC, WISCONSIN, ca. I 890-1 954, SISSIPPI, no date, b y Max Heller; Typescript b y Alfred D. Sumberg; Typescript (Gift of Dr. James G. Heller, New

(Gift of Alfred D. Sumberg.) York, N. Y.)

THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MELIORAT- ING THE CONDITION OF THE JEWS; Broad- side circular, 182 3 (?), Char~eston, s . C.; Printed, Photostat

(Copy from the Rutgers University Library, New Bmnswick, N. J.)

ASKIN PAPERS; List of g or respondent^, I 776- I 893 ; Photostats

Among these are the following Jews: David David, Samuel C. Jacob, I. Sol- omons, and B. S. Solomons.


COHEN, CHARLES J.; Ship manifest, 1872, Philadelphia, Pa.; Manuscript

Leather goods and perfumes imported from Germany.

(Gift of Maxwell Whiteman.)

COMMITTEE ON THE CHRISTIAN APPROACH TO THE JEWS; ~ o ~ ~ e s p ~ ~ d m c e and reports, 1848-1849, N e w York, N . Y.; Manuscripts

(Gift of Samuel Moyerman, Phil- adelphia, Pa.)

DARROW, ROLAND E.; A n experience, 1956, Monticello, Ark.; Typescript

The minister of the First Methodist Church in Monticello, Ark., relates his experiences in Rheims, France, as an acting Jewish chaplain on Passover, 1945.

(Gift of Rev. Roland E. Darrow,

ACQUISITIONS 79

through D;. Sheldon H . Blank, Hebrew Union College.)

EINSTEIN, ALBERT; A page of mathematical formulac, 195 z, Princeton, N . J.; Photostat

T o M. Leo Gitelson. (Gift of Dr. M. Leo Gitelson, New

York, N. Y.)

ETTING REVOLUTIONARY PAPERS; I 776- I 7 87 ; Microjlm

Letter to Michael Gratz from Nathan Bush, Philadelphia, on the progress of the war, 1776; to Bamard Gratz from William Trent, relating to the war, 177?; to Barnard Gratz from camp, descr~blng a battle fought near Philadelphia, 17?7; docket of Ezekiel Levy and Yidd~sh docket of Aaron Levy; letter to Michael Gratz from William Eaton, Williams- burg, Va., 1779; to Bamard Gratz from W. Williams, Fredericksburg, Va., relating to the war, 1780; letters to Michael Gratz from William Croghan and Dun Rose Battersea, relating to the war, 1780; letters to Barnard Gratz from Thomas Smith of Richmond, and Patrick Rice of Baltimore, 1782-1787.

(From the Historical Society of Pem- sylvania.)

GOLDBAUM, ABRAHAM; News item from the Tucson, Ariz., Press, 1902, Hcnnosillo, Mexico; Photostat

Goldbaum disarms General Charles P. Eagan of the United States Army as he is about to shoot him during an argument which arose when Eagan made certain anti-Semitic remarks.

(Gift of Dr. Moses Joel Eisenberg, Chesmut Hill, Mass.)

%RBY, CAROLINE DE LITCHFIELD; PTIIYCT Book, I 8 26, Charleston, S. C.; Photostats

A collection of benedictions, hymns, and prayers, in English and Hebrew, used by the Reformed Society of Israelites in Charleston, S. C.

(Gift of L. C. Moise, Sumter, S. C.)

HEBREW UNION COLLEGE; Book of Mcmo- rial, I 874- 1875, Cincinnati, Ohio; Manu- script

T h e original subscription book to raise funds for the first successhl rabbinical seminary in the United States. The names of 278 subscribers are listed.

(Gift of the Hebrew Union College.)

HENSCHEL, ANNA; Conjrmation Book, no date, New Castle, Pa.; Manuscript

T h e book contains a list of confirmands. (Gift of Mrs. Edwin Henry Cohn,

Youngstown, Ohio.)

HORWITZ, JONATHAN; Broadside, I 8 I 2 , New York, N . Y . ; Photostat

Advertisement of the first Hebrew Bible to be published in the United States.

(Copy from the Alderman Library, the University of Virginia.)

LEVY, EUGENE H.; Tribute, 1897, NCW York, N . Y . ; Photostat

A Confederate soldier views Ulysses S. Grant in retrospect thirty-two years after the surrender at Appomattox Court- house.

(Gift of Deronda Levy, Columbus, Ga.)

LOPEZ, MOSES; SCfirat ha-mcr (counting of the Omer), ca. 1775; Barbados, B. WI., Hebrew; Photostat

Prepared for Congregation Nidhe Israel of Barbados. Matthias Lopez presented the original manuscript to T h e Library Company in 1797.

(Copy from The Library Company of Philadelphia.)

OPPENHEIMER, MARCUS; Collection; I 857- I 900; Photostats

Passenger lists of steamers going to the west, 1849, 1867-1894.

Reminiscences of Benjamin Burgunder, 1845-!925.

Dedlcat~on of the Town of Marcus (Washington), June, I 890.

Newspaper clippings describing the inundation of the Town of Marcus, 1938, 1940.

(Gift of Rabbi Albert Plotkin.)

PHILIPSON, JACOB; Business papers, I 809- I 8 I I , St. Louis, Mo.; Photostats


Transactions with Auguste Chouteau. (Gift of Rabbi Levi A. Olan, Dallas, (Gift of Eric Newman, St. Louis, Mo.) Tex.)

SCHWARZ PAPERS; 1897-1899, German and WISE, ISAAC MAYER; Theological notes, Hebrew; Manuscripts no date, Hebrew and English; Manu-

Miscellaneous poems and prayers for scripts the Jewish holidays, by Rabbi H. Schwarz (Gift of the Hebrew Union College of Hempstead, Tex. Library.)

WANTED: CONGREGATIONAL minute-books, board meeting minutes,

financial records, cemetery records, charters, constitutional revisions, temple dedication and anniversary booklets, and other data tracing the religious life of American Jewry.

FAMILY correspondence, diaries, memoirs, scrap-books, photo- graph albums, naturalization papers, military medals, and personal souvenirs.

JEWISH ORGANIZATIONAL minute-books and transaction records : fraternal, cultural, social, and philanthropic.

RABBIS' manuscript files, sermon notes, correspondence, scholarly notes, and unpublished manuscripts.

FILES of American Jewish periodicals, magazines, and journals.

7

These and other similar manuscript materials will be gratefully accepted as : gifts; permanent loans in the name of the owner; or temporary loans to be examined, photostated, annotated, and returned to the owner. Don't permit carelessness or accidents to destroy historic records worthy of preservation. Help us write American Jewish History.

The American Jewish Archives HEBREW UNION COLLEGE

CINCINNATI 20, OHIO

PRINTED I N T H E UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PRESS OF w&2& f N c e

224 N. 1 5 T ~ ST., PHILADEL HIA 2, PENNA.

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