Salomon, George, 1920-1981

George Salomon was born in Hamburg on April, 23 in 1920 as the first child of the historian Richard Georg Salomon and his wife Gertrud J. Horwitz. In 1937 he graduated from high school with his Abitur at the Johanneum Hamburg.

In 1938 the family immigrated to the U.S. where George studied at Swarthmore College from 1937 to 1940 and in 1938 he became co-founder of a fund for refugee students. From 1940 onwards, he created graphical works in New York's printing industry ( Druckgewerbe ) and in 1947 he became a graphic designer. Between 1957 and 1959 George worked for the N.Y.C. Transit Authority and designed the first diagram-card for the subway system of New York. From 1960 to 1962 he worked as a journalist for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and in 1966 he became a member of the Association of Jewish Community Relations Workers and of the LBI.

George Salomon died on May 8, 1981 in Great Neck, N.Y, leaving behind his wife Mathilde Norah Loewen, a qualified fashion designer and teacher in applied arts and their children, Frank, born in 1946 and Richard, born in 1948.

From the guide to the Salomon Family, Friesack Collection, 1765-1990, (Leo Baeck Institute)

Richard Georg Salomon was born in Berlin on April 22, 1884, the eldest child of Georg Anton Salomon (1849-1916), a medical doctor and lecturer at the University of Berlin and his wife Anna Salomon née Herfort (1856-1931). In Berlin Richard G. Salomon attended the Königliche Friedrich-Wilhelms-Gymnasium and later the University of Berlin where he studied history and completed his doctoral dissertation in February 1907.

From 1907 to 1914 he worked as an assistant at the Department of East European History at the Berlin University and in March 1907, he was also appointed to the editorial staff of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Between 1914 to 1916 Salomon served in the Imperial German Army and after his release from the military he lectured at the Colonial Institute in Hamburg, which later was converted into the University of Hamburg. In 1920 he was appointed to the board of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg. In March 1934 Salomon was removed from his academic post on racial grounds. After his dismissal, he started his work on Avignonesischen Akten des Hamburger Archivs .

In 1936 Richard G. Salomon traveled to the U.S. to explore the possibilities of a new position. As the undertaking was successful and Salomon was offered rotating positions to lecture at the University of Pennsylvania, Bryn Mawr College and Swarthmore College, the family immigrated to the U.S. in 1938. In 1939 Salomon had an appointment at the Kenyon College. This later turned into a permanent full professorship for the history department. From 1944 to1945 his academic work was interrupted by his work as research analyst in the Central European Section of the Office of Strategic Services in Washington.

Salomon was appointed Historiographer of the Diocese of Ohio in 1956 and in 1962 he retired from undergraduate teaching and was given the position of an Emeritus at the College and the Seminary. Richard G. Salomon died in Mount Vernon, Ohio on February 3, 1966, leaving behind the two children, George Salomon and Edith Lenneberg, he had with his first wife Gertrud J. Horwitz (1889-1942).

From the guide to the Richard G. Salomon Collection, 1848-1990, bulk 1934-1965, (Leo Baeck Institute)