Mayer Sulzberger Collection

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Mayer Sulzberger Collection

1857-1923

http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/d/pacscl/UPENN_CAJS_CJSARCMS25USUSUSPUCJS

The Sulzberger collection spans the years 1857 to 1923. The bulk of the collection is concentrated after 1900, although there is a fair amount of legal and personal material dating from the nineteenth century. The collection provides access to several of the vast networks of relationships and projects, both Jewish and non-Jewish, in which Sulzberger was involved during his life-time, including important documents relating to the bequest of Moses Aaron Dropsie and the founding of Dropsie College. One particular item of interest is an undated petition addressed to Governor Pennypacker (including an appended autographic treasure) to appoint Judge Sulzberger to the (Pennsylvania?) Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the collection contains numerous gaps in the documentation of Sulzberger's life; study of this collection will provide only the beginnings of a comprehensive portrait. See the bibliography, below, for additional primary sources and comments for future research). Of particular note is the range of well-known personalities and organizations represented in the correspondence series. Sulzberger maintained an ongoing interest in and involvement with the burgeoning movement of historical Judaism in America (which later crystallized as Conservative Judaism) and corresponded with many of the movement's leading figures such as Cyrus Adler, Louis Ginzberg, Alexander Marx, Solomon Solis-Cohen, and Israel Friedlander, whose letters regularly appear throughout the series. Also noteworthy is Sulzberger's ample correspondence with the Jewish Theological Seminary's second president, Solomon Schechter, published in part by Meir Ben Horin (see bibliography.) Of potential interest is the American Jewish Committee series, which contains correspondence, clippings, and other documents relating to the condition of Jewish communities around the world, and the AJC's work to lobby the U.S. government on their behalf. Primary sources may be found, for example, which deal with the hotly debated Russian Passport Question concerning the prohibition of those American Jewish citizens who came originally from Russia from freely traveling there; the persecution of Jews in Kishineff, and other reported outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence in Eastern Europe; the consequent calls to abrogate the 1832 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation between the U.S. and Russia. Of interest to scholars of the early Zionist period are several reports sent to Sulzberger by Israel Zangwill, the leader of the Jewish Territorial Organization, a group which had proposed the re-settlement of Jews in East Africa and had consequently dispatched several surveys of the region to determine their suitability. In addition, Sulzberger was consulted on the formation of a Jewish Institute of Technology, (what would become the Technion), a school of advanced engineering planned for Haifa. He also received dispatches from the Provisional Executive Committee of General Zionist Affairs, including a copy of the famous dispatch of Lord Arthur Balfour pledging England's support for "the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine (November 2, 1917)." Of great usefulness for reconstructing a bibliography of Sulzberger's literary efforts is the extensive group of drafts and notes, both handwritten and in typescript, of published and unpublished addresses, occasional lectures, essays and monographs composed by Sulzberger. Several copies, in typescript form, of Sulzberger's published scholarship are to be found, including that of his The Am ha-aretz (1910), The Ancient Hebrew Law of Homicide (1912), The Polity of Ancient Israel (1915), and The Status of Labor in Ancient Israel (published posthumously in 1923). In addition, a published copy of each of these works has been incorporated in the collection. Sulzberger was an avid, perhaps America's unequaled private collector of rare Hebrew books, manuscripts, and artifacts. Contained in the collection are detailed ledgers listing accessions to his library and related acquisitions. Of particular note in this regard is the extensive correspondence Sulzberger maintained with Alexander Marx (which was recently edited, annotated and published -- see bibliography, Dicker, 1991, below), found in the correspondence series, which documents Sulzberger's foresight and faithful support of the creation of the Jewish Theological Seminary's library. Researchers of nineteenth century American legal and commercial history may profit from an examination of the legal series which contains records relating to Sulzberger's legal work, the business ventures and interests he often represented, or those in which his family was involved. For example there is a fair amount of material relating to an inventor named Kitsee, and his company, the Mine Safety Company. Sulzberger represented Kitsee and apparently at one time purchased a controlling share of the company. Of related interest to the social and economic historian are the family series and financial series which contain numerous records documenting various Sulzberger businesses and expenditures, particularly during the nineteenth century.

18 Linear feet (35 boxes)

eng, Latn

University of Pennsylvania, Center Judaic Studies

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 7139069

University of Pennsylvania, Center Judaic Studies

Related Entities

There are 16 Entities related to this resource.

Morais, Sabato, 1823-1897

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6v80bcd (person)

Sabato Morais (1823 -1897) was an Italian-born Sephardic teacher and cantor, the minister of Philadelphia's Spanish and Portuguese Congregation Mikveh Israel for nearly half a century, a politically active republican and opponent of slavery, a master Hebraist and pioneer of Italian and Sephardic Jewish Studies in the United States, and the founder of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City....

Congregation Mikveh Israel (Philadelphia, Pa.)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gg1m6h (corporateBody)

Congregation Mikveh Israel (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) traces its history to September 25, 1740 when the Province of Pennsylvania and Thomas Penn authorized a permanent burial ground for the entire Jewish community of Philadelphia. Jews in Philadelphia in the 1740s and 1750s organized themselves informally for services. In 1761 they acquired a Torah scroll and met in a private residence on Sterling Alley, then between Cherry and Race Streets and Third and Fourth Streets. The congregation moved ...

Adler, Cyrus, 1863-1940

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6jj4c0c (person)

Cyrus Adler graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1883. He later received the first American Ph.D. in Semitics from Johns Hopkins University. He taught Semitic languages at Johns Hopkins from 1884 to 1893. In 1877 he was appointed assistant curator of the section of Oriental antiquities in the United States National Museum, and had charge of an exhibit of biblical archaeology at the centennial exposition of the Ohio valley in 1888. He was a commissioner for the world's Columbian ex...

American Jewish Historical Society

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64n9ts8 (corporateBody)

Solis-Cohen, Solomon, 1857-1948

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6r21xs6 (person)

Solomon Solis-Cohen was a medical doctor, served as Chairman of the Board of Education for Philadelphia, and was active in the Zionist movement in the United States and many other philanthropic endeavors. From the description of Papers, 1933-1943. (Historical Society of Pennsylvania). WorldCat record id: 122579653 Confederate postmaster at Savannah, Ga. From the description of Solomon Cohen papers, 1863-1865. (Duke University Library). WorldCat record id: 2064929...

Dropsie, Moses A. (Moses Aaron), 1821-1905

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w69c6z3m (person)

Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6797xqb (corporateBody)

As the first state-accredited Ph.D. program of its kind, Dropsie College is the world's founding institution of modern academic Jewish Studies. In the course of its nearly eighty years of existence, from 1907 through 1986, the College awarded more than 200 doctoral degrees and became a major training center for the country's Judaic scholars. It was the publisher of the Jewish Quarterly Review, the oldest continuously published English-language journal of Jewish Studies. From the desc...

Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association of Philadelphia

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6b61gvc (corporateBody)

Marx, Alexander, 1878-1953

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w60v8hpn (person)

Librarian and Professor of Jewish History at Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA). From the description of Papers, 1880-1958. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 78786011 Librarian, Jewish Theological Seminary. From the description of Correspondence, 1923 Dec. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270723550 ...

Sulzberger, Mayer, 1843-1923

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6qc03zx (person)

Mayer Sulzberger was born in Heidelsheim, Baden, Germany on June 22, 1843. His family emigrated to the United States in 1849, and settled in Philadelphia. Sulzberger attended the Central High School of Philadelphia and Crittenden's. College, and later apprenticed in the law office of Moses Aaron Dropsie, a prominent Philadelphia attorney. Sulzberger was a member of Congregation Mikveh Israel, Philadelphia's oldest and most prestigious Jewish congregation. Sul...

American Jewish Committee

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6km38q5 (corporateBody)

Founded in 1906 to safeguard the rights of Jews and to alleviate the consequences of persecution or disaster affecting them at home or abroad. ...

Leeser, Isaac, 1806-1868

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6766tc6 (person)

Isaac Leeser (December 12, 1806 – February 1, 1868) was an American Orthodox Jewish religious leader, teacher, scholar and publisher. He helped found the Jewish press of America, produced the first Jewish translation of the Bible into English, and helped organize various social and educational organizations. ...

Friedlaender, Israe͏̈l, 1876-1920

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6s18s36 (person)

Semiticist, professor of Bible at Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA). From the description of Papers, 1888-1977, 1903-1920 (bulk). (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 86160689 ...

Jewish publication society

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6hx6k03 (corporateBody)

Kiron, Arthur

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6pk1tqm (person)

Ginzberg, Louis, 1873-1953

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6vt1w91 (person)

Talmud and Midrash scholar, professor at Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA). From the description of Papers, 1891-1964, 1910-1953 (bulk). (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122484481 ...