Cyrus Adler Papers

Cyrus Adler (1863-1940)

Cyrus Adler was born in Van Buren, Arkansas, on September 13, 1863. His father, Samuel, was a merchant and cotton planter who had settled in Van Buren in 1840. The family fled Civil War fighting and poor economic conditions in Arkansas for the North several months after Cyrus was born. Unfortunately, Samuel Adler did not long survive the trip. Following her husband's death in January 1867, Sarah Adler took her family to Philadelphia to live with her unmarried brother, David Sulzberger. Cyrus grew up surrounded by the traditional Ashkenazic religious practices of his maternal Sulzberger relatives, who had emigrated from Germany; he was particularly influenced in this regard by his uncle and an older second cousin, Mayer (a prominent Philadelphia judge). From them he also absorbed a love of scholarship which would shape the rest of his life.

Young Cyrus first attended a day school run by the Hebrew Education Society of Philadelphia, where he studied Hebrew and Judaism in addition to traditional public school subjects, and then transferred to the public grammar school several blocks away. During his high school years, he began the task of preparing an author's catalog to the library collection of Isaac Leeser, which had been donated to the Library of the Philadelphia YMHA. Impressed with the results of his nephew's efforts, David Sulzburger arranged to have the catalogue printed. Adler later referred to this work as having "laid the foundation of my interest in libraries, in cataloguing and in bibliographies."

Cyrus Adler attended college at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his A. B. in 1883, and his M.A. in 1886. Having developed a keen interest in Semitics, he went on to study Assyriology under Professor Paul Haupt in the newly established graduate program at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where Adler also taught Semitics from 1884 to 1893. Upon obtaining his Ph.D. from Hopkins in 1887, Adler was appointed Honorary Assistant Curator of Semitics at the United States National Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. His devotion to the Smithsonian led to his subsequent appointment there as Curator of Historic Archaeology and Historic Religions at the U.S. National Museum (1889-1908), Institute Librarian (1892-1905), and Assistant Secretary (1905-1908). In the interim, Adler also served as Special Commissioner to the Orient for the World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893, for which he organized the Oriental Department, and served on the editorial board of the Jewish Encyclopedia from 1899 to 1905. In 1908, he accepted the post of President of the newly formed Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning in Philadelphia.

In 1888, Adler helped found the Jewish Publication Society of America, and edited the first seven volumes of The American Jewish Year Book. He was also instrumental in the founding of the American Jewish Historical Society in 1892, the first organization to promote the scientific study of the history of Jews in the Western Hemisphere. He edited The Jewish Quarterly Review, a scholarly journal whose publication was assumed by Dropsie College. Following the death of Solomon Schechter in 1916, Adler became Acting President of The Jewish Theological Seminary--a post which eventually turned permanent in 1924. In 1906, he was one of the founders of the American Jewish Committee, eventually succeeding Louis Marshall as President in 1929. Adler found himself in frequent disagreement with American Zionist leaders during this period, but continued to serve on behalf of world Jewry, acting as co-chair of Council for the Jewish Agency from 1929 to 1931.

Adler married Racie Friedenwald of Baltimore in 1905, at age 42. They had one child, a daughter named Sarah. In his later years, failing health caused Cyrus Adler to slow his lifelong hectic pace of academic and communal activities, and he retired from public life in 1933. During his retirement, he delighted in spending time with his small granddaughter, Judith Wolfinsohn. Adler died at age 77 in April 1940.

Sources

Adler, Cyrus. I Have Considered the Days. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1941.

Neuman, Abraham A. Cyrus Adler: A Biographical Sketch. New York: The American Jewish Committee, 1942.

S. v., "Adler, Cyrus," Who's Who in American Jewry, 1938-1939 (New York: National News Association, Incirca, 1938), pp. 10-13.

S. v., "Adler, Cyrus," Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 1 (New York, 1941), pp. 88-89.

S. v., "Adler, Cyrus," Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1972), pp. 272-27

1863

Born in Van Buren, Arkansas, to Samuel Adler and his wife Sarah Sulzberger Adler (of Philadelphia)

1867

Samuel Adler dies. Sarah Adler moves her family to Philadelphia

1883

Obtains A.B. from the University of Pennsylvania

1884-1893

Fellow, Instructor and Associate Professor of Semitic languages at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland

1886

Obtains M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania

1887

Earned Ph.D. in Semitics from Johns Hopkins University in February; began teaching at Johns Hopkins and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York

1888

Appointed Honorary Assistant Curator for Oriental Antiquities at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.circa

Prepared exhibition of biblical archeology for Government building at the Cincinnati Exposition

Founding member of the Jewish Publication Society of America

1889-1908

Curator of Historic Archaeology and Historic Religions at the United States National Museum, Smithsonian Institution

1890-1892

Special Commissioner to Turkey, Persia, Egypt, Tunis and Morocco for the World's Columbian Exhibition at Chicago; organized Oriental Department for the fair

1892

Founding member of the American Jewish Historical Society

1892-1898

Secretary of the American Jewish Historical Society

1893

Appointed Librarian of the United States National Museum, Smithsonian Institution

1898

Represented the United States at the Conference on the International Catalogue of Scientific Literature, London

1898-1922

President of The American Jewish Historical Society

1899-1905

Editor of the American Jewish Year Book

1899-1906

Departmental editor for The Jewish Encyclopedia

1902-1905

President of the Board of Trustees, Jewish Theological Seminary of America

Sept. 1905

Married Racie Friedenwald of Baltimore

1905-1908

Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution

1906

Helped found the American Jewish Committee

Daughter Sarah born

1908

Appointed President of Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning in Philadelphia; moved back to Philadelphia

1908-1915

Chaired the Board of Editors for new JPS translation of the Bible

1910

Became Co-Editor of The Jewish Quarterly Review with Solomon Schechter

1913

Helped found the United Synagogue of America

1916-1940

Editor of The Jewish Quarterly Review

1916-1924

Acting President of Jewish Theological Seminary; Chair of Executive Board of the American Jewish Committee

1917

Became Chairman of the Army and Navy Committee of the National Jewish Welfare Board

1919

Represented the American Jewish Committee at the Paris Peace Conference

1923

Elected President of the American Oriental Society

1924

Appointed President of the Jewish Theological Seminary

1929

Appointed President of the American Jewish Committee

1929-1931

Co-chair of the Council of the Jewish Agency for Palestine

1932

Daughter Sarah marries violinist Wolfe Wolfinsohn in January

1933

Granddaughter Judith Wolfinsohn born on November 26th

1939

Summoned by President Roosevelt to confer on strategies for peace in post-War America

1940

Died on April 7.

1925

Honorary Doctorate in Hebrew Letters, Hebrew Union College

1930

Honorary Doctorate of Letters, University of Pennsylvania

1933

Silver Buffalo Award, Boy Scouts of Americirca