MEN OF EMINENCE IN THE ARTS, SCIENCES AND THE PROFESSIONS.
Jews who attained eminence in the world of art and of science――
Moses J. Ezekiel――Ephraim Keyser――Isidor Konti――Victor D.
Brenner――Butensky and Davidson――Painters: Henry Mosler,
Constant Mayer, H. N. Hyneman and George D. M. Peixotto――Max
Rosenthal and his son, Albert――Max Weyl, Toby E. Rosenthal,
Louis Loeb and Katherine M. Cohen――Some cartoonists and
caricaturists――Musicians, composers and musical directors――The
Damrosch family, Gabrilowitsch, Hoffman and Ellman――Operatic
and theatrical managers and impressarios――Playwrights and
actors――Scientists: A. A. Michelson, Morris Bloomfield, Jacob
H. Hollander, Charles Waldstein and his family――Charles Gross――
Edwin R. A. Seligman, Adolph Cohn, Jaques Loeb, Simon Flexner
and Abraham Jacobi――Fabian Franklin――Engineers: Sutro, Gottlieb
and Jacobs――Some eminent physicians and lawyers――Merchants and
financiers.
While the social and political success of the Jews in a country are
usually taken as an indication of its liberalism and the equality of
its citizens, regardless of their creed, the contribution of Jews to
its intellectual and artistic achievements is the best proof that this
equality brings its own reward for the general good. We have seen in
the preceding chapters how the Jews of the United States assisted in
the material development of the country, how they participated in the
battles for its independence and for its preservation, and how they are
now doing their share of the country’s useful work as working men, as
business men, as professional men, etc., some of them having occupied
before, and others occupying now, prominent positions in various walks
of life. It remains now to cite several instances of Jews who attained
distinction in the noble callings of the artist and the scientist,
reflecting glory on their professions, as well as on the country of
their birth or adoption.
Moses Jacob Ezekiel (b. in Richmond, Va., 1844), the sculptor,
now residing at Rome, is probably the greatest Jewish artist that
this country has produced. He was educated at the Virginia Military
Institute, from which, after serving as a Confederate soldier in the
Civil War, he graduated in 1866. He then studied anatomy at the Medical
College of Virginia, and in 1868 removed to Cincinnati, going from
there a year later to Berlin, where he studied at the Royal Academy
of Art. He was admitted to membership in the Berlin Society of Artists
for his colossal bust of Washington, which is now in the Cincinnati Art
Museum, and he was the first foreigner to win the Michael Beer prize.
During a visit to America in 1874 he executed in marble the group
representing “Religious Liberty”――the tribute of the Independent Order
of B’nai B’rith to the centennial celebration of American independence.
The statue was unveiled in 1876 in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia (see
the frontispiece). Upon his return to Rome Ezekiel leased a portion
of the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian (Emperor of Rome, 284–305)
and transformed them into one of the most beautiful studios in Europe.
He has been elected a member of various academies and received other
distinctions. Among his best known productions are: busts of Eve,
Homer, David, Judith and Liszt; the Fountain of Neptune, for the
town of Neptune, Italy; the Jefferson Monument, for Louisville, Ky.;
Virginia Mourning Her Dead, at Lexington, Va., and a dozen heroic
statues (of Phidias, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, Rembrandt, etc.),
which are placed in the niches of the Corcoran Art Gallery at
Washington.
Ephraim Keyser (b. in Baltimore, Md., 1850) is another prominent
Jewish-American sculptor. He was educated at the public schools and the
City College of Baltimore, and later studied at the Royal Academies of
Fine Art in Munich and Berlin. He maintained a studio in Rome from 1880
to 1886, lived in New York from 1887 to 1893, when he settled in his
native city as instructor in modelling at the Maryland Institute Art
School, and also (since 1902) at the Rhinehart School for Sculpture.
Among his best known works are the statue of Major-General Baron De
Kalb, erected by the United States Government at Annapolis, Md., the
tomb of President Chester A. Arthur at the Rural Cemetery, Albany,
N. Y., and portrait busts of well known men.
Isidore Konti (b. in Vienna, 1862; a. 1890) executed the most important
of his works after he came to the United States. He did much decorative,
monumental and ideal work for the Chicago Exposition in 1893, for the
Dewey Arch, the Buffalo Exposition of 1901 and the St. Louis Exposition
of 1904, having made for the latter more than twenty different groups.
Among his other works are a marble fountain at Yonkers, N. Y., where
he resides, and a group representing South America for the building
of the International Bureau of American Republics in Washington. Konti
received numerous medals for his work here and abroad, and is a member
of various societies of artists, numismatists, etc.
Victor David Brenner (b. in Shavly, Russia, 1871; a. 1890), the
medallist and sculptor, is now best known to the general public as the
designer of the “Lincoln penny.” He received awards from the Exposition
and the Salon in Paris, 1900; from the Buffalo Exposition of 1901 and
the World’s Fair of St. Louis in 1904. He has works in the Paris Mint,
Munich Glyptothek, Vienna Numismatic Society, Metropolitan Museum of
Art of New York and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Julius Butensky (b. in Novogrudek, Russia; a. 1905) is another sculptor
and medallist of the younger generation who did his best work since
he came to this country, of which the best known is the statue at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York representing “The Beating of
Swords Into Plowshares”; and a medal presented to Henry Rice (b. in
Germany, 1835) on his retiring from the presidency of the United Hebrew
Charities of New York. Joseph Davidson, also a native of Russia, who
came here as a child and developed his talent in New York, is one of
the youngest sculptors whose work has attracted favorable attention.
Henry Mosler (b. in New York, 1841), the _genre_ painter, occupies a
prominent position among American artists. He was taken to Cincinnati
when a child, and began to study art there at the age of ten. In
1863 he went to Europe, where he continued his study of art, first
in Dueseldorf and later in Paris. He came back to Cincinnati in 1866,
but returned to Europe in 1874, and spent the following twenty years
in Munich and Paris. A picture which he exhibited in the latter city
in 1879 was afterwards purchased by the French government for the
♦Luxembourg gallery, being the first work so purchased from an American
artist.
Constant Mayer (b. in Besancon, France, 1832), the French painter,
who arrived in the United States in 1857 and lived here more than a
generation before he returned to his native country, was among the
best known artists of his time here. Herman Naphtali Hyneman (b. in
Philadelphia, 1849), who studied for eight years in Germany and France,
and George D. M. Peixotto (b. in Cleveland, O., 1857), eldest son of
Benjamin F. Peixotto, are recognized as masters among American portrait
painters, the latter also having done notable work as a mural decorator.
Other well-known Jewish artists are: Max Rosenthal (b. in Turek,
Russian-Poland, 1833; a. 1849), who was artist for the Government
during the Civil War, making illustrations for reports of the United
States Military Commission, and who afterwards etched many historical
portraits and painted a considerable number of pictures; Albert
Rosenthal (b. in Philadelphia, 1863), widely known as etcher and
painter of portraits of famous Americans, his son and pupil; Max Weyl
(b. in Germany, 1837; a. 1855), best known as a landscape painter, and
Toby Edward Rosenthal (b. in New Haven, Conn., 1848), who won medals
in Europe and America, a _genre_ and portrait painter, who resides
in Munich, Bavaria; Louis Loeb (b. in Cleveland, O., 1866; d. in New
York, 1909), a painter and illustrator; Miss Katherine M. Cohen (b. in
Philadelphia, 1859), a well-known sculptor and painter.
Among the caricaturists or cartoonists of the day deserve to be
mentioned Frederick Burr Opper (b. in Madison, O., 1857); Henry (Hy)
Mayer (b. in Worms, Germany, 1868; a. 1886) and Reuben Lucius Goldberg
(b. in San Francisco, 1883).
The number of Jews who achieved distinction as musicians, composers of
music, musical directors, etc., is very large, and only a few of them
can be mentioned here. Dr. Leopold Damrosch (b. in Prussia, 1832; d.
in New York, 1885) came to New York in 1871 as conductor of the Arion
Society, and soon became very successful, both as a violinist and as
conductor of his own compositions. He was successively director of the
Philharmonic Society, of the Symphony Society and of the Metropolitan
Opera House of New York. His older son, Frank H. (b. in Breslau,
Germany, 1859), who was director of music of the New York public
schools for eight years, is (since 1905) at the head of the Institute
of Musical Art in that city, which was founded by a bequest made for
that purpose by the late Solomon Loeb. A second son, Walter Johannes
Damrosch (b. in Breslau), the composer and director, married Margaret
J. Blaine, the daughter of the great American statesman, James G.
Blaine, who was a candidate for the presidency in 1884. A daughter of
Dr. Damrosch is married to David Mannes, the director of the New York
Music School Settlement.
Among the eminent Jewish musicians who frequently visit the United
States are the pianist, Joseph Gabrilowitsch, a native of Russia, who
married the only surviving daughter of the great American humorist,
Samuel L. Clemens (1835–1910, better known as “Mark Twain”), Joseph
Hoffman, and Mischa Ellman, the violinist, likewise a native of Russia.
In the operatic and theatrical world Jews are predominant as managers
and impressarios. The best known among them are David Belasco (b. in
San Francisco, Cal., 1859), who is also a dramatic author; Abraham
Lincoln Erlanger (b. in Buffalo, N. Y., 1860), whose brother, Mitchell
Louis, was elected a justice of the Supreme Court of New York County
in 1906; Daniel Frohman (b. in Sandusky, O., 1853), and his brother,
Charles (b. there 1860).
Charles Klein (b. in London, Eng., 1867) is a well-known playwright,
two of whose most successful plays, “The Auctioneer” and “The Music
Master,” were especially written for David Warfield (b. in San
Francisco, 1866), also a Jew, who is in the front rank of the
theatrical profession in this country. These plays were produced under
the management of David Belasco, and it presents only one of many
such instances on the American stage in which the author, the actor
or actress playing the leading part and the manager, or impressario,
are all Jews. Oscar Hammerstein (b. in Berlin, 1847; a. 1863) is an
inventor, playwright, builder and manager of theatres and opera houses,
who has rendered valuable service in the development of operatic
productions in the United States. Sydney Rosenfeld (b. in Richmond,
Va., 1855) is the author of dramas, operettas and musical plays which
have found much favor with the public.
In the world of science many Jews have attained eminence as original
investigators and as university professors. Professor Albert Abraham
Michelson (b. in Strelno, Germany, 1852) was brought as a child to
San Francisco, and was from there appointed to the U. S. Naval Academy
at Annapolis, Md., graduating in 1873. He was an instructor in physics
and chemistry at the Naval Academy in 1875–9, and was in the office
of the Nautical Almanac in Washington until 1880, when he resigned
from the United States Navy. After spending several years studying in
Germany and France he became professor of physics at the Case School
of Applied Science in Cleveland, O. (1883–9). For the following three
years he occupied a similar position at Clark University, in Worcester,
Mass. Since 1892 he has been professor and head of the department of
physics in the University of Chicago. He is a member of various learned
societies here and abroad, including a corresponding membership in the
Academy des Sciences of the Institute de France. He won numerous prizes
and medals for his great scientific achievements, some of which, like
the Copley Medal, awarded by the Royal Society of London, and the Nobel
Prize for physics (both in 1907), indicate that he is recognized as
one of the greatest scientists of the age. He is best known as the
discoverer of a new method for determining the velocity of light. His
younger brother, Charles Michelson (b. in Virginia City, Nev., 1869),
editor of the “Chicago American,” and their sister, Miss Miriam (b.
in Calaveras, Cal., 1870), is a dramatic critic and has also written
numerous short stories and several novels.
Maurice Bloomfield (b. in Bielitz, Austria, 1855), who was brought here
at the age of twelve, is a prominent Sanskrit scholar and is recognized
as the chief living authority on the Atharva Veda. He has written
several important works on his special subjects, and has been professor
of Sanskrit and Comparative philology at Johns Hopkins University
in Baltimore, Md., since 1881. Jacob H. Hollander (b. in Baltimore,
1871), who was appointed by President McKinley special commissioner
to Porto Rico and later treasurer of that island colony, is professor
of political ♦economy at the same university. Professor Hollander
was appointed by President Roosevelt United States special agent on
taxation in Indian Territory (1904), and was in the following year sent
as special commissioner to the Republic of San Domingo to investigate
its public debt, and was the confidential agent of the Department of
State with respect to Dominican affairs. Since 1908 he has been the
financial adviser of the Dominican Republic. Professor Hollander takes
an active interest in Jewish affairs, and has contributed valuable
papers on Jewish history to the publications of the American-Jewish
Historical Society, of which he is an officer.
Professor Charles Waldstein (b. in New York, 1856), the great authority
on Greek art and archeology of Cambridge University, England, is
another American-Jewish scholar of the highest type, who is interested
in Jewish matters. Among many other books, he wrote _The Jewish
Question and the Mission of the Jews_ (1899). Louis Waldstein, the
pathologist and author (b. in New York, 1853), and Martin Waldstein
(b. 1854), the chemist, are his older brothers. Lewis Einstein (b.
in New York, 1877), formerly secretary of the American Embassy in
Constantinople, and later secretary of legation in Peking, who has
recently been appointed by President Taft as United States Minister to
the Republic of Costa Rico, is a brother-in-law of Professor Waldstein.
Charles Gross (b. in Troy, N. Y., 1857; d. 1909), professor of history
and political science at Harvard University, who was at the time
of his death considered the chief authority in the world on English
mediæval and economic history, was one of the vice-presidents of the
American-Jewish Historical Society, and contributed to our historical
literature a profound study on _The Exchequer of the Jews in the
Mediaeval Judiciary of England_, and an English translation of Dr.
Kayserling’s notable work on the participation of the Jews in the
discovery of the New World.
Professor Edwin R. A. Seligman (b. in New York, 1862), a member of
the well known family of financiers and philanthropists, who began to
lecture on economics in Columbia University, New York, in 1885, and has
been professor of political economy there since 1891, is a recognized
authority on the question of taxation and the author of standard works
on the ♦subject. Adolphe Cohn (b. in Paris, France, 1851; a. 1875),
a son of the French-Jewish philanthropist, Albert Cohn (1814–77),
has been professor of romance, languages and literatures at Columbia
since 1891. Jaques Loeb (b. in Germany, 1859), the eminent biologist,
who taught at American universities for about twenty years, is now at
the head of the department of experimental biology in the Rockefeller
Institute for Medical Research in New York. The head of that institute
is likewise a Jew, Dr. Simon Flexner (b. in Louisville, Ky., 1863),
formerly professor of pathology and anatomy at Johns Hopkins University
(1891–99) and at the University of Pennsylvania (1899–1904). His serum
for the cure of cerebro-spinal meningitis is one of the great medical
achievements of the age.
Dr. Abraham Jacobi (b. in Westphalia, 1830; a. 1853), who came to New
York after his participation in the revolutionary movement in Germany
in 1848, was for more than fifty years professor of the diseases of
children at the University of New York (Columbia, 1870–1902). He was
highly honored on the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of his
birth in 1910, and was in the following year elected president of the
American Medical Association.
Fabian Franklin (b. in Eger, Hungary, 1853), a nephew of Michael
Heilprin, came here as a child and was educated in Washington. He was
a civil engineer and surveyor from 1869 to 1877, and a professor of
mathematics at Johns Hopkins University, 1879–95. For the following
thirteen years he was editor of the “Baltimore News,” and is now (since
Oct., 1909) associate editor of the “New York Evening Post.”
Adolph Heinrich Joseph Sutro (b. at Aix-la-Chapelle, Rhenish Prussia,
1830; a. 1850; d. in San Francisco, 1898) was educated at the
polytechnic schools of his native country, and when he came to America
he was soon attracted by the discovery of gold in California, and from
there went to Nevada. He projected and later (1869–79) built the Sutro
tunnel under the Comstock lode, and when it was finished he settled in
San Francisco, of which city he was elected Mayor in 1894. It was said
that he owned about one-tenth of the area of San Francisco, including
Sutro Heights, which he turned into a beautiful public park and which
became the property of the municipality after his death. His library,
which consisted of over 200,000 volumes, contained over 100 rare Hebrew
manuscripts.
Abraham Gottlieb (b. in Bohemia, 1837; a. 1866; d. in Chicago, 1894)
graduated from the University of Prague, and was engaged as an engineer
in the construction of an Austrian railroad when he went to America
and settled in Chicago. When he was elected president of the Keystone
Bridge Company, he removed to Pittsburg (1877). In that capacity he
constructed many bridges in various parts of the country, including
the Madison Avenue bridge in New York City. He returned to Chicago in
1884 and was for a time connected (as consulting engineer and as chief
engineer of the construction department) with the World’s Columbian
Exposition. He also took an active interest in Jewish affairs, and was
for a time president of the Rodeph Shalom congregation in Pittsburg,
and later of Zion congregation, Chicago.
Charles M. Jacobs (b. in Hull, England, 1850), who designed the tunnels
which connect the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Long Island Railroad
with the center of New York, is an English Jew, who is considered to be
the greatest authority on tunnel building, both here and abroad.
Jews are well represented in the front ranks of the medical and
the legal professions. Among the eminent physicians, besides those
mentioned formerly, are men like Dr. Isaac Adler (b. in Alzey, Germany,
1849; a. 1857), Dr. Max Einhorn (b. in Grodno, Russia, 1862; a. 1884),
both of New York; Dr. Jacob da Silva Solis-Cohen (b. in New York, 1838)
and his brother, Solomon (b. in Philadelphia, 1857), who reside in
Philadelphia, and Dr. Nathan Jacobson (b. in Syracuse, N. Y. 1857) of
the Syracuse University, Samuel Untermyer (b. in Lynchburg, Va., 1858)
of New York, Louis D. Brandeis (b. in Louisville, Ky., 1856) of Boston,
Levy Mayer (b. in Richmond, Va., 1858) of Chicago, and Judge Max C.
Sloss (b. in New York, 1869, recently re-elected Justice of the Supreme
Court of California) of San Francisco, are but a few of the Jewish
lawyers who have attained eminence in their profession.
While the number of Jews who are prominent in commerce, finance and
industry is considerable, and some families, like the Guggenheims,
Lewisohns, Schiffs or Strauses of New York, and men like Julius
Rosenwald and Edward Morris (b. 1866) of Chicago, stand high in the
world of large affairs, none of them is classed among the small number
of immensely wealthy Americans. It is rather in the diffusion of wealth,
in the large number and large proportion of well-to-do and affluent,
than in the pre-eminence of the Jew as the greatest of capitalists,
that the condition of the Jews in America is seen to the best advantage.