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.