Julius and Edith Hirsch Collection
Scope and Content Note
This collection contains professional material by and about economists Julius and Edith Hirsch. It also includes some material of German-Jewish interest donated by Edith Hirsch.
The materials concerning Julius Hirsch include obituaries, bibliographies of his work, a curriculum vitae, and other documents describing his career as an economist both in Germany and in the United States. The collection also contains a small amount of Julius Hirsch's correspondence, with James Auchincloss, Daniel Bloomfield, Homer Capehart, Albert Einstein, Charles David Ginsburg, W. Hasenack, Claude E. Hawley, Edward Ware Hullinger, Franz Oppenheimer, and Ernest Stern. Professional writings form the bulk of the collection. Julius Hirsch's primary interests were wartime macroeconomic theory and price controls, and this is reflected in the topics of the publications, speeches, and articles quoting him that are found in the clippings, off-prints, and manuscripts (handwritten and typed). Also included are over forty memos, including drafts and notes, prepared by Hirsch for the Office of Price Administration during World War Two. The memos primarily address the issue of wartime price controls.
The collection also contains materials relating to Edith Hirsch, including a curriculum vitae, letters from researchers interested in her husband's career, and some published economics materials. In addition, it contains a narrative family history centered on the descendants of Edith Hirsch's maternal grandparents, Rudolph Bernheim (1848-1941) and Sara Bernheim née Levy (1853-1934) of Hechingen, Germany.
Material of German-Jewish interest donated by Edith Hirsch and found in this collection include six banking slips, dated October-November 1810, signed by E. D. Cohn; a letter from a researcher, Robert R. Banks, to Edith Hirsch, inquiring about the private banking firms "Gebrüder Arons" and "Gebrüder Koppel;" typed and manuscript copies of an errata list for the book "Our Crowd: The Great Jewish Families of New York " by Stephen Birmingham, compiled by Julius Bunzl; and photocopies of a 1966 letter from Alfred Gray (aka Gruenebaum) to Edith Hirsch, about the Ph. Freudenberg firm in Elbersfeld, Germany, and the Gebrüder Alsberg and Fried & Alsberg firms of Cologne, and a one-page copy of a photograph and a handwritten letter. The photograph shows a board of directors, probably of Fried & Alsberg.
The original container list and index cards in folder 1/1 provide a more granular content list for the original collection.
A list of names and subjects mentioned in this collection was created during prior processing: Alsberg, Siegfried; Arons, Brothers; Auchincloss, James C.; Banks and banking; Berlin; Bernheim Family; Bernheim, Rudolf; Bernheim, Sara; Birmingham, Steven; Bloomfield, Daniel; Bunzl, Julius; Business and economic history; Capehart, Homer; Cohn, E. D.; Cologne; Einstein, Albert; Elberfeld; Freudenberg Dress Shop; Fried & Alsberg; Fried, Otto; Ginsburg, Charles David; Gruenebaum, Emil; Hamburger, Ernst; Hasenack, W.; Hechingen; Hirsch, Edith, nee Jarislowsky; Hirsch, Julius, 1882-1961; Hoechstadter family; Hullinger, Edwin Ware; Koppel, Alexander; Koppel, Brothers; Office of Price Administration; Oppenheimer, Franz; Ruberg, Dr.; Stern, Ernest H.; Wahl, Max.
Dates
- Creation: 1810-1982
- Creation: Majority of material found within 1942-1960
Creator
- Hirsch, Edith, 1899- (Person)
Language of Materials
This collection is in German and English, with a small amount of Dutch.
Access Restrictions
This collection is open to researchers.
Access Information
Collection is digitized. Follow the links in the Container List to access the digitized materials.
Biographical Note<extptr actuate="onload" altrender="Portrait of Julius Hirsch (1882-1961)" href="http://digital.cjh.org/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=1443695" linktype="simple" show="embed" title="Portrait of Julius Hirsch (1882-1961)"/>
Julius Hirsch (1882-1961) was born in Mandel, Germany to Salomon and Mathilde Hirsch. He studied economics in Bonn and taught at the University of Cologne beginning in 1911. From 1919 to 1922 he served as Secretary of State in the German Ministry of Commerce, and was involved in reparation negotiation and post-war economic development. Thereafter, he was professor of economics at the University of Berlin and the Berlin Graduate School of Business (Handelshochschule Berlin). He immigrated to Copenhagen in 1933 and to the United States in 1941, where he worked in the 1940s for the U.S. Office of Price Administration before becoming a private consultant. He was also a professor at the New School for Social Research in New York from 1942 to 1960, and Director of the New School Business Administration Center.
Edith Jarislowsky Hirsch (1899-2003), daughter of Adolph Jarislowsky and Flora Jarislowsky née Bernheim, received a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Heidelberg in 1925. She met Julius Hirsch in Hechingen, Germany at the family home of Albert Einstein's wife Elsa, who was close friends with Edith's mother, and they got married in 1927. Edith Hirsch was an economist as well, receiving an MA from the New School in 1943, and she worked together with her husband in his consultancies both in Germany and in the United States. She specialized in food and agriculture economics. Hirsch was also involved with the LBI: she helped editing the memoirs of George Tietz, published in 1965, and also collected and donated to the LBI a range of materials related to the German-Jewish experience.
Extent
1 Linear Feet
Abstract
This collection primarily contains professional material by and about economists Julius and Edith Hirsch. The materials by and about Julius Hirsch include printed material, correspondence, manuscript and published writings, and memos prepared for the Office of Price Administration. Edith Hirsch materials include some published economics materials and a narrative family history centered on her maternal grandparents, Rudolph Bernheim (1848-1941) and Sara Bernheim née Levy (1853-1934) of Hechingen, Germany. The collection also contains material of wider German-Jewish interest donated by Edith Hirsch.
Arrangement
This collection is arranged into two series. The arrangement differs from the previously prepared container list and index cards, found in folder 1. To allow documents cited according to the previous arrangement to be found, the folder number in the original container list is placed in parentheses after the folder titles. Folders without following numbers were not described in the original record. Index cards in folder 1/1 provide a more granular content list for the original collection.
Materials from related collections that were combined into this collection are noted as such in the scope note for a particular folder. See also Series II, Subseries 2: Collected Materials.
Other Finding Aid
Box 1 Folder 1 Index cards and original container list
Processing Information
The collection was renamed from the Julius Hirsch Collection to the Julius and Edith Hirsch Collection. The original arrangement was modified. Folders were rearranged and retitled. Documents within folders were not moved, but some folders were divided into multiple folders. Related collections were combined into this collection. The following collections were transferred into AR 1254 (all donated by Edith J. Hirsch): AR 3756, AR 6181, AR 2079, AR 3043, AR 3044, AR 3516, AR 3756. AR 3044, Fried & Alsberg Collection, had been transferred to the LBI Photograph Collection but was removed and integrated into this collection. See Series II for more information about these collections.
Folders and boxes were replaced. Acid-free paper was added between newspapers clippings. Original folders with additional information were photocopied and discarded. Exact duplicates within an individual folder were discarded.
Subject
- Hirsch, Edith, 1899- (Person)
- Hirsch, Julius, 1882-1961 (Person)
- United States. Office of Price Administration (Organization)
Genre / Form
Geographic
Occupation
- Title
- Guide to the Julius and Edith Hirsch Collection Undated, 1810-1982 , bulk 1942-1960 AR 1254
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Processed by Kevin Schlottmann
- Date
- © 2012
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Description is in English.
- Sponsor
- as part of the Leon Levy Archival Processing Initiative, made possible by the Leon Levy Foundation
Revision Statements
- December 05, 2013 : Links to digital objects added in Container List.
Repository Details
Part of the Leo Baeck Institute Repository
