In this issue...
Memoirs: Annie Jacobs Davis

Spear & Company catalog

Jericho Lodge No. 44

The A. P. Moore Club

Help Wanted

Community News
Memoirs:
Annie Jacobs Davis
Page from original manuscript of Annie Jacobs Davis' autobiography, c. 1940.
—from Annie Jacobs Davis Papers [MSP 286]
Accomplishments can encourage a type of anonymity. Obituaries are good at listing accolades and affiliations but often struggle to capture a personality.

When Annie Jacobs Davis died in 1952, the American Jewish Outlook's obituary noted all the best-known aspects of her career: She had founded the Ladies Hospital Aid Society. She had helped bring B’nai Israel Congregation into existence. She had led the Jewish Home for Babies and Children, the Pittsburgh chapter of Hadassah and other organizations. Her children and grandchildren had become leaders throughout the local Jewish community.

But when it came to Annie Jacobs Davis' essence—to who she was as a person—the obituary merely noted, “To whatever endeavor she touched, Mrs. Davis gave a unique warmth and sincerity, and sorely needed inspiration.” 

What is “unique warmth and sincerity?” What is “inspiration?”
Annie Jacobs Davis (seated right) holding a cigar box with donations to the Hebrew Ladies Hospital Aid Society, undated.
—from Montefiore Hospital Photographs [MSP 286]
Annie Jacobs Davis answered those questions. Sometime around 1940, at the request of a granddaughter, she wrote out the story of her life by hand. This manuscript was typed and edited to create a 323-page account of a singular life in this community.

Beginning with her childhood in Russia and carrying through her decades in Pittsburgh, Davis recalls moments from her life as a communal leader, a volunteer, a religious Jew, a neighbor, a mother, a wife, a businesswoman, and a person. 

She provides historical insights found in few other places: How exactly did Montefiore Hospital come into existence? What was the relationship between Reform and Orthodox wings of the Jewish community in the late 19th and early 20th century? How did immigrant Jews get along with their non-Jewish neighbors? What were the expectations of wives toward husbands, parents toward children, and congregants toward their rabbis? 
But beyond that, Davis shares herself. 

We meet a woman who is humble and selfless, yet also willing to take credit for her accomplishments. Who respects authority while sidestepping it. Who worked to make life easier for others but seemed to believe that the world was better when it was harder.

Her warmth and sincerity comes through in one anecdote from her charitable life. The financial panics of the 1890s had upended her husband’s growing diamond business, forcing him into peddling for a time. They had four children to feed and growing household expenses.
Annie Jacobs Davis, undated
—from Montefiore Hospital Photographs [MSP 286]
“One day two women came for a donation for some poor family. I gave them my usual gift. My husband saw this so he said, ‘Annie, you will have to cut this out, we cannot afford this.’ ‘I will cut out anything you say, but remember once you gave me the privilege to give what my heart and mind prompted me to give and now is the time for me to use that privilege. If we are hard up, how much more are these poor people who have no reserve. So please take heart, the good God will help. These hard times can not last forever. All will be well with us again.’ After two years things began to pick up.”
Next week: Louis Green remembers World War I

All year, the Rauh Jewish Archives is highlighting memoirs of Jewish life in Western Pennsylvania. If you would like to donate a memoir, or just chat about the stories you've read, contact the archive or call 412-454-6406.
New Collection:
Spear & Company
30th anniversary catalog
Spear & Company catalog, 1923
—2018.0158
Nathaniel Spear (1867-1947) came to Pittsburgh in 1893 after learning the mercantile trade in his native Ohio and in Chicago. He founded the furniture store Spear & Company with a group of partners. From one store downtown, Spear & Company grew into a retail chain, with two stores in Pittsburgh and five in New York City. 

Seth Glick donated the Spear & Company 30th anniversary catalog (1923) to the archive in 2018. By itself, the catalog gives a sense of the flashy retail spirit of the 1920s in Pittsburgh. Read alongside the five other Spear & Company catalogs in the Rauh Jewish Archives, it documents one local business as well as larger trends in retailing.
Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania:
B’nai B’rith Jericho Lodge No. 44
—from Jewish Criterion, Dec. 13, 1912
Jericho Lodge No. 44 was the first chapter of the International Order of B’nai B’rith fraternal organization in Western Pennsylvania. It was chartered in December 1862, operating under Grand District Lodge No. 3 in Philadelphia.

It grew to include several hundred members and contributed at least three presidents to the Grand District Lodge. It merged with the local Saar Sholem Lodge No. 154 and Abraham Lippman Lodge No. 672 in 1921 to create Pittsburgh Lodge No. 44—the only lodge in Pittsburgh proper until 1939.

The entry for B’nai B’rith Jericho Lodge No. 44 includes a list of charter members, a selection of newspaper articles, and links to several relevant collections of archival materials. It also includes a comprehensive database of every known B’nai B’rith lodge in Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
The Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania brings together numerous online resources into a clearinghouse for conducting research about Jewish history in this region. As we migrate information to this new website, we’ll be announcing new entries and resources in this section of the newsletter.
Club:
The A. P. Moore Club
The A. P. Moore Club was a Jewish boys club in Pittsburgh. It was started around 1920 by a group of Jewish 10-year-old boys in the Hill District. 

The A. P. Moore Club regularly hosted galas, dances, field trips, and variety shows, and it participated in local debating leagues. For at least two years in the early 1930s, the club sponsored the A. P. Moore Club Trophy for debating. One of the stars of the A. P. Moore Club team was Moe Rubenstein, who later became a starting player on the Geneva College basketball team and a successful football, basketball and baseball coach at Ambridge High School.
"Clubs" was the theme of our 2021 collecting initiative. If you would like to donate records of a Jewish club from Western Pennsylvania, please email to archive at rjarchives@heinzhistorycenter.org or call 412-454-6406.
Help Wanted
The Rauh Jewish Archives is seeking two volunteers with basic Hebrew literacy skills to help us transcribe and transliterate gravestone inscriptions and yahrzeit plaques. (If you can read the Hebrew name and date on the photograph above, you’ll do fine.) We're asking for an initial commitment of at least four hours per month for no less than one month, but there is plenty of additional work for those who enjoy doing it. Work can be done remotely.

If you can help, email us or call 412-454-6406.
Community News
Dor Hadash calling for Bat Mitzvah photographs
Congregation Dor Hadash is asking the community for photographs of bat mitzvah celebrations past and present. The materials will be used as part of an upcoming celebration of the 100th anniversary of the first bat mitzvah in 1922.

The centennial weekend on March 19-20 will include speakers, workshops, and chances for people to share their personal experiences. To contribute or to learn more, contact the congregation at batmitzvah100@dorhadash.net.
Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project
The home page of the new Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project website, hosted by Carnegie Mellon University Libraries. The redesigned website is launching this month.
By now, you're probably expertly zipping around the new Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project platform. But if you still need a little help navigating the features and tools of the website, the Rauh Jewish Archives recently contributed a brief explanatory article to the Jewish Chronicle. It provides some basic tips and techniques for conducting research using the new site.

We plan to provide a live virtual training workshop in the near future to review the website and its functionalities. Until then, we are here to help you troubleshoot problems. You can contact the archive or call 412-454-6406.
Tell your friends!
[IMAGE: Marian Schreiber and employees at the Schreiber Trucking Company, c.1943—from Schreiber Family Papers and Photographs, MSS 846.]

If you like this newsletter, why not forward it to a friend? We want to share the story of Western Pennsylvania Jewish history with as many people as possible.

If you've received this newsletter from a friend or neighbor, and you want to read more, just click on the link below to start receiving future editions.
The Rauh Jewish Archives was founded on November 1, 1988 to collect, preserve, and make accessible the documentary history of Jews and Jewish communities of Western Pennsylvania. You can help the RJHPA continue its work by making a donation that will directly support the work being done in Western Pa.
Plan a Visit

Senator John Heinz History Center
1212 Smallman Street
Pittsburgh, Pa. 15222
412-454-6000

A proud affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the Senator John Heinz History Center is the largest history museum in Pennsylvania and presents American history with a Western Pennsylvania connection.