Scope and Content Note
The papers of club woman and social reformer Hannah Greenebaum Solomon (1858-1942) span the years 1817-1986, with the bulk of the material dating from 1892 to 1942. The collection largely concerns Solomon's founding of the National Council of Jewish Women and complements the records of the council's national and Washington, D.C., offices, also held by the Library of Congress Manuscript Division. Solomon’s papers contain correspondence, organizational records, speeches and writings, biographical information, genealogical material, family papers, photographs, a scrapbook, and printed matter arranged alphabetically by subject or type of material.
A number of items relate to the founding of the National Council of Jewish Women at the Jewish Women's Congress convened in 1893 as part of the World's Parliament of Religions during the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Included is correspondence from Solomon's chairmanship of the congress's organizing committee, papers delivered at the congress, an attendance register, and drafts of a resolution calling for the establishment of a national organization of Jewish women. The first five decades of the National Council of Jewish Women are recorded through convention proceedings, reports, and printed matter. Committee and department records document many of the organization’s activities, including those related to community welfare, contemporary Jewish affairs, education, immigrant and refugee assistance, international relations, and social legislation.
Perhaps the most revealing source on the council's early years is correspondence from and concerning Sadie American, the organization's first secretary. Written largely by American to Solomon, the correspondence concerns the establishment of local sections and the development of a national program. It also reveals a rift between the two women, in part over the focus of the council's work, and exposes tensions within the organization which eventually led to the secession of several local chapters.
Drafts and fragments of Solomon's speeches and writings fill a gap caused by the paucity of Solomon's outgoing correspondence in the papers. They cover a wide variety of subjects, including the council's programs and history, the growth of women's organizations, and the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany.
The papers contain limited amounts of material on Solomon's life beyond the National Council of Jewish Women. A small number of reports and printed items relate to her involvement in other civic and women's organizations, notably the Park Ridge School for Girls in Illinois and the Chicago Woman's Club. A European trip made by Solomon and her family in 1904 to attend the International Council of Women in Berlin and to celebrate the Solomons' twenty-fifth wedding anniversary is documented by photographs and a scrapbook. Handbills and other election ephemera are included from her two unsuccessful campaigns for trustee of the University of Illinois. Biographical information is also contained in clippings, personal sketches, eulogies, plays based on her life, and genealogies.