Adler
Adler names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Adler CYRUS, an American educator and theologian
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
CYRUS, an American educator and theologian; born in Van Buren, Ark., in 1863. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1883. After post-graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University, he became librarian of the Smithsonian Institution in 1892, serving until 1905. He was curator of historic archæology and historical religions in the United States National Museum from 1889 to 1908. In the latter year he became president of Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning. He was president of the Board of Directors of the Jewish The Theological Seminary of America and from 1890 president of this institution, and served as special commissioner to Turkey, Egypt, and other countries. He wrote many articles on Semitic philology and allied subjects, was one of the editors of the "Jewish Encyclopedia," and chairman of the Board of Editors of the "New Jewish Translation of the Bible."
Adler FELIX, an American lecturer and scholar
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
FELIX, an American lecturer and scholar; born at Alzey, Germany, 1851. The son of an eminent Jewish rabbi, he emigrated when young to the United States, where, and at Berlin and Heidelberg, he was educated. After being for some time professor at Cornell University, he founded in New York (1876) the Society of Ethical Culture, of which he is lecturer. Similar societies have been established elsewhere in the United States and in other countries. He is an effective writer and speaker. Since 1902 he has been professor of political and social ethics at Columbia University. During 1908-1909 he was the Roosevelt exchange professor at the University of Berlin. He is chairman of the National Child Labor Commission. He has published a number of books on religion and social and political ethics.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Both men described here in the present tense by Collier's in 1921 have since died: Cyrus Adler in 1940, Felix Adler in 1933. Cyrus Adler went on to hold the presidency of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America outright from 1924 until his death, and his Jewish Publication Society Bible, issued in 1917, remained the standard American Jewish English scripture until it was superseded by the new JPS translation of 1962-1982; Dropsie College, of which he was the first president, closed as a degree-granting institution and its library and endowment passed to the University of Pennsylvania in 1986. Felix Adler's Society for Ethical Culture, founded in 1876, still exists as part of the American Ethical Union and joined the International Humanist and Ethical Union in 1952, and its Fieldston School in New York remains well known; the National Child Labor Committee he chaired saw its cause carried into federal law by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
Written for this edition, 2026.