Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Rebecca Gratz (1781-1869), a Philadelphia philanthropist, founded the first Hebrew Sunday School in America and participated as a founding member in several other nonsectarian and Jewish charitable organizations which were among the first to be organized and run by women. Besides her good works, she is remembered today for her beauty, her thwarted love affair with a non-Jew and the persistent story that she was the inspiration for the character of Rebecca in Scott's novel Ivanhoe.
Subscribe Now: Feed Icon
Labels
- Alfred Mordecai (2)
- America Vespucci (1)
- Art (1)
- Atheism (1)
- Bar Mitzvah (1)
- Barbary Pirates (1)
- Baseball (1)
- Benjamin Gratz (10)
- biographical inaccuracies (3)
- bipolar disorder (3)
- Blair Family (2)
- Bonaparte family (1)
- breeching (2)
- Caroline Murat (1)
- Cary Gratz (2)
- character sketch (2)
- charities (2)
- Charles Dickens (2)
- Christmas (2)
- Civil War (7)
- Dances (2)
- death (1)
- education (2)
- Edward Greene Malbone (1)
- Eliza Fenno (4)
- Elizabeth Blair Lee (1)
- Evangelicalism (3)
- family size (1)
- Fanny Kemble (4)
- Feast of Tabernacles (1)
- Female Association (4)
- First Troop (1)
- Francis Preston Blair (3)
- ghosts (1)
- Gilbert Stuart (1)
- Gothic Novels (1)
- government jobs (2)
- Hanukkah (2)
- Harriet Fenno (1)
- Hebrew (1)
- Hebrew Sunday School (3)
- Illinois Company (1)
- Isaac Leeser (1)
- Ivanhoe (2)
- James Kirke Paulding (1)
- Jo Shelby (1)
- John Wesley Jarvis (1)
- Joseph Gratz (1)
- Judaism (1)
- Julia Hoffman (1)
- M. L. Moses (1)
- male entitlement (1)
- Maria Cecil Gist (8)
- Maria Fenno Hoffman (1)
- Masonic Hall fire (1)
- Matilda Hoffman (1)
- Miriam Gratz (1)
- mixed marriages (1)
- monotheism (1)
- naming traditions (2)
- Native Americans (2)
- Nullification (1)
- nursing (2)
- opera (1)
- Passover (1)
- Philadelphia Orphan Asylum (1)
- piano (1)
- poetry (3)
- politics (1)
- Port Folio (1)
- portraits (11)
- puns (1)
- Rachel Gratz (4)
- Rebecca Gratz Club (2)
- Religious Freedom (1)
- Robert Fulton (1)
- Rosenbach Museum and Library (2)
- Rosh Hashanah (1)
- Sabbath (1)
- Samuel Ewing (7)
- Sarah Gratz (4)
- scandals (1)
- servants (3)
- Shinah Schuyler (1)
- siblings (1)
- slavery (4)
- sleighs (1)
- Solomon Cohen (2)
- Solomon Moses (3)
- Sukkot (1)
- swimming (1)
- telegraph (1)
- theater (1)
- Thomas Sully (7)
- transportation (4)
- volunteer fire companies (1)
- War of 1812 (1)
- Washington Irving (7)
- weddings (1)
- William Henry Furness (1)
- women's fashions (3)
- Yom Kippur (1)
- Youthful romance (5)
Followers
About Me
- Susan Sklaroff
- I discovered Rebecca Gratz when I became a docent at the Rosenbach Museum & Library which has a lovely portrait of her by Thomas Sully. To learn more, I began to read the hundreds of Gratz family letters which survive in libraries around the country and found wonderful stories about Rebecca as well as information about customs, events and technological changes of her time. I cannot fit all this material into the talks I give on Rebecca nor into my proposed book. This blog makes it accessible to those who are interested in Rebecca Gratz and antebellum America.
No comments:
Post a Comment