Maryland Historical Magazine 57
MARYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE A Quarterly Volume-57 MARCH, 1962 Number 1 \ HENRIETTA SZOLD AND THE RUSSIAN IMMIGRANT SCHOOL By ALEXANDRA LEE LEVIN AFTER the repressive measures known as the May Laws of ^*- 1882 were directed against the Jews of Russia, a flood of East European Jews poured into the United States. This influx was so massive that the urban centers to which the immigrants flocked found their rapid absorption difficult. While Baltimore did not have as overwhelming a problem as New York's tene- ment sweat-shops, still there were problems here, too. Balti- more may not have had a Hester, a Ludlow, or an Essex Street, but it had its Exeter, High, Aisquith, East Baltimore and East Lombard Streets. The Jewish immigrants, freed for the first time from the oppression of centuries, threw themselves into the mad scramble of trying to establish themselves in a new country, and had little time or inclination for anything pertain- ing to culture. 1 2 MARYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE The fact that learning among the " People of the Book " had fallen to such a low ebb in America was a source of distress and uneasiness among some of the educated Jews, and the first person to take an active step in rectifying the situation in Baltimore was a twenty-nine-year-old school teacher, Miss Henrietta Szold. She had a full-time position at the Misses Adams' School for Girls at 222 West Madison Street, where she taught arithmetic, algebra, geometry, ancient history, botany, physiology, English, German, French, Latin, and whatever else was needed.
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