- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"10.12 linear feet", "unit"=>"linear feet"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"25 boxes", "unit"=>"containers"}], "supress_display"=>true}
- unitid
-
{"value"=>"MssCol 17921", "type"=>"local_call"}
{"value"=>"17921", "type"=>"local_mss"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1837-1976", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1837/1976"}
{"value"=>"1876-1948", "type"=>"bulk", "normal"=>"1876/1948"}
- date_inclusive_start
-
1837
- date_inclusive_end
-
1976
- keydate
-
1837
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Schwimmer family papers"}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"corpname\">The New York Public Library. <span class=\"subarea\">Manuscripts and Archives Division</span></span> <div class=\"address\"><span class=\"addressline\">New York, New York</span></div>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"The collection documents the personal and professional lives of three siblings, Rosika, Franciska and Béla Schwimmer, as well as that of their parents, Max and Bertha, and one child, Vilma, from the 1880s through the 1940s. Correspondence between family, family friends and colleagues represents the bulk of the materials. In addition, there are vital records, school notebooks, writings, clippings, operetta librettos, programs, research notes towards Franciska's book, <span class=\"title\">Great Musicians as Children</span>, and a few photographs."}
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"<p>Schwimmer family papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library</p>"}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"Schwimmer family", "type"=>"famname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Schwimmer family was consisted of three generations of individuals who lived in Hungary, the United States, and Austria during the 19th and 20th centuries. The first generation consisted of Bertha Katscher (1856-1927) and her husband Max Schwimmer (1845-1922), both from secular Jewish, upper middle class backgrounds. Bertha and Max had three children: Rosika (1877-1948), Béla (1879-1934), and Franciska (1880-1963). Béla married Marie Karp and had one child, Vilma (1921-1948. Rosika and Franciska would become Vilma's guardians in 1935 following Béla's death.</p> <p>Bertha Katscher (or Berta Kácser) was born on December 9, 1856 in Temesvár (then Hungary, now Timisoara in Romania) to Rosalia Engel Katscher and Ignaz Katscher, who had married in 1852 in Makó, Hungary. Among Bertha's brothers and sisters were Leopold Katscher, noted pacifist, lawyer and journalist, and Helen Kohlbach.</p> <p>Max (Miksa or Maximilian) Bernát Schwimmer was born on November 5, 1845 in Szeged to Bernát (Bernhard) Schwimmer and his first wife. Max and his brothers, as well as their father and grandfather, bought and sold horses to Turkey and Balkan states. The Schwimmer brothers also had a farm, orchards, flour mills, and a distillery. Max trained as an agriculturist and experimented with corn on the family farm in Temesvár, but generally identified himself as a merchant on official documentation.</p> <p>Bertha and Max married on January 16, 1877 in Temesvár. Shortly thereafter, due to Max's failing health, they moved to Budapest where they started a business of their own and had their first child. Once Max's health had improved, they returned to Temesvár where he reentered business with his brothers, and they had their second and third children. Bertha, an atheist, and Max, an agnostic, did not emphasize religion in the children's upbringing. Music, however, was central in the household, and the entire family would often sing and play music together in the evenings. The family eventually moved to Szabadka (today Subotica in Serbia), where the three Schwimmer siblings spent their teens. In the late 1890s, Max's brother Adolf and family in-fighting bankrupted the Schwimmers, and they moved back to Budapest. Max died in Budapest on January 4, 1922. Bertha emigrated with her daughter to the United States in 1922, and she died on October 29, 1927 in New York.</p> <p>Max and Bertha's first child, Rosika (Rózsa, Rózsika), was born on September 11, 1877. For biographical information on Rosika see the finding aid for the Rosika Schwimmer papers: http://www.nypl.org/archives/2500</p> <p>Béla (Bernhard), their second child, was born on January 4, 1879. By May 1915, Béla was serving in the Austro-Hungarian military as a commandant of a Red Cross train, and in January 1920, he was discharged from service. Béla was professionally involved in the theater and cabaret world, primarily as a writer. He frequently used the last name of Sarlay or Sarlai, which may have functioned as a stage name or pen name. In Budapest, he was the secretary of the Royal Orfeum during S.Z. Sakall's directorship (1913-1920); he also worked at Endre Nagy's and László Beöthy's theaters. Later he lived in Vienna, Austria, working as a playwright and movie producer and writing operettas. He married Marie (Mitzi) Karp, and their daughter, Vilma, was born in 1921. By September 1926 they were divorced. Béla died in December 1934 in Vienna.</p> <p>Franciska (Franzi), born October 22, 1880, graduated from the National Music Academy in Budapest and became a piano and music teacher, consciously deciding against a life as a concert pianist or composer. Throughout her career she taught private students, both children and adults. From about 1914 to 1922, she was a music teacher for disabled children at the Gyógypedagógiai Gyermekszanatórium in Budapest, and she also taught piano at a municipal high school in Budapest. In the 1910s, especially surrounding the 1913 International Woman Suffrage Alliance Congress in Budapest, she assisted her sister in feminist organization activities, and was close to a number of figures in the Hungarian and international women's movement. In 1922, she emigrated with her mother to the United States to join her sister, arriving on August 4th. She financially supported her mother, herself and her sister through her work as a piano teacher in Chicago and then in New York. Commissioned by Doubleday Doran & Co, she wrote the book <span class=\"title\">Great Musicians as Children</span> (1929), with the intention of introducing children to musicians by presenting them as they were in childhood. Beginning in 1926 and until their deaths, Franciska lived together with her sister on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Edith Wynner, their assistant and protégé, joined them in the apartment in 1941. Franciska died in New York on December 20, 1963.</p> <p>Vilma Mitzi Schwimmer was born to Béla Schwimmer and Marie Karp in Vienna on March 20, 1921. After her father died, her estranged mother transferred custody and guardianship of Vilma to the Schwimmer sisters, and Vilma emigrated to New York City in 1935. While working in Georgia she met Edward James Cain. They married in Brooklyn in 1944 but were separated by the end of the same year and divorced in 1947 in Texas. Vilma died of a seizure in New York the following year.</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The collection documents the personal and professional lives of three siblings, Rosika, Franciska and Béla Schwimmer, as well as that of their parents, Max and Bertha, and one child, Vilma, from the 1880s through the 1940s. Correspondence between family, family friends and colleagues represents the bulk of the materials. In addition, there are vital records, school notebooks, writings, clippings, operetta librettos, programs, research notes towards Franciska's book, <span class=\"title\">Great Musicians as Children</span>, and a few photographs. The papers were collected by Rosika and Franciska Schwimmer.</p> <p>The collection will enrich any examination of Hungarian or international women's and peace movements between the 1890s and 1920s. Correspondence among family members, especially from Leopold Katscher and prominent feminist colleagues close to the family, reflects Rosika Schwimmer's ascent and fall on the international stage of feminist and pacifist activism. Also documented are Béla's experiences during World War I and Franciska's work as a piano teacher and use of music teaching to help children with behavioral and learning issues. Most broadly the collection chronicles a Hungarian family after their shift away from Jewish traditions into atheism and agnosticism, that family's struggles with finances from the 1890s until their deaths, and their post-WWI migration from Hungary to the United States.</p> <p>Until the early 1920s, the material is primarily in Hungarian and German, and thereafter increasingly in English. Bertha Schwimmer's correspondence with her children is generally in German, written in old German script. Leopold Katscher's correspondence to Rosika is often in English, sometimes in German. Correspondence between Rosika and Franciska is usually in Hungarian. A few items in the collection are in French, Dutch and Hebrew.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The Schwimmer family papers are arranged in four series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/17921#c108552'>Series I: Schwimmer Family</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1837-1946</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>9 boxes</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series primarily contains materials exchanged between immediate Schwimmer family members, extended family members, and family friends. Family material stops just after Rosika's death in 1948, when Franciska became the last surviving Schwimmer. See Series II for Franciska's writings on family history, as well as writings on family history she received from other family members in the 1950s and early 1960s.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/17921#c108599'>Series II: Franciska Schwimmer</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1890-1963</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>12 boxes</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series contains material generated or received by Franciska Schwimmer within the context of her own personal and professional life, usually outside the family, with the notable exception in Subseries C of family history writings she wrote or received from a few extended family members in the years between Rosika's death and her own.</p> <p>For Franciska Schwimmer's correspondence, 1948-1963, concerning her participation in the movement for world government, see the guide to the Schwimmer-Lloyd collection.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/17921#c108666'>Series III: Bela Schwimmer</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1887-1949</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>3 boxes</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series contains personal and professional papers the Schwimmer sisters received from Béla directly or from his contacts after his death in 1934. Items include operetta librettos, school notebooks, military records, certificates, and correspondence with or about his daughter Vilma. Béla authored the librettos, some of which the Schwimmer sisters translated and tried to find publishers and producers for in the U.S.</p> <p>The bulk of his correspondence with his family members can be found in Series I. For his research assistance on and translations of Franciska's Great Musicans as Children, see Series II.</p> <p>Correspondence related to Vilma is restricted until 2044.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/17921#c108690'>Series IV: Vilma Schwimmer</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1926-1978</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>4 boxes</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series consists of materials the Schwimmer sisters collected which were from, received by, or related to their niece Vilma Schwimmer, including correspondence, clippings, vital records, schoolwork, and drawings. Correspondents include the Schwimmer siblings, Vilma, Marie Karp Schwimmer, Edward James Cain, Marguerite Gobat, and Lola Maverick Lloyd. This series is restricted until 2044.</p></div></li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}
- arrangement
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Schwimmer family papers are organized in the following series: Series I. Schwimmer Family, 1837-1949 Series II. Franciska Schwimmer, 1887-1968 Series III: Béla Schwimmer, 1880s-1935, 1949 Series IV: Vilma Schwimmer, 1926-1978</p>", "supress_display"=>true}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Donated by Rosika and Franciska Schwimmer beginning in 1944 as part of the Schwimmer-Lloyd collection.</p>"}
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Compiled by Rachel Miller.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p>Rosika's Schwimmer's materials unrelated to the family were added to the Rosika Schwimmer papers.</p>"}
- accessrestrict
-
{"value"=>"<p>Vilma Schwimmer papers closed until 2044.</p>"}
- relatedmaterial
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"archref\">Edith Wynner papers. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.</span> <span class=\"archref\">Kohlbach - Bickel family papers. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.</span> <span class=\"archref\">Leopold and Berta Katscher papers. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.</span> <span class=\"archref\">Rosika Schwimmer papers. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.</span> <span class=\"archref\">Schwimmer-Lloyd collection. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.</span>"}
- extent_statement
-
10.12 linear feet (25 boxes)
- date_start
-
1837
- date_end
-
1976
- date_bulk_start
-
1876
- date_bulk_end
-
1948