SOLOMONS, ADOLPHUS SIMEON

SOLOMONS, ADOLPHUS SIMEON (1826–1910), U.S. leader in social welfare programs. Solomons, who was born in New York, as a young man helped found Mount Sinai Hospital. Moving to Washington in 1859, he did government printing, ran a bookstore, and maintained a photograph gallery. In 1871 he was elected to Washington d.c.'s House of Delegates. His greatest achievement was in the service of the American Red Cross, which he helped Clara Barton establish in 1881. While she was absent from Washington in 1883, he conducted the young organization's affairs from its Washington headquarters as second vice president and was described by her as "my good vice president and kind counselor." Solomons held this office for 12 years and represented the U.S. at the Red Cross conference in Geneva in 1884. Sent by President Chester A. Arthur as the U.S. representative to the International Red Cross convention in 1887, he was elected vice president of the convention. For 20 years Solomons was director of Columbia Hospital and Living In Asylum, also serving as an executive of many other health institutions. Of a religious bent, he was concerned with Jewish survival and served as acting president of the Jewish Theological Seminary Association (1902) and as a member of the central committee of the Alliance Israélite Universelle. Solomons became the champion of the new immigrants from Eastern Europe, and was appointed by Baron de Hirsch as general agent for the Baron de Hirsch Fund in the U.S.

bibliography:

A.V. Goodman, in: ajhsq, 59, no. 3 (1970), 331–56.

[Abram Vossen Goodman]