Kohn, Esther Loeb (1875-1965)

Image

Item Relations

Member of (7)
Mentions (1)
Received by (23)
Mentioned in (20)
Comments (0)

American Committee for the Relief of Russian Women and Children

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC)

International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace (ICWPP)

League for the Protection of Immigrants

Illinois Child Labor Committee

Mary Rozet Smith to Esther Loeb Kohn, September 16, 1911

Mary Rozet Smith to Esther Loeb Kohn, March 1, 1913

Mary Rozet Smith to Esther Loeb Kohn, September 9, 1913

Jane Addams to Esther Loeb Kohn, September 12, 1916

Jane Addams to Esther Loeb Kohn, September 18, 1916

Jane Addams to Esther Loeb Kohn, November 29, 1916

Jane Addams to Esther Loeb Kohn, April 1, 1917

Jane Addams to Esther Loeb Kohn, August 9, 1917

Jane Addams to Esther Loeb Kohn, August 22, 1917

Mary Rozet Smith to Esther Loeb Kohn, December 20, 1918

Sophonisba P. Breckinridge to Jane Addams et al., March 7, 1919

Mary Rozet Smith to Esther Loeb Kohn, August 18, 1920

Mary Rozet Smith to Esther Loeb Kohn, September 11, 1920

Mary Rozet Smith to Esther Loeb Kohn, August 22, 1921

Jane Addams to Esther Loeb Kohn, March 19, 1923

William Fisher Byron to Esther Loeb Kohn, June 1923

Jane Addams to Esther Loeb Kohn, January 6, 1924

Jane Addams and Mary Rozet Smith to Esther Loeb Kohn, August 29, 1924

Jane Addams to Esther Loeb Kohn, August 30, 1924

Mary Rozet Smith to Esther Loeb Kohn, August 30, 1924

Mary Rozet Smith note, August 30, 1924

Jane Addams to Esther Loeb Kohn, 1926

Jane Addams to Esther Loeb Kohn, July 29, 1926

Jane Addams to Julia Clifford Lathrop, June 1911

Jane Addams to Julia Clifford Lathrop, June 20, 1911

Jane Addams to Mary Rozet Smith, August 29, 1917

Jane Addams to Anna Marcet Haldeman-Julius, May 13, 1918

Relief for Russian Women and Children, 1920

List of Members Attending the American Section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Meeting , April 23-24, 1920

Florence Taylor to Jane Addams, July 30, 1920

Announcement of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom's Third International Congress, April 25, 1921

Jane Addams to Beryl Fouts, March 9, 1922

Caroline Foulke Urie to Jane Addams, February 4, 1924

Jane Addams to Salmon Oliver Levinson, March 14, 1924

Jane Addams to John Stewart Burgess, August 29, 1924

Mary Rozet Smith to Lucy Monroe Calhoun, August 30, 1924

Jane Addams to Agatha Mary Harrison, September 1, 1924

Lillian D. Wald to Jane Addams, ca. January 1925

Jane Addams to Esther Loeb Kohn, June 17, 1925

Gertrude Stevens Ayres to Jane Addams, November 17, 1925

Edith Abbott to Jane Addams, November 10, 1926

Albert Arnold Sprague to Julius Rosenwald, December 4, 1926

Mary A. Byles Maynard to Jane Addams, December 8, 1926

Comments

Birth Date

1875-01-12

Death Date

1965-09-01

Birthplace

Chicago, IL

Biographical Text

Esther Loeb Kohn was a member of a well-off Jewish family who dedicated her life and career to charity and serving others. She began taking classes at the University of Chicago before she followed her husband to Europe. While abroad, Kohn studied and trained in music and singing at the University of Vienna, as well as in Munich and Paris. Once she returned to the States, she continued at the University of Chicago. Unexpectedly widowed, she became a full-time resident of the Hull-House in 1911. Kohn was responsible for overseeing the settlement's volunteerism efforts, as well as activities for the children of Hull-House, even running a summer camp in Waukegan. She was often the person left in charge when Jane Addams was traveling. Passionate about child welfare, Kohn also spearheaded a trade school exclusively for girls who had been forced to leave school. Kohn fought for child labor laws and was active on the Illinois Child Labor Committee and was appointed to be a delegate for the Conference on Child Welfare at the White House. Kohn was active in serving the Jewish community and, over the course of 1921 to 1941, she served as the director, vice president, and president of the Jewish Social Service Bureau of Jewish Charities. During and following World War II, she joined both the Chicago Committee on Displaced Persons and the American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. At the same time, Kohn, who had attended the Vienna Peace Conference in 1921, was involved in the Committee on War Problems, the Chicago Committee Against Rearming Europe and a longtime member of the International League for Peace and Freedom. After Jane Addams's death in 1935, Kohn became a leader of Hull House, but administrative disagreements caused her to leave the establishment.

Kohn married Alfred D. Kohn in 1894. Kohn died in 1965.

Occupation

Charity worker

Child welfare activist

Settlement house resident

Singer

Social welfare activist

Social worker

Volunteer

Source

Picture: U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925

Collection

People

Map

Edited By

DeLora, Renee

Biebrich, Caitlin

Rights

Rightsholder being researched

Gender

Female

First appears

1911

Bibliography and Links

American Relief For Russian Woman and Children, Word and Way September 22, 1921, p. 15

Consecrate Every Day: The Public Lives of Jewish American Women, 1880-1980, June Sochen, SUNY Press, 2012

Esther L Kohn, Cook County, Illinois Death Index, 1908-1988

Esther L Kohn, U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925

Esther Loeb Kohn, Jane Addams Memorial Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago, Edith Abbott and Grace Abbott

Esther Loeb Kohn, Jewish Women's Archive

Honors to Hymen, The Inter Ocean December 27, 1894, p. 8

SNAC

Citation

“Kohn, Esther Loeb (1875-1965),” Jane Addams Digital Edition, accessed September 16, 2024, https://mail.digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu/items/show/3383.