W. Louis Horowitz Collection 1887-2000

The W. Louis Horowitz Collection documents the professional work and academic interests of Professor Wolf Louis Horowitz. The collection is divided into two series: Personal Records and Manuscripts. Included in the first series is biographical information about the entire Horowitz family, articles and newspaper clippings concerning W. Louis Horowitz’s writings, and correspondence, which is mainly professional in nature. The bulk of the collection resides in the second series, Manuscripts. This series holds drafts and finished versions of Horowitz’s writings. The texts are predominantly hand-written in French, although there are some manuscripts in English and German. Judaism is the dominant topic, in particular the analysis of the role of Jewish people in an anthropological sense. Other subjects contained here are concerned with creationist theory and general histories of humanity. Of interest is the text (and several draft versions) of Horowitz’s book that was published posthumously in the United States, Letters to My Children.Wolf Louis Horowitz was born in 1866. A renowned writer and intellectual, he spent most of his professional career as an anthropology professor at a number of academic institutions, in particular Kings College in London. Horowitz used anthropological theories as a lens through which to analyze Judaism and its impact upon history. He was quite prolific and published all of his works himself. In addition to his academic pursuits, Horowitz was the founder and director of the United Teachings Institute. During World War II, Horowitz and his wife were taken to an internment center, where he died in 1946. His wife passed away soon after. W. Louis Horowitz had four children, three boys and one girl; however, there is little information about them in the records. One of his sons, Marcel Horowitz, immigrated to New York City before World War II and conducted a failed attempt to bring the rest of his family to the United States. W. Louis Horowitz's daughter, Pauline Sorkine, was interred in a concentration camp and eventually died there in 1941. Pauline had two children who lived in France and worked for the underground. Her son, Leo Serge Lazare Sorkine was killed during World War II, while her daughter, Charlotte Sorkine eventually immigrated to the United States.The finding aid for this collection is available online.digitize