Background
Cyrus was born on July 11, 1858 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States and was the son of Leopold and Sophia (Lindauer) Sulzberger and a first cousin of Mayer Sulzberger.
activist merchant philanthropist
Cyrus was born on July 11, 1858 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States and was the son of Leopold and Sophia (Lindauer) Sulzberger and a first cousin of Mayer Sulzberger.
Sulzberger was educated at the Hebrew Education Society, and the Philadelphia Central High School.
In 1877 he removed to New York to become bookkeeper of the textile importing firm of N. Erlanger, Blumgart & Company, of which he became a member in 1891, president in 1902, and chairman of the board in 1929.
His work in this field coincided with the peak years of immigration; in his statement and testimony before the Congressional Immigration Commission, Mar. 11, 1910, he was able to show that the Industrial Removal Office, in the period 1902-09, had sent 45, 711 immigrants from New York City into 1, 278 towns and cities.
A deep student of immigration problems, he was also an able spokesman for the continued liberalization of the laws governing entry into the United States, recognizing, while laboring to this end, the necessity of providing for the distribution and Americanization of immigrants. Besides his chairmanship of the Industrial Removal Office he was president (1903-09 and 1919 - 21) of the Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society, which helped in placing some 80, 000 Jews on farms in the United States.
In October 1910 Governor Charles E. Hughes appointed him a member of the New York state commission on congestion of population, which presented a report in February 1911 recommending legislation to create a permanent commission on distribution of population; to provide for an inquiry into manufacturing in tenement homes; to inaugurate the annual publication of a directory of industrial opportunities to promote the spread of factories to a greater number of towns; and to furnish additional facilities whereby the state labor department might permanently spread the supply of laboring population to avoid excessive unemployment in congested communities.
A leader in civic reform, he ran for public office only once, as candidate for president of the Borough of Manhattan, New York City, on the unsuccessful Fusion ticket of 1903.
Cyrus Lindauer Sulzberger was one of the founders of the Young Men's Hebrew Association of Philadelphia. He was one of the organizers in 1900 and chairman of the Industrial Removal Office, an organization with branches in 108 cities in the United States, which endeavored to relieve the congestion of Jewish immigrants in New York City by aiding them to settle in other localities. Sulzberger's activity in organized philanthropy included service as president of the United Hebrew Charities of New York (1908) and of the National Conference of Jewish Charities (1912 - 14), as member of the executive committee of the American Jewish Committee in 1907 and its secretary in 1914-15 when that organization collected vast sums for the relief of Jews overseas, and as trustee of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies of New York City (1919).
He was a member of the Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society. He was also a member of the Young Men's Hebrew Association of Philadelphia.
Despite his high responsibilities, he was a self-effacing man who preferred labor to the honor of office. With vigor and intelligence he applied a broadly social mind to philanthropy, and his constructive ideas supplied the motivation of many activities carried on in the names of others.
He married, May 13, 1884, Rachel Peixotto Hays, by whom he had five children. Two sons, with his wife, survived him.
