Collections

The collection of Cantor Shabtai Ackerman consists of manuscript music, print music, personal songbooks, personal papers, programs, and pictures relating to his professional life as a cantor. Music books have been cataloged and relocated to Rare Books. Audio recordings have been relocated to Judaica Sound Archives. Cantor Ackerman was a world-renowned cantor with a powerful dramatic tenor voice. He was wounded by the Nazis in World War II and chanted services in the great Moscow Synagogue as a refugee in 1945. After the War, he was appointed permanent Cantor of the Baron De Rothschild and Ahavas Achim (Fraterna) Synagogue in Bucharest. He also served as Chief Cantor for the Great Synagogue of Tel-Aviv, Congregation Beth Abraham Hillel Moses in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and Temple Beth Israel in Deerfield Beach, Florida. He received an honorary doctoral degree in music from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where scholarships in his name have since been established. Cantor Ackerman received two Kavod awards from the Cantors Assembly of America. He passed away on July 27, 2007.

The collection of Cantor William W. Lipson consists of sheet music, manuscript music, print music, and papers relating to his professional life as a cantor. Music books have been cataloged and relocated to Rare Books.  William W. Lipson (1921-2009) was Cantor Emeritus of Beth David Congregation, Miami, where he served for 30 years. He was named a Fellow in the Cantors Assembly of America, of which he was a Charter Member, and was recognized with an honorary doctorate from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America for his lifetime of outstanding professional service. He passed away on September 22, 2009 in Atlanta.

FAU's Cross Country & Running Team

This collection consists of 224 photographs used by Dr. Donald W. Curl when writing his book, "Florida Atlantic University," Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Press, 2000.  This collection of photographs were gathered by Dr. Curl from the University Archives Photograph Collections. The selected photographs represent the period from 1960's through the FAU administration of Dr. Anthony James Catanese. Most photographs have information written by an unknown person on the protective sleeve, and, in some cases, the information was identified by the archivist as incorrect. Other information on the protective sleeve may also be incorrect.

Heather T. Frazer (1940 – 2016) was a professor of history at Florida Atlantic University. After graduating from Connecticut College for her undergraduate studies, she attained a M.A. and Ph.D. from Duke University in South Asian History. In 1971, she became the first female faculty member in the FAU history department where she taught for 35 years before retiring in 2006. During her tenure she served as Department Chair and Director of Graduate Studies. She also pioneered the study of women's history at FAU, helping establish the Women's Studies program, which is now the Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Dr. Frazer taught courses in women's history, modern Britain and British Empire, Indian history, and oral history. She researched and published in the fields of India and women's history, and co-authored with her colleague, Dr. John O'Sullivan, We Have Just Begun to Not Fight: An Oral History of Conscientious Objectors in Civilian Public Service during World War II (1996). In 1988, she received a Fulbright Fellowship and spent part of the year in India. In 1990, she was selected FAU's Distinguished Teacher of the Year, the highest teaching award conferred by the university, and one selected exclusively by the students. Upon her retirement she was named Professor Emerita of History.

John D. Early is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Florida Atlantic University. Dr. Early joined the faculty of the Anthropology Department in 1969. He was chair of the department for several years and retired in 1993. His educational background includes a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Master of Arts in Social Philosophy from St. Louis University, a Master of Arts in Theology from Woodstock College (a Jesuit Seminary), a Master of Arts in Sociology from Fordham University, and a PhD in Anthropology-Sociology from Harvard University (1965). Dr. Early began his career as a Jesuit priest, although he resigned from the priesthood in 1969. As a member of the Harvard-Chiapas Research Project, he went to Zinacantán to study Maya worldview and its Catholic elements. Later, his interest turned to demographic research as a planning basis for the literacy, cooperative and health programs in which he was involved among the Maya in Guatemala. It was also intended to bring to national and international attention to the severe malnutrition and high mortality among the Maya primarily as a result of social injustice. This interest then turned into fulltime research on the evolution of human population dynamics: for hunter-gathering groups as exemplified by the Agta in the Philippines, for tribal groups as exemplified by the Yanomami in Brazil, for peasants by the Maya in Mexico and Guatemala.

Samuel A. Portnoy (1920 - 2004) was a professor of History at Florida Atlantic University (1963-1991) in Boca Raton, Florida.  Dr. Portnoy was a native New Yorker and received his bachelor's degree and Ph.D.  from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and his master's from the University of Chicago. In 1963, he began teaching history at Florida Atlantic University where he was actively involved in the planning of the University's academic program.  He was also first chairman of the Department of History at FAU.  His areas of specialization include Russian and Soviet history, 19th and 20th century European history, and Modern Jewish history. Dr. Portnoy was also a prominent lecturer, speaking on subjects of current and historic importance.  These subjects included the Middle East, the Gorbachev revolution, German unification, and select topics in modern Jewish history (Hasidism, Zionism, Jewish labor and social movements in Europe and the United States), and various aspects of Yiddish culture.  Much of his research was focused on the Jewish Labor Bund and the life of Vladimir Medem, a Russian Jewish political leader.  Portnoy's publications include articles in both Yiddish and English for the journals Labor History, Dissent, and Yiddish. He is also the editor-translator of Vladimir Medem's memoirs entitled: The Life and Soul of a Legendary Jewish Socialist and Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter – Two Heroes and Martyrs for Jewish Socialism.

The Elliot Cross and James A. Cross Civil War Collection documents the Southern perspective of the American Civil War. As FAU's largest collection dedicated solely to the Civil War, the Cross collection contains hundreds of manuscript and published items including personal correspondence from Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens, Robert E. Lee and many other Confederate military and government leaders. Also included are Confederate government documents and general orders pertaining to the war as well as photographs and illustrations from the period. The Cross Collection was donated by Elliot Cross' son James A. Cross in the early 1970s, following his father's death. Elliot Cross, a life-long aficionado of the Confederacy, purchased papers, lithographs and prints, currency, published and unpublished letters and memorabilia over a period of forty years. FAU Libraries received the collection mounted in four custom-made maroon leather scrapbooks. The items have been removed from these scrapbooks for preservation purposes. The publication of several articles about the collection in 1988 led to research by Civil War scholars that culminated in ground-breaking publication. One such breakthrough identified pneumonia as T. J. "Stonewall" Jackson's cause of death; a thesis supported by documents in the Cross Collection and published in Robert K. Krick's, The Smoothbore Volley that Doomed the Confederacy: the Death of Stonewall Jackson and other Chapters on the Army of Northern Virginia. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002).

The aerial photographs in this collection document the construction of buildings and the changing landscape on FAU Campuses and surrounding Boca Raton area. The aerials photographs show the overall growth of the campus of Florida Atlantic University. In 2010 Algonquin Hall was renamed to Nations North Residence Hall, Modoc no longer exists, Humanities Building was renamed to  the Arts and Letters Building, Biological Science was renamed to  the Behavioral Sciences Building.

This collection contains FAU Alumni Association events and portraits. A selection of photographs from each box was described to provide a sample of the collection. To see more photographs, please contact lysca@fau.edu to make an appointment.