James Loeb (; ; August 6, 1867 – May 27, 1933) was an American

banker A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

, Hellenist and

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...

Biography

James Loeb, of German-Jewish descent, was the second son of Solomon Loeb and Betty Loeb. James Loeb joined his father at Kuhn, Loeb & Co. in 1888 and was made partner in 1894, but he retired from the bank in 1901 due to severe illness. In memory of his former lecturer and friend

Charles Eliot Norton Charles Eliot Norton (November 16, 1827 – October 21, 1908) was an American author, social critic, and Harvard professor of art based in New England. He was a progressive social reformer and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries c ...

, Loeb created The Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship in 1907. In 1911, he founded and endowed the

Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a monographic series of books originally published by Heinemann and since 1934 by Harvard University Press. It has bilingual editions of ancient Greek and Latin literature, ...

. He assembled a team of Anglo-American classicists to oversee the series, and arranged for publication through

Heinemann (publisher) William Heinemann Ltd., with the imprint Heinemann, was a London-based publisher founded in 1890 by William Heinemann. Their first published book, 1890's ''The Bondman'', was a huge success in the United Kingdom and launched the company. He was ...

in London When James Loeb died, he bequeathed the Loeb Classical Library and funds to Harvard University to establish The Loeb Classical Library Foundation and to support research in the classics. He founded the Institute of Musical Art, which later became part of the

Juilliard School of Music The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Founded by Frank Damrosch as the Institute of Musical Art in 1905, the school later added dance and drama programs and became the Juilliard School, named afte ...

. That year he also turned over his collection of Arretine pottery to the

Fogg Art Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

at Harvard. He donated a large amount of funds to what is now called the

Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry The Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry () is a research institute based in the city of Munich in Germany specializing in psychiatry. Currently directed by Elisabeth Binder and Alon Chen, it is one of the 81 institutes in the Max Planck Society. ...

, which helped his former psychiatrist

Emil Kraepelin Emil Wilhelm Georg Magnus Kraepelin (; ; 15 February 1856 – 7 October 1926) was a German psychiatrist. H. J. Eysenck's Encyclopedia of Psychology identifies him as the founder of modern scientific psychiatry, psychopharmacology and psychiatric ...

to establish and maintain the Institute in its early days. Nevertheless, presumably unknown to Loeb, Kraepelin held racist views about Jews, and his student who took over the Institute,

Ernst Rudin Ernst is both a surname and a given name, the German, Dutch, and Scandinavian form of Ernest. Notable people with the name include: Surname * Adolf Ernst (1832–1899) German botanist known by the author abbreviation "Ernst" * Anton Ernst (born ...

, was a leading advocate of

racial hygiene The term racial hygiene was used to describe an approach to eugenics in the early 20th century, which found its most extensive implementation in Nazi Germany (Nazi eugenics). It was marked by efforts to avoid miscegenation, analogous to an anim ...

and forced sterilization or killing of psychiatric inpatients for which he was personally honoured by

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

.Science and Inhumanity: The Kaiser-Wilhelm/Max Planck Society
William E. Seidelman MD, 2001Who's Who in Nazi Germany
Robert S. Wistrich, Routledge, July 4, 2013 Loeb left a large portion of his significant art collection to the Museum Antiker Kleinkunst in Munich (today the

Staatliche Antikensammlungen The Staatliche Antikensammlungen (, ''State Collections of Antiquities'') is a museum in Munich's Kunstareal holding Bavaria's collections of antiquities from Ancient Greek art, Greece, Etruscan art, Etruria and Roman art, Rome, though the sculpt ...

) ("Sammlung James Loeb"). He was a member of the English Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. Loeb's correspondence with

Aby Warburg Aby Moritz Warburg (June 13, 1866 – October 26, 1929) was a German art historian and cultural theorist who founded the ''Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg'' (Warburg Library for Cultural Studies), a private library, which was later m ...

has been characterized as creating a Renaissance of relationships of the European to classical antiquity. "Aby Warburg's Collaboration with James Loeb and Fritz Saxl" in McEwan, D. (2023). ''Studies on Aby Warburg, Fritz Saxl and Gertrud Bing'' (1st ed.). Routledge.

Translations

* Paul Delcharme, ''Euripides and the Spirit of His Dreams'' * Maurice Croiset, ''Aristophanes and the Political Parties at Athens'' * Auguste Couat, ''Alexandrian Poetry under the First Three Ptolemies, 324-222 B.C.''

References

External links

*
Loeb Family Tree
{{DEFAULTSORT:Loeb, James 1867 births 1933 deaths American bankers American people of German-Jewish descent American philanthropists German bankers Loeb family American translators Staatliche Antikensammlungen Harvard College alumni 20th-century American Jews American emigrants to Germany

Biography

Translations

References

Further reading

External links