Inventory of the Helen Schneider Silver Papers, 1900-2003

Descriptive Summary

Biographical Note

Helen Rose Schneider (1922-2003) was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, to Julius Jacob "J.J." Schneider (1892-1972) and Mollie Simon Schneider (1896-1960). Schneider's parents had been born in Lithuania and immigrated to the United States via New York City circa 1912. They married in 1920 and moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, where they operated a grocery store. After retiring in 1960, they moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Helen Schneider graduated from Knoxville High School in 1940. After completing a one-year commercial course at the Knoxville Business College, she worked as a clerk stenographer for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). There she met Sidney Silver (1919-), an engineer from Atlanta, Georgia. They married in 1942.

While her husband served as a corporal in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II, Silver worked from 1944-1945 as a legal secretary and clerk stenographer for the U.S. War Department. In 1946, the Silvers moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Silver was a stay-at-home mother until the 1960s when she took a job at Cattanooga's Water Quality Lab.

In 1968, the family relocated to Washington, D.C. She then took a job with the National Weather Service, which included writing articles for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA). Silver left in 1974 to pursue a career in freelance journalism. Until the mid-1980s, Silver covered the State Department and White House briefings, press conferences, and congressional hearings for the Jewish Telegraph Agency's Washington Bureau. Silver's articles were also published in Pioneer Woman Magazine (now Na'amat Magazine) and Hadassah Magazine.

In 1984, Helen and Sidney Silver retired in Charleston, South Carolina. Silver continued writing, mostly travel features for the "Jewish Traveler" column in Hadassah Magazine.

Helen Silver was active in several Jewish organizations. She edited the Hadassah yearbooks in the 1960s, the Southern Jewish Historical Society's newsletter from 1990-1998, and in 1994, she was a founding member and newsletter editor for the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina. Silver was also a member of the Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Sisterhood and served as President of the Chattanooga chapter of Hadassah.

Collection Overview

The collection consists mainly of articles and research files written and compiled by Helen Silver, a freelance journalist. These include "Jewish Traveler" columns in Hadassah Magazine describing Jewish sites in the southeastern United States, and articles published in the Jewish Telegraph Agency's JTA Weekly News Digest regarding the conflict in the Middle East and the United State's diplomatic and material support. Other byline and research file topics include Jewish women, Jewish artists and musicians, antisemitism, the Holocaust, Jewish populations around the world, Jewish holidays, Zionism, and weather. Also included are manuscripts of Silver's short stories and children's books, some of which include illustrations.

The collection also includes materials relating to Silver's family history and her involvement in organizations such as Hadassah, the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina, the Southern Jewish Historical Society, and the Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Sisterhood. Also included are letters from Sidney Silver, Helen's husband, written while he served as a corporal in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II.

Collection Arrangement

Search Terms

Names

• Silver, Helen, 1922-2003
• Silver, Sidney, 1919-
• Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America
• Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina
• Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (Charleston, S.C.)
• Southern Jewish Historical Society (U.S.)

Subjects

• Arab-Israeli conflict
• Heritage tourism
• Jewish journalists
• Short stories, Jewish
• Women in journalism
• World War, 1939-1945--Participation, Jewish

Types of Material

• Articles
• Correspondence
• Photographs
• Research notes
• Short stories

Detailed Description of the Collection

1. Biographical papers, 1900-2003 

General, 1922-2003   box 1 | folder 1

Includes certificates, awards, correspondence, and memorials. Some materials relate to Sidney Silver, Helen Schneider Silver's husband.

Resume and biographical sketches, 1970, 1975, undated   box 1 | folder 2

War-time correspondence from Sidney Silver

Closed until 2016.

Letters describe Silver's daily activities while he served as a corporal in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Silver was stationed at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia (July- August 1943); Fort McClellan, Alabama (August-November 1943); Headquarters of the Second United States Army in Memphis, Tennessee (November-December 1943); Camp Crowder, Missouri (December 1943-May 1944, July- August, 1945); Fort Monmouth, New Jersey (January-July 1945); Camp Beale, California (September 1945-February 1946); and Treasure Island, California (March 1946).

July- August 1943   box 11 | folder 13

September- November 1943   box 11 | folder 14

November 1943- May 1944   box 12 | folder 1

January- April 1945   box 12 | folder 2

April- August 1945   box 12 | folder 3

September 1945- January 1946   box 12 | folder 4

January- March 1946   box 12 | folder 5

Bat Mitzvah, 1981-1982   box 1 | folder 3

Includes digital copies of photographs, photocopies of Silver's adult Bat Mitzvah program and Torah portion, and Silver's article "Mom's Bat Mitzvah- It's never too late!"

Recording of Silver's Bat Mitzvah, 1981   audiocassette 1091-a01

(JHC audiocassette box 1 | 1 audiocassette tape)

Family history

Includes photocopies of naturalization papers, memorials, and obituaries.

General, 1910-2003   box 1 | folder 4

Includes materials relating to the Berke, Levine, Simon, Shapiro, and Schneider families.

Julius Jacobs Schneider (Silver's father), 1912-1972   box 1 | folder 5

Mollie Simon Schneider (Silver's mother), 1957-1960   box 1 | folder 6

Photographs, circa 1900-1990s   box 1 | folder 7

Includes digital copies of photographs of Silver and her family. Also included is a digital slideshow of photographs created for Sidney Silver's 90th birthday.

2. Organizations and activities, 1965-2001 

3. Literary manuscripts, 1955-1982 

4. Research files and bylines, 1948-1999 (bulk 1970-1990) 

Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

This collection has access restrictions. Please contact Special Collections at the College of Charleston Libraries for more information.

Copyright Notice

The nature of the College of Charleston's archival holdings means that copyright or other information about restrictions may be difficult or even impossible to determine despite reasonable efforts. Special Collections claims only physical ownership of most archival materials.

The materials from our collections are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study, pursuant to U.S. copyright law. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials. Any materials used for academic research or otherwise should be fully credited with the source.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], Helen Schneider Silver papers, College of Charleston Libraries, Charleston, SC, USA.

Processing Information

Processed by Sarah Dorpinghaus, July 2011.

Encoded by Sarah Dorpinghaus, September 2011.

Funding from the Council on Library and Information Resources supported the processing of this collection and encoding of the finding aid.