Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center
Emanuel Spector (1897-1952) immigrated to the United States from the Russian Empire as a teenager and settled in Pittsburgh. He intended to study medicine but instead pursued a career in merchandising. He started as a peddler and by 1923 had opened E. Spector & Co., a wholesale house on Fifth Avenue in Uptown.
Spector married Mary Dorothy Smith in 1922. After her death in 1935, Spector divided his energies between raising their young daughter Marjorie, running his business and volunteering for local philanthropies. Over the years he held high posts at almost every major Jewish philanthropic institution in Pittsburgh. He began his philanthropic career as a campaign worker for the United Jewish Fund in 1936, its first year. He served as the UJF campaign chairman in 1945 and 1951, and was its president in 1948, 1949 and 1950, years when the organization raised $7 million for Jewish causes in Pittsburgh, Europe and the newly established State of Israel.
Spector’s long affiliation with the United Jewish Fund earned him the nickname “Mr. UJF,” and his sincerity and industriousness earned him another: “the conscious of the community.” In a 1947 interview, Spector told the Pittsburgh Press, “If a worker ever sees me sitting down, he can sit down, too.” After Spector died, his friends created the Emanuel Spector Memorial Award at the United Jewish Federation to recognize individual contributions to local philanthropy. The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh continues to give the annual award. Those honored include Amos Comay, Leon Falk Jr., Herman Fineberg, Samuel and Aaron P. Levinson, Louis J. and Florence Reizenstein, Charles Rosenbloom, Saul Shapira, Karen Shapira, the Shapiro brothers and William Stark.
His daughter Marjorie Spector (1925-2002) grew up in the world of Pittsburgh merchants and the celebrities who occasionally came through it. “I met E. J. Kaufmann and wife, [actor George] Jessel and others at the speakers table,” she wrote in her diary after a Victory Dinner at the William Penn Hotel in late 1941. “Jessel shook hands with me and E. J. asked how old I was (some nerve).”
She graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School in Squirrel Hill and the University of Pittsburgh. A lifelong lover of music and musical theater, she was particularly fond of Gene Kelly. She performed the “Rhythm Tap” in his annual Revue of the Dance in the late 1930s, collected paraphernalia about his Hollywood career in the 1940s and 1950s, and attended an honorary event for him at the University of Pittsburgh in 1987.
An avid photographer, Spector documented the changing landscape of Pittsburgh from the 1930s to the 1980s, including the creation of Point State Park and the Civic Arena, the demolition of Forbes Field and the Penzer building, as well as more day-to-day sights such as snowstorms, street races, parades, parties, vacations, friends and co-workers. For many years she volunteered at Mercy and Magee-Womens hospitals.
Bibliography
- Spector Family papers [MSS 431] (catalog record).
- Spector Family photographs [MSP 431] (catalog record).
- Spector Family oversize papers [MSO 431] (catalog record).
- Spector Family oversize photographs [MSR 431] (catalog record).
- Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh Records [MSS 287] (catalog record).
- Lidji, Eric. “Who Was Emanuel Spector?” Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, Feb. 9, 2022 (online).
Exhibit history
- Author: Eric Lidji
- Original: July 24, 2014
- Current: March 15, 2026