The Biographical Dictionary of America/Adler, Cyrus

ADLER, Cyrus, educator, was born at Van Buren, Ark., Sept. 13, 1863. His parents removed to Philadelphia, Pa., in 1864, and there he attended the public schools. He entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1879, and was graduated in 1883. He afterwards pursued Oriental studies in Johns-Hopkins university, was appointed university scholar there in 1884, and was fellow in Semitic languages from 1885 to 1887, when he received the degree of Ph.D., and was appointed instructor in Semitic languages. He was promoted to be associate professor in 1890. In 1877 he was appointed assistant curator of the section of Oriental antiquities in the United States national museum, and had charge of an exhibit of biblical archæology at the centennial exposition of the Ohio valley in 1888. He was a commissioner for the world's Columbian exposition to the Orient in 1890, and he passed sixteen months in Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco securing exhibits. On Dec. 1, 1892, he was appointed librarian of the Smithsonian institution at Washington. He was made lecturer on biblical archaeology in the Jewish theological seminary in New York; president of the American Jewish historical society; U.S. delegate to a conference on an international catalogue of scientific literature in 1898, and honorary assistant curator of historic archæology and custodian of historic religions in the U.S. national museum. He was an editor of the "Jewish Encyclopedia" and wrote in collaboration with Allen Ramsay "Tales Told in a Coffee House" (1898); besides contributions to the Journal of the American Oriental Society; the Proceedings of the American Philological Association; the Andover Review; Hebraica; Johns Hopkins University Circular and numerous reviews.