Funeral services will be held here tomorrow for Philip Cowen, founder and publisher for 27 years of the American Hebrew and former official of the U.S. Immigration Service, who died at his home in New Rochelle yesterday, aged 89. He will be buried at Mt. Neboh cemetery, Brooklyn.
Shortly after his appointment to the United States Immigration Service by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905, Mr. Cowen went to Russia on a special mission to report on the cause of the large migration from Eastern and Southern Europe. He spent part of the Summer of 1906 in Russia. He also inquired into the conditions of Jews in other Central and Southern European countries, notably Rumania, and was partly responsible for the entry into this country of a large number of refugees.
Mr. Cowen spent twenty-two years in the Immigration Service, first at Castle Garden and later at Ellis Island. He retired from active business life in 1927, but continued as secretary and treasurer of B’nai B’rith, with which he had been connected for more than half a century. Mr. Cowen’s connection with B’nai B’rith dated from the time his father was prominent in the councils of Jerdan Lodge in New York. He developed an interest in that movement and was secretary and treasurer of Manhattan-Washington Lodge 19, B’nai B’rith, which honored him with a grand reception at the clubhouse on his eightieth birthday.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
