Lucius Nathan Littauer, noted Jewish philanthropist who was a member of Congress for five terms and whose pubic benefactions have run into many millions of dollars, died suddenly of a heart ailment today in his home at Premium Point, New Rochelle. He was 85 years old.
Born in Glovereville, N.Y. he studied at Harvard University and later donated $2,250,000 to the University for the establishment of its Graduate School of Public Administration “to develop new techno cause in public service and as a laboratory for testing the problems of public service.”
The Littauer Foundation for the Better Understanding of Mankind, to which Mr. Littauer gave $3,000,000, makes grants to research institutions and gives loan scholarships to advanced students. “It is my desire and hope, through the agency of this foundation, to enlarge the realms of human knowledge, to promote the general, moral, mental and physical improvement of society so that the sum total of human welfare and wisdom may be increased and the cause of better understanding among all mankind promoted,” he wrote in a letter creating the foundation.
His interest in science rewarded research in many of its phases, X-ray, pneumonia, cancer, diabetes, biometries and others. Shortly after the death of his wife of pneumonia in 1927, he announced an annual gift of $10,000 to New York University for use in studying the prevention and cure of the disease. He made a grant of $15,000 to the New York Diabetes Association and a building gift to the School for Speech Disorders in New York.
Other Littauer gifts of special interest to Jews include the establishment in 1925 of the Nathen Littauer professor ship of Jewish literature and philosophy at Harvard University in honor of his father, the gift to Harvard in 1930 of 12,000 rare Hebrew books and manuscripts, and the founding in 1939 of the Institute of Inter-Benominational Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of American to promote better understanding of Judaism among both Jews and Christiane.
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.
