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Jewish Heiress Offers $500,000 for Teachers in Desegregated Schools

December 19, 1960
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Miss Ellen Steinberg, daughter of the late Marc C. Steinberg, St. Louis Jewish investment broker and philanthropist, announced here today that she has set aside $500,000 to help the New Orleans Board of Education to keep its schools open in the face of segregationist actions by the Louisiana Legislature, which has cut off funds needed to pay teachers.

Expressing herself as “deeply distressed” over the New Orleans situation, Miss Steinberg said she hoped her move “will encourage others who have been silent to fight to keep the schools open.”

Miss Steinberg’s father, a multimillionaire, had given large sums of money, during his life, to Washington University, in St. Louis, and to hospitals and charities in that city. She said the $500,000 will be placed in a New York bank, to be drawn by the New Orleans school board if the board accepts her offer.

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