Restrictions to Access

CLOSED: Collection closed until 2030. Folders 35-39 remain closed until 2035.

Use of audio or moving image material may require production of listening and viewing copies.

This collection contains additional born digital materials that are not available for immediate or same day access. Please contact Research and Instructional Service staff at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu to discuss options for consulting these materials.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Cohen Family Papers #5178, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Marcie Cohen Ferris of Chapel Hill, N.C., in September 2004 (Acc. 99898), July 2005 (Acc. 100140), September 2006 (Acc. 100509), October 2007 (Acc. 100789), October 2009 (Acc. 101187), November 2014 (Acc. 102125), August 2016 (Acc. 102629), July 2015 (Acc. 102267), and March 2019 (Acc. 103565).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Nancy Kaiser, December 2004

Encoded by: Nancy Kaiser, December 2004

Revisions: Finding aid updated in January 2006 and September 2006 by Nancy Kaiser; in October 2007 by Rachel Canada and Roslyn Holdzkom; in December 2017 by Anne Wells; and in May 2019 by Nancy Kaiser and Patrick Cullom.

Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• African American agricultural laborers--Arkansas--Photographs.
• African American construction workers--Photographs.
• Arkansas--History.
• Bridge construction industry--Photographs.
• Canals--Design and construction--Photographs.
• Civil engineering--Study and teaching (Higher).
• Cohen family.
• Cohen, Jerome, 1922-2013.
• Cohen, Luba Tooter, 1897-1985.
• Cohen, Samuel J., 1897-1954.
• Construction industry--Arkansas--Photographs.
• Construction industry--Arkansas.
• Cotton growing--Arkansas.
• Dimand family.
• Family--Arkansas--Social life and customs.
• Ferris, Marcie Cohen.
• Food habits--United States.
• Freedman family.
• Jewish businesspeople--Arkansas.
• Jewish families--Arkansas.
• Jews, Russian--Education.
• Jews, Russian--Emigration and immigration.
• Jews--Food--United States.
• Jews--Southern States--Social life and customs.
• Jews--United States.
• Levees--Arkansas--Photographs.
• Oral history.
• Russian Americans--Cultural assimilation.
• Russian Americans--Social life and customs.
• S.J. Cohen Company--Photographs.
• S.J. Cohen Company.
• Sharecroppers--Arkansas--Photographs.
• Synagogues--Arkansas.
• Tooter family.
• United States. Navy. Seabees.
• Roads--Design and construction--Photographs.

Samuel J. Cohen ("Jimmy") was born 6 March 1897 in Minsk, Russia. His family, including his mother Mary Winick Cohen and brother Jack Cohen, immigrated to the United States in 1913. Jimmy attended the City College of New York and the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.

Luba Tooter was born in 1897 in Odessa, Russia, to Harry and Mollie Tooter. Luba, her parents, and her siblings, Milton, Maurice, Eddie, Joseph, Al, and George, immigrated to the United States in 1912. Luba worked in sweat shops and attended school at night to learn English.

Jimmy and Luba began courting in 1915 and were married on 19 November 1920. Luba joined her husband in Blytheville, Ark., where he had relocated in 1919 to pursue construction work with the Pride and Fairley engineering firm. In 1929, Jimmy opened his own construction company, S. J. Cohen Company, which specialized in drainage canals, levees, highways, bridges, and grading at airports.

Jimmy and Luba had one son, Jerome Cohen, who was born 22 June 1922. "Jerry" graduated in 1943 from Cornell University with a degree in civil engineering.

Both Jimmy and Jerry enlisted in the military in 1943. Jimmy joined the Navy as an officer in the Seabees, the Navy Civil Engineer Corps.

Jerry married Hulda Horowitz, the daughter of Morris Horowitz and Lena Freedman Horowitz. "Huddy" was born 7 February 1926. Jerry and Huddy had two daughters, Jamie and Marcie.

Jimmy Cohen died on 2 April 1954. Luba Tooter Cohen died in 1985. Jerry Cohen died on 30 July 2013.

The collection includes papers, family histories, photographs, and home movies relating to Samuel J. Cohen, Luba Tooter Cohen, Jerry Cohen, and the Cohen, Tooter (also spelled Tudor), Dimand, and Freedman families, chiefly of Blytheville, Ark.; New London, Conn.; New York, N.Y.; Minsk, Russia; and Odessa, Russia. Papers document military service with the Seabees, a Naval construction regiment, during World War II; the S. J. Cohen Company, a construction business in Arkansas; elementary education in Russia; civil engineering education in the United States; immigration; and ethnic cooking. Materials include personal and business correspondence, immigration and citizenship papers, military papers, school materials, recipes, newspaper clippings, postcards, and financial materials. Some of the school materials are in Russian and include translations. Family history materials include oral history interviews and transcripts, recorded by Marcie Cohen Ferris, that document emigration of Russian Jews and their adjustment to life in the United States in the 1910s. Family photographs document children and adults at play and family gatherings from the early 1900s to the 1960s, Russian military dress in the 1910s, a United States military base in the Pacific during World War II, and construction sites related to work done by the S. J. Cohen Company. Other photographs document African American sharecroppers, cotton farming, and a hunting camp. Home movies, filmed by Jerry Cohen, record history of significant construction and engineering projects of S. J. Cohen Company. The films also record daily life in the Cohen family, including Temple Israel and the Jewish community of Blytheville, as well as family vacations and visits to Huddy Howoritz Cohen's home and family in New London. Sound recordings consist of spoken work recordings that were possibly created by Samuel J. Cohen.

The Addition of 2016 consists of black-and-white photographic prints depicting construction work and civil-engineering projects by the S. J. Cohen Company at various locations in northeastern Arkansas, 1920s-1940s.

The Addition of October 2009 consists of photocopies of family pictures and immigration records from Ellis Island for the Tooter (Tudor) family.

The Addition of November 2014 consists of materials related to Jerome Cohen, Hudda Horowitz, Marcie Cohen Ferris, and William R. Ferris. Materials include printed materials related to Jerome Cohen's engineering studies at Cornell University; a scrapbook of newspaper clippings from World War II by Hudda Horowitz; publications and event ephemera related to Marcie Cohen Ferris's work at the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in the early 1990s, and her research and drafts for her dissertation at George Washington University in the early 2000s, including some recipes; and correspondence and clippings related to William R. Ferris receiving the Charles Frankel Prize Award from the White House in 1995. There is also a photograph album documenting a family safari trip in Africa.

The Addition of July 2015 consists of a pictorial souvenir edition of The New London Day documenting the 21 September 1938 hurricane; newspaper clippings about family members; letters and greeting cards, including White House holiday cards from President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton; invitations; a funeral service program for Mrs. Richie Lee King; songsheet for "Jubilo."

The Addition of March 2019 consists of color snapshot photographs of family, black-and-white photographic prints (reproductions) of people and food, 1930s-1990s; Seabees documents; financial papers relating to S. J. Cohen's construction business; family correspondence; personal notes, clippings, and other materials relating to daughters Marcie Cohen Ferris and Jamie Cohen; and family history materials.

• Oversize papers (XOPF-5-5178/1, OPF-5178/1-6, OB-5178/1)
• Photographs (P-5178/1-20, OP-P-5178/1, PA-5178/1, IB-5178/1-17)
• Audiocassettes (C-5178/1-5)
• Instantaenous discs (FD-5178/1-3)
• Videotapes (VT-5178/1-3)