Sorotick Family photographs and papers
Call Number
Date
Creator
Extent
Language of Materials
Abstract
112 photographs sent home from Europe by Irving Sorotick (1915-2000), a United States Army veteran of World War II, plus material relating to the presidency of John F. Kennedy, notably a high school project scrapbook assembled by Sorotick's daughter, Marsha, during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. Also includes seven political campaign pins.
Biographical/Historical Note
Irving Sorotick (1915–2000) was a United States Army veteran of World War II who enlisted at New York on 17 August 1943 and was discharged on 11 January 1946. He sent some 112 photographs of his time in Europe back home to his wife, Pearl. Judging by those shots dated June 1944 and identified as "Omaha Beach" (a code name for one of the five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France), Sorotick may have participated in the Normandy landings of 6 June 1944. But the casualness of the photographs suggests he probably arrived shortly after the D-Day invasions (see Folder 1).
Sorotick's daughter, Marsha, attended Martin Van Buren High School in Queens, New York, during John F. Kennedy's presidency.
Arrangement
Items in this small collection are grouped by topic--World War II, John F. Kennedy, and political campaign pins--and organized chronologically.
Scope and Contents
The collection includes 112 photographs Irving Sorotick sent home from Europe to his wife, Pearl, during his World War II U.S. Army service. Fifty-two of the images are dated, as is a letter (20 September 1944) he wrote on stationery printed with views of Parisian landmarks.
Marsha Sorotick's contributions to the collection include the JFK scrapbook she assembled in high school during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, as well as the 22 November 1963 issue of the New York World-Telegram and the Sun announcing "PRESIDENT SHOT DEAD," plus five photographs taken at a traveling exhibition of JFK memorabilia.
Seven political campaign pins--ranging from 1960 ("Kennedy for President") to 1992 ("Elect Clinton | Gore")--round out the collection.
Subjects
People
Access Restrictions
Open to qualified researchers.
Photocopying undertaken by staff only. Limited to twenty exposures of stable, unbound material per day. (Researchers may not accrue unused copy amounts from previous days.)
Use Restrictions
Permission to reproduce any Print Room holdings through publication must be obtained from: Rights and Reproductions, The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024. Phone: (212) 873-3400 ext. 270. Fax: (212) 579-8794.
Preferred Citation
This collection should be cited as Sorotick Family Papers, PR 349, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections, The New-York Historical Society.
Credit line (for exhibition labels): Gift of Marsha Sorotick.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Marsha Sorotick, August 2017 (accession no. PPAC.2017.051), and September 2018 (accession no. PPAC.2018.054).
Accruals
The bulk of the collection was donated by Marsha Sorotick in August 2017 (accession no. PPAC.2017.051). Ms. Sorotick supplied an additional photograph (a 1968 view of a newsstand at East 23rd Street and Park Avenue South) in September 2018 (accession no. PPAC.2018.054).
About this Guide
Processing Information
Archivist Joseph Ditta processed this collection in December 2017. He updated it in October 2018 to reflect the addition of the photograph in folder 10 (accession no. PPAC.2018.054).
Repository
View Inventory
WWII: photographs (52) (dated), 1944 May-1945 August
Scope and Contents
Locations include England, France (Cherbourg, "Omaha Beach," Mortain), Belgium, Holland, Germany (Cologne, Nuremberg), and Monaco.
WWII: photographs (56 + 4 slides) (undated), [1944-1945]
Scope and Contents
Locations include England, France (Marseille, Reims, "Camp Chicago"), Germany (Roosevelt Rhine River Bridge), Holland, and the United States (Camp Patrick Henry, Virginia).
WWII: ephemera, 1944, undated
Scope and Contents
A letter from Irving Sorotick to his wife, Pearl, dated Paris, 20 September 1944, on stationery printed with photographs of Parisian landmarks. With two undated postcards of Chartres and Cherbourg.
WWII: newspaper | New York Herald Tribune, 1945 January 27
Scope and Contents
Front page of the European edition of the New York Herald Tribune, published at Paris, with the headline "Russians in 18-Mile Breakthrough Reach Shores of Gulf of Danzig; 7th Army Halts Germans in Alsace."
JFK: scrapbook, 1962 October-November
Scope and Contents
In October 1962, Marsha Sorotick (donor of the collection) was a sophomore at Martin Van Buren High School in Queens, New York. For an American History class, she was assigned to create this scrapbook of President Kennedy's activities during one week. It turned out to be the period of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Sorotick got a A+.
JFK: newspaper | New York World-Telegram and the Sun, 1963 November 22
Scope and Contents
Headline: "PRESIDENT SHOT DEAD."
Access Restrictions
Too brittle for use.
JFK: photographs (5), 1964 June
Scope and Contents
In June 1964, Marsha Sorotick (donor of the collection) visited and photographed a display of JFK memorabilia at the IBM Building (590 Madison Avenue, Manhattan). The exhibition traveled to twenty-three cities to raise funds for the construction of the JFK Presidential Library in Boston.
JFK: souvenir journal, [1964]
Scope and Contents
The President Nobody Knew, vol. 1, no. 1, the Remember November Issue.
Political campaign pins (7), 1960-1992
Scope and Contents
Missing Title
- Kennedy for President [1960]
- LBJ for the USA [1964]
- Catalyst for Change | Shirley Chisholm for President [1972]
- Lindsay 72 [1972]
- Dukakis | Bentsen [1988]
- Elect Clinton | Gore 92 [1992]
- CWA for Clinton | Gore [1992]
Newsstand photograph, 1968, inclusive
Scope and Contents
This photograph was taken by the donor, Marsha Sorotick, in the autumn of 1968. According to information she supplied by letter (5 September 2018), "it shows the corner of E. 23rd St. and Park Ave. South. It looked very much the same until about 2-3 years ago when a sidewalk elevator leading down into the subway was constructed and, alas, the newsstand wasn't returned. The 'Time' magazine cover [visible in the photograph] is of the events in Prague. I believe at the time I worked nearby at the NYPD Academy library."