Educational Alliance

The Educational Alliance is a leading social institution that has been serving Downtown Manhattan since 1889. Founded as a partnership between the Aguilar Free Library, the Young Men's Hebrew Association (now the 92nd Street Y), and the Hebrew Institute, the main purpose was to serve as a settlement house for Eastern European Jews immigrating to New York City.

A massive fundraiser organized by Jewish philanthropists Isidor Straus, Samuel Greenbaum, Myer S. Isaacs, Jacob H. Schiff, Morris Loeb, and Edwin R. A. Seligman, raised $125,000 to buy land and build the organization's five-story flagship building at 197 East Broadway.

In the early years, the "chief aim" of Educational Alliance classes was "Americanization" and use of the Yiddish language (derisively called "jargon") was banned for its first ten years. Classes for children and adults were offered on the English language, American history and civics, stenography, cooking, and more.

The Alliance Art School, founded in 1905 and then re-organized by Abbo Ostrowsky in 1917, trained some of the most famous American visual artists of the mid-20th century including Chaim Gross, Elias Newman, Philip Evergood, Ben Shahn, Leonard Baskin, Concetta Scaravaglione, Moses Soyer and Isaac Soyer, Joseph Margulies, Jo Davidson, Dina Melicov, Leo Gottlieb, Peter Blume, and Abraham Walkowitz. Ella Ostrowsky, Abbo's sister, taught textiles and batik in the Arts and Crafts Studio which had both educational and commercial aims.

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