Loeb, James Isaac, 1908-1992
Dates
- Existence: 1908 - 1992
Biography
James Isaac Loeb Jr. was born on August 18, 1908 in Highland Park, Illinois. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1929 after which he spent 10 months in France studying languages. He went to Northwestern University as a Romance Languages teacher in 1930, and received his AM degree there in 1931 and his Ph.D in 1936. In 1941, Loeb left teaching to co-found, with Reinhold Niebuhr, the Union For Democratic Action. He was Executive Director until 1947 when he left to found Americans for Democratic Action. From 1951-1952, Loeb was a consultant to President Truman's counsel, Charles S. Murphy and later Executive Assistant to W. Averell Harriman. In 1953, Loeb and partner bought a smalltown newspaper "The Adirondack Enterprise" of Saranac Lake, New York. In 1961, President Kennedy names Loeb Ambassador to Peru and in 1963 Ambassador to Guinea where he stayed until 1965. He retired from the newspaper in 1970. Loeb and his second wife Anna Frank moved to the Upper Valley in 1978 and became involved with fundraising for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. He died in 1992.
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
James Loeb papers
James I. Loeb (1908-1992), political activist. Dartmouth College Class of 1929. The collection contains papers relating to his career as a teacher of romance languages, newspaper editor, diplomat, and political activist. Includes correspondence, texts of speeches, photographs, and drafts of an unpublished autobiography.