Harry Stone (1917-2007) was a business leader in Cleveland, Ohio, active in politics and philanthropy. He was the son of Jacob Sapirstein, the founder of American Greetings Corp., a manufacturer of greeting cards. Stone was a member of the Glenville High School Class of 1935. In addition to the positions he held at American Greetings, Stone also owned radio stations WIXY and WDOK and was engaged in real estate and international trade and finance. Among his many civic activities, Stone was a trustee of Brandeis University, the Jewish Community Federation, and the Cleveland Sight Center.
Stone married Beatrice Farkas in 1936. The couple had three children, Phillip J, Allan D., and Laurie. After the death of Beatrice, Harry married Lucile Tabak Rose in 1960. Her children from a previous marriage were James M. Rose and Douglas B. Rose. In the 1960s Stone was campaign chairman for United States Representative Charles Vanik. His relationship with Vanik proved beneficial to the Jewish community in 1973, when Vanik asked Stone and his brother Irving for help in scheduling a vote on the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which required the USSR to allow Jewish emigration to the United States in order to qualify for most favored nation status. The Stone brothers asked Representative Wilbur Mills of Arkansas to schedule the vote; American Greetings was at the time the largest employer in Mills' Arkansas district. Stone also served as a consultant to the United States Departments of Commerce and State.
The Harry Stone Papers, 1943-2004 and undated, consist of annual reports, bulletins, certificates, correspondence, greeting cards, newspaper clippings, a petition, proclamations, a program, a speech text, a statement, and a yizkor (memorial) book.
This collection is of value to researchers studying the Stone family, American Greetings, the history of Soviet Jewish emigration to Cleveland, Ohio, and the history of philanthropy, especially within the Jewish community. Of special interest are a few copies of Presidential greeting cards designed by American Greetings; a statement on Jewish unity from the Sapirstein-Stone-Weiss Foundation, reflecting the family's philanthropic goals; and the petition for a name change to Stone, from 1943. The collection also includes a yizkor book from the town of Grayevo (Grajewo, today in northeastern Poland), where Jacob Sapirstein grew up. The yizkor book tells the story of the town's Jewish history and is an indispensable source for genealogists.
The collection is arranged alphabetically by document type, then alphabetically by subject, and then chronologically.
All photographs have been removed to PG 568 Harry Stone Photographs.
The researcher should also consult MS 4581 Jacob Sapirstein Papers.
Processed by Sean Martin and Hannah Porath in 2010.
None.
[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 5099 Harry Stone Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
Gift of Lois Rose in 2008.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.