William R. (Bill) Joseph (1946-2012), a specialist in nonprofit law and community leader, was the son of Frank and Martha Joseph. He studied at Columbia University and joined the law firm of Arter and Hadden in 1972, moving to Weston Hurd, where he was a partner, in 1989. A co-founder of Ohio Citizens for the Arts, he was also a board member and president of many other local nonprofit organizations. The organizations in which he was most involved included Jewish Family Service Association, St. Ann Foundation, Sisters of Charity Foundation, Columbia University Club of Cleveland, Cleveland Bar Foundation, Museum of Contemporary Art, and New Organization for the Visual Arts. He was a member of The Temple-Tifereth Israel. He had two children William R. Joseph, Jr., and Dr. Robyn J. Gutman.
Bill Joseph was a member of the sixth generation of the Joseph family in the Cleveland area. His family owned Joseph & Feiss, one of the city's most prominent manufacturers of menswear. His family's success in the garment industry helped to establish their work in local philanthropy. Joseph's parents supported causes such as the Musical Arts Association (The Cleveland Orchestra), the Kulas Foundation, the Warner and Swasey Foundation, and Jewish communal institutions such as Bellefaire and the Jewish Family Service Association.
The William R. Joseph Family Papers and Photographs, 1911-2012 and undated, consists of biographies, birth certificates, certificates, contracts, correspondence, correspondence transcripts, diplomas, eulogies, genealogies, a haggadah (Jewish text that documents the order of the Passover Seder), obituaries, oral histories, 21 photographs, postcards, proclamations, programs, and scrapbooks.
The collection is of value to researchers studying the history of the Joseph family and the history of philanthropy. The material includes a range of documents related to family members in different generations. Of particular interest in this collection is a haggadah from 1930, transcripts of Emil Joseph's correspondence and a scrapbook from his 1911 travels throughout Europe.
This collection is arranged alphabetically by document type and then chronologically.
Researchers should also consult PG 524 Joseph Family Photographs; PG 551 Joseph Family Photographs, Series II; MS 4894 Joseph Family Papers; and MS 5055 Joseph Family Papers, Series II, and MS 5377 Bud Wendell (Ernest Wendell Joseph) Family Papers and Photographs
Processed by M. Alexander Kaufmann in 2015.
None.
[Container __, Folder __] MS 5387 William R. Joseph Family Papers and Photographs, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
Gift of David Joseph in 2013.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.