University of North Carolina at Asheville
D. Hiden Ramsey Library
Special Collections/University Archives

Manuscript Register
for

Samuel Robinson Papers (1891-1973)

M96.3.1, OS96.3.1, OS96.3.2


Samuel Robinson
Senior Class Picture: University of Texas, 1913

Student Assistant in Applied Math, Vice President Engineering Department
"His long suit is calc and politics, and an inborn desire to eradicate aristocratic tendencies.
Sam will have an idea on any subject, no matter how insignificant.
He is one of the Russian trio, though, and may be an anarchist some day?"
[From Cactus, 1913 yearbook of the University of Texas.]

Title Samuel Robinson Papers (1891-1973)
Creator Samuel Robinson
Identifier http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/mss/robinson/robinson.html
Subject Keyword :
Robinson, Samuel ; Carolina Mountain Club ; Congregation Beth-Ha-Tephila ; George Masa ; 
Subject LCSH : 
Robinson, Samuel
Boy Scouts of America
Hiking
Masa, George 
Carolina Mountain Club
Description Personal papers and awards of Asheville optometrist and civic leader Samuel Robinson. A leader in environmental issues, he was active in the Carolina Mountain Club and the Boy Scouts of America. He worked to recognize George Masa's work with the Great Smoky Mountains and to name one of the peaks for Masa, a local photographer, and founding member of the Carolina Mountain Club. The collection includes photographs, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, awards, correspondence, essays, speeches, and a personal diary.
Publisher Special Collections, D. Hiden Ramsey Library, University of North Carolina at Asheville
Contributor Leah R. Karpen [daughter]
Date 2001-05-28
Type Collection ; Text
Format 3 document boxes
Source M96.3.1, OS96.3.1, OS96.3.2
Language English
Relation Related Material : Congregation Beth-ha-Tephila Collection ; Sol Schulman Collection ; Carolina Mountain Club Archive ; Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, UNC Chapel Hill ; American Jewish Historical Society ; Schochet Family Papers ; "A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life," Documenting the American South, UNC Chapel Hill,  http://www.lib.unc.edu/apop/index.html ; The Family Store Project: A History of Jewish Businesses, 1880-1990, a 12-panel exhibit displayed in a variety of locations in downtown Asheville in the fall of 2006 by History @ Hand.
Coverage 1891-1973 ; Asheville, NC
Rights Copyright retained by the authors of certain items in the collection, or their descendents, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Donor  Donor number : 142, 227
Acquisition 1996-00-00 ; Second acquisition 2005-05-05 [149 items] ; Third acquisition
Citation Samuel Robinson Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville 28804
Processed by  Special Collections staff 1996
Last update 2005-12-08 JW
Biography Samuel Robinson was born in Grodno in 1891 and came to the United States with his family in 1901. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Texas with a degree in engineering. He worked with fisheries in Texas, and in the oil fields in Louisiana. He was a surveyor for the Houston harbor. He later received his degree in optometry and practiced this profession in Asheville until he was in his early eighties. He was married to Esther Kroman after moving to Asheville.

He was an active member of the Carolina Mountain Club, and was a member of its board of directors. In 1961 he instigated the naming of a 6,000-foot peak in the Great Smoky Mountains for George Masa, a founder of the Carolina Mountain Club and a noted photographer. Dr. Robinson was a noted local Boy Scout leader for more than 25 years, and was a member of the national council of the Boy Scouts of America. He worked for the American Forestry Association and the [Asheville] Metropolitan Planning Board. He was an active member of Temple Beth Ha Tephila in Asheville for fifty eight years, missing services only when out of town.

Dr. Robinson performed his own laboratory work in his optometry profession. During the Depression, and at other times, he never turned away patients, making adjustments for payment according to the patient's ability to pay. He was known to have lost white patients due to his insistence on serving blacks first who had arrived first, even during the Depression years. He worked to integrate the black scouting movement within the Daniel Boone Council. He strove to raise standards within the optometry profession, and lectured at professional meetings on difficult optometric problems, on complexities of prisms, and on his own method of glaucoma therapy. He had seven children, seventeen grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren at the time of his death on December 22, 1973.
 

Chronology List 1967, director of Rhododendron Boy Scout District
1958, elected secretary of board, United Social Services
1958, elected National Council member of Boy Scouts of America
1958-1961, council member of Carolina Mountain Club
1959, appointed to Metropolitan Planning Board
1959, ran for Asheville City Council
1961, chairman of Jewish Chautauqua Society
1962, and 1964, named member-at-large of National Boy Scouts of America
1965, director of Engineering Society of Western North Carolina
1965, elected president of Mountain District Society of Optometrists
1967, associate member of Central Asheville Association
1970, elected president of Buncombe County Optometric Society
Item List
M96.3.1 Assorted Items
OS96.3.1 Awards and Activities
OS96.3.2 Awards and Activities
P96.3.3 Miscellaneous Photographs

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