Olga Kohlberg
Olga Kohlberg was an El Paso civic leader who championed women’s rights, public education and welfare for the poor. Born Olga Bernstein in Elberfeld, Westphalia (Germany) in 1864, she was raised in an upper-middle class German-Jewish family. She moved to El Paso in 1884 after marrying Ernst Kohlberg, a prominent El Paso businessman who emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1875. They had four children.
In 1891, Olga co-organized the child culture study circle and in 1894 the current topics club, forerunners of the El Paso Woman’s Club, which was founded in 1898. She served as president of the woman’s club twice and remained an honorary board member for the rest of her life. In the 1890s, she played a leading role in the establishment of a free public kindergarten in El Paso, the first in Texas. She was instrumental in the construction of the El Paso Public Library and the formation of the ladies’ benevolent association. During the following decades, she was a leading member of many other public health and charity organizations, including the charity union, health league, women’s charity association, associated charities and the Cloudcroft Baby Sanatorium. She also played a key role in the establishment of El Paso’s Mount Sinai Jewish congregation in 1898 and the construction of Temple Mount Sinai in 1903.
Olga Kohlberg’s activism was shaped by the social traditions of reformed Judaism and by the progressive era’s focus on public education, health and welfare. Her tireless efforts on behalf of the community made her one of El Paso’s most admired and beloved reformers.
(2013)
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