A Religious Refuge
Sarah Roslyn Gensler (later Gensler Schwartz) was born on April 15, 1901 and came to the United States from Austria with her parents, Louis and Rose (Rosenranch) Gensler, in 1903, when she was two years old. Her family was part of the second wave of Jewish immigrants coming from German-speaking countries in Europe to Minnesota. The first wave, which ended in around 1880, brought fewer than a thousand Jewish immigrants to Minnesota. However, the second wave from 1882-1924, which included the Gensler family, brought about 20,000 Jewish immigrants to Minnesota.
During the first wave of European Jewish immigration, immigrants came to Minnesota to establish commercial businesses selling materials such as liquor, furs, and dry goods throughout the state. Many of them lived in St. Paul’s Lowertown district. During the second wave, however, Jewish immigrants came because of religious persecution in countries such as Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Romania. As they came, they were welcomed and cared for by the Jewish community that had been established in the Twin Cities by then. They kept their religious practices and customs and their Yiddish language.
Following the practice of the first wave, the second wave of Jewish immigrants gave aid to members of their community by founding institutions for the aged and children, including Sholom Residence, the Jewish Home for the Aged, and the Jewish Sheltering Home for Children. Though nearly 5,000 of Minnesota’s 13,000 Jews lived in St. Paul near the Capitol early in the 20th century, by around 1915, Jewish immigrants from Romania and other countries were also moving into Minneapolis neighborhoods in the lake district, around Lyndale and Hennepin Avenues, and later, on the North Side of Minneapolis. They built synagogues, religious schools, a community center, and commercial establishments.
Sarah Gensler’s family appears to have been a part of this community. Sarah went to public schools in Minneapolis, graduating from Old Central High School in Minneapolis in 1917. Later, she was secretary of Beth El Synagogue, a Conservative synagogue on Minneapolis’ North Side. The congregation was founded by a group of young people who wanted to hold modern services, and they built a synagogue at 14th and Penn Avenue North in Minneapolis in 1926.
In fact, from this period through World War II, Minneapolis boasted the largest concentration of Jews between Denver and Chicago. In 1912, Rabbi Samuel Deinard founded the Anglo-Jewish newspaper, The Jewish Weekly, which advocated for the Zionist movement, championing the need for a Jewish homeland in the land of Palestine.
Jews in Minnesota suffered intense discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodation along with Catholics and African Americans from the 1920s through mid-century, after Gensler Schwartz’s death. In Minneapolis, Jews were excluded from most civic and social organizations. Jewish doctors were not even allowed to practice in local hospitals. In fact, the pervasive anti-Semitism in the Twin Cities prompted journalist Carey McWilliam, who did a 1946 local investigation of anti-Semitism, to label Minneapolis “the capital of anti-Semitism in the United States.”
A Busy Litigator
Gensler was ambitious for a woman of her generation. She went to the Minnesota College of Law while working at the Siberian Fur Company. Gensler graduated with an LL.B. at the top of her class of forty-eight students, all men except for her, in 1922. The same year, another Jewish woman, Margaret Labovitz, graduated from the University of Minnesota, also the only woman in her class of 50.
Gensler was admitted to the bar on September 5, 1922. She built a strong practice in both state and federal trial and appellate courts, appearing under her maiden name and later her married name, Gensler Schwartz. Known for her gracious personality, she did a significant amount of pro bono practice, often funding appeals for indigent clients herself.
Gensler Schwartz appealed a number of cases to appellate courts, including torts, worker’s compensation and estate cases. In Hastings v. F. W. Woolworth Company, in which a woman was injured when her shoe heel became caught in a hole on the floor of the retailer, the Court held that shopkeepers owe the duty of ordinary care with respect to the safety of their premises. In Weinstein v. Schwartz, Gensler Schwartz unsuccessfully appealed a jury verdict against a mother-in-law who sued her son-in-law for failing to fix his defective steering gear, resulting in an accident in which she was injured.
In Plotkin v. Northland Transp. Co., Gensler Schwartz represented a driver who was assaulted by a bus chauffeur after he made it difficult for the bus to pass. The Court held that the assaulting bus driver was not acting in the scope of his employment, which would have permitted a lawsuit against his employer. In Lunzer v. W.F. Booth Co, the Court held that an employer’s failure to make a report of the accident did not stay the six-year statute of limitations for worker’s compensation claims.
In In re Parcker, Gensler Schwartz, acting as estate administrator, unsuccessfully questioned the authority of a lawyer to represent the decedent’s heir and two other claimants to the estate, and to settle the case. Gensler also represented herself on appeal in a case filed against her by her physician for failure to pay for services.
Community and Personal Life
Despite the social prejudice against Jews that pervaded Minneapolis’ important organizations, Gensler Schwartz seems to have found a ready place in her community. A Republican, she was a member of the Hennepin County, Minnesota, and American Bar Associations, and well-regarded enough that her Hennepin County Bar Memorial noted that “she was considerate and helpful to all troubled souls with whom she came in contact” and “she quickly won the respect of judges, lawyers and clients.” Gensler Schwartz was also a member of the Women’s Lawyers Association, an organization that gave way to the National Association of Women Lawyers, which had its first convention in Minneapolis on August 28, 1923, with President Willian Howard Taft in attendance.
Gensler Schwartz was known for her charitable work throughout the community; in her Hennepin County Bar Association memorial, her charitable contributions were described as “generous in the extreme.” She was a National Director of the Ex-Patients’ Home Industries in Denver. She also had an active social life in the Twin Cities. She was a member of the T.P.C. Club, the Institute of Arts of Minneapolis, and the Literary Club of Minnesota Business Women.
Gensler married Julius Schwartz on October 6, 1926. They lived on Upton Avenue in Minneapolis and Gensler had her office in the Andrus Building. Julius and Sarah had one son, Lawrence in 1928. One of her hobbies was philosophy. She fell ill in February 1941, and died on July 6, 1942, at the age of 41.
References
Jewish Young Women Law Graduates, The American Jewish World, June 30, 1922, at 10.
Beth El Synagogue, History, https://www.besyn.org/about/history/ (last visited Nov. 21, 2022)
Minnesota Business and Professional Women, History, mnbusinesswomen.org/history.html (last visited Nov. 21, 2022)
National Association of Women Lawyers, NAWL History, https://www.nawl.org/history#time (last visited Nov. 21, 2022)
Northwest Reports Satisfactory Trade, 49 Fur Trade Review 170 (1921), https://hdl.handle.net/2027/umn.31951d02394935x
Hennepin County Bar Association, In Memoriam Sarah Roslyn Gensler Schwartz (April 15, 1901-July 6, 1942), http://www.minnesotalegalhistoryproject.org/assets/Schwarts,%20Sarah%20R.%20G.pdf
Laura Weber, From Exclusion to Integration: The Story of Jews in Minnesota, MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society (last modified May 24, 2022), https://www.mnopedia.org/exclusion-integration-story-jews-minnesota
Who’s Who in the Central States 865 (1929)
Hastings v. F.W. Woolworth Co., 189 Minn. 523, 250 N.W. 362 (1933)
Lunzer v. W.F. Buth & Co., 195 Minn, 29, 261 N.W. 477 (1935)
Gensler v. Bercowitz (In re Parcker’s Estate), 178 Minn. 409, 227 N.W. 426 (1929)
Plotkin v. Northland Transp. Co., 204 Minn. 422, 283 N.W. 758 (1939)
Weinstein v. Schwartz, 204 Minn. 189, 283 N.W. 127 (1938)