Irving Adler ’27
from Poland, with his father coming in 1905 to seek work and his mother following five years later. His father, working first as a house-painter,earned enough money to start a small business selling ice, coal, wood, seltzer, and prohibition beer (less than 1/2 of 1% alcohol). Adler was given the Hebrew name Yitzchak, anglicized on his birth certificate as Isaac. His name was changed to Irving by a school clerk when he entered elementary school. Adler was accelerated in school five times, entering Townsend Harris High School at age eleven and beginning City College when he was fourteen. During his junior year he was awarded the Belden gold medal for excellence in mathematics silver medal for ranking second in the college. He graduated magna cum laude from college in 1931, when he was 18.
After President Harry Truman issued an executive order in 1947 calling for loyalty investigations of federal employees, New York State adopted the “Feinberg Law” in 1949 providing for the dismissal of teachers who belonged to “subversive organizations.” The New York Teachers’ Union won a suit challenging the constitutionality of the Feinberg Law in the New York State Supreme Court, but the decision was reversed on appeal to the federal courts. The United States Supreme Court decided against the teachers in a 6-3 decision in 1952, in a case that became known as Adler vs. Board of Education because Adler was the plaintiff with the earliest name alphabetically.
Before the Feinberg Law was implemented, the New York Superintendent of Schools, William Jansen, began calling in teachers for questioning. Union leaders and active members were asked the same question being asked of those subpoenaed before the House Un-American Activities Committee, “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party.” On the advice of counsel, most refused to answer on the grounds that the question was a violation of section 26a of the New York Civil Service Law that prohibited questioning civil service employees about their political affiliation. Those who refused to answer the question, Adler among them, were dismissed for “insubordination and conduct unbecoming a teacher.” Adler was suspended in 1952 and dismissed in 1954.
In 1967 the U.S. Supreme Court reversed itself in a subsequent case. The teachers who had been fired in the 1950s then sued for reinstatement. Adler was reinstated and retired from the city schools in 1977, with his pension rights restored.
Adler wrote his first book, a text for children called Secret of Light, in 1947 while still working as a teacher. In 1955 he wrote his first book for the John Day Company, Time in Your Life. He published the majority his books with John Day, but published seven books with Alfred A. Knopf under the pen name “Robert Irving,” and later published with Golden Press and Doubleday under his own name. He wrote six books a year for many years, mostly books on scientific subjects for the junior-high and high-school levels.
In 1959, Irving and Ruth Adler together began writing “The Reason Why” series of books about scientific concepts for elementary school children. Adler also wrote The Giant Golden Book of Mathematics, followed by a series of six arithmetic workbooks for grade-school children, aptly named Mathematics – Grade 1 through Mathematics – Grade 6. His workbooks eventually sold about 28 million copies worldwide. The Adlers moved to Shaftsbury, Vermont in 1960. In 1961, Adler completed his doctorate in mathematics at Columbia University under supervision of Ellis Kolchin. He became the chairman of a committee of Vermont peace organizations that mobilized against atmospheric testing of atomic weapons, led a contingent from southern Vermont to the 1963 March on Washington, and was president of a group called the Vermont-in-Mississippi Corporation that supported civil rights activities in the southern U.S.