Oscar Solbert

Oscar Solbert

Oscar Nathaniel Solbert ( January 22, 1885 - April 16, 1958 ) was an American general, businessman and the first director of the George Eastman House .

Live and act

Solbert was born in the north of Sweden. He had four siblings. His parents were simple people and so he grew up in modest circumstances. When he was eight years old, the family immigrated to the United States and settled in Worcester , Massachusetts . There Oscar Solbert contributed to the family income and earned his school fees by delivering newspapers, as an evening teacher and with summer jobs. After two years at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, he was accepted into the United States Military Academy at West Point . He graduated sixth in his class in 1910. According to the custom of the time, he joined the elite United States Army Corps of Engineersa. After various assignments, Solbert returned to the academy as a teacher in 1914. The future US President Dwight D. Eisenhower was one of his students . While at West Point, Solbert married Elisabeth Abernaty.

The United States depended on allies during World War I to learn what was happening inside Germany. Due to their geographical location, the Scandinavian countries were a source of information of great military value and Oscar, as a military attaché in the neutral states of Denmark and Norway, set out with colleagues to set up a system of contacts in Germany in order to get to these important secrets.

After the First World War, he served as a military attaché in London from 1919 to 1924. Between 1924 and 1925 he was a military advisor to the White House . In Washington he met Lawrence Whiting, a well-known Chicago industrialist, who offered him a job in Chicago . While Oscar was still connected to Whiting, an old friend, Will Hays, director of the Motion Picture Producers Association, asked him for his services on a temporary basis in Europe related to international problems facing the film industry. The Eastman Kodak Company , a member of the association, was involved in the project and was impressed with the skill with which the former officer conducted the negotiations. Upon completion of the project, Oscar was suggested to join Kodak. With the help of his unusual and worldwide contacts as well as his powers of persuasion, he undertook a number of difficult assignments for George Eastman , with which he remained closely connected throughout his life. George Eastman was a frequent visitor to the Solbert family, and the Solbert couple accompanied Eastman on several of his trips to Europe. At that time, Eastman was busy trying to achieve worldwide acceptance of the 13-month calendar . Oscar therefore traveled through Europe with Moses B. Cotsworth , the father of the idea. This was one of the few times when he could not fulfill his mission.

When Kodak organized the International Photography Competition in 1931, important representatives of the nobility and other prominent personalities lent their names as sponsors of this event.

Because of his military experience, it was obvious that Oscar Solbert would re-enter military service in World War II . He again performed unusual services for which his origins and international experience predestined him. He went to England, where his friend, Anthony Drexel Biddle , was ambassador to the European governments-in-exile in London. Negotiating with governments that had no one to rule and whose interests were not always compatible with those of the Allies was no easy task, but Oscar Solbert's flair and personal knowledge of most of the countries he dealt with brought him received great recognition from Ambassador Biddle and his staff. In 1943, then a colonel, he was appointed chief of special services for the European theater and was promoted to brigadier general in recognition of his successful work in organizing and directing the entertainment, leisure and educational programs for the soldiers of the command. At the end of the war, he returned to Eastman Kodak as a member of the Executive Board until he left the company in 1949.

The qualities that led to Oscar Solbert's successful career as an officer and businessman also proved conducive to his career as first director of the George Eastman House International Museum for Photography and Film . With the support of the curator Beaumont Newhall , Oscar Solbert was the Spiritus Rector behind numerous activities of the museum and was largely responsible for the development and expansion of this unique institution. With his eloquent skill, Oscar Solbert found generous donors for the construction of the Dryden Theater, the Strong building (in which the negatives of the great films of the world are kept) and other important museum extensions. Solbert had numerous friends around the world who were a reflection of his diverse interests. Oskar lived on the third floor of the George Eastman House until his death , and he remained an astonishingly young and lively personality who did not show up in his seventy-three years. Solbert was quite “the happy warrior; he whom every man in arms should wish to be “( the happy warrior; the one who every man wanted to be in arms ; based on The Happy Warrior by William Wordsworth).

Web links

• Library of Congress
• Military Times Hall of Valor

Individual evidence

1. ↑ George Eastman House - Frequently asked questions: History of the third floor ( Memento of the original from September 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.