Julius S. Schreiber Papers

Julius S. Schreiber (1908-2001) was born in the Ukraine and in 1913 his family immigrated to Cincinnati, Ohio. He earned his college degree at the University of Cincinnati in 1928, completed his medical degree there in 1932, and immediately embarked upon his career at Fresno County General Hospital in California. After just one year he was commissioned in the Army Medical Corps Reserve and spent the next few years studying psychosomatic aspects of pulmonary tuberculosis in Denver. He then served as director of the Research and Shock Therapy Division of Stockton State Hospital in California while continuing post graduate work in neurology and neuropathology in San Francisco.

After studying for more than a year at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York from 1939-1940, he returned to Stockton. There he remained until called for active duty in April, 1942. Stationed at Camp Callan, California, Dr. Schreiber psychologically evaluated recruits for their fitness to serve. In the course of his duties he noticed how little the recruits knew about the war's purpose and their role in it. Hoping through education to produce a better class of soldier, Dr. Schreiber initiated a mental health training program which he administered as chief of the Neuropsychiatric Section.

Higher echelons of the army admired his ambitious curriculum at Camp Callan. In late October, 1943 Dr. Schreiber transferred to Washington, D.C., and was assigned to the Army Orientation Branch. He served as chief of the Programs Section directing the creation of guides for discussion leaders throughout the army. The discussion group concept, or group therapy, involved meetings led by an instructor who had been briefed with talking points for a particular subject, here applied to conditioning soldiers' psychological health when facing combat and other warfare environments. Group leaders would encourage a group to talk about the topic, ideally to the extent that a variety of viewpoints could be heard. Through these varied opinions and with guidance by the leader, the group would gain a thorough understanding of the situation or topic. In July, 1945 Schreiber was transferred to the National Jewish Welfare Board where he prepared educational aids for Jewish community centers assisting returning veterans in their readjustment to civilian life. He left this position upon his discharge at the end of October, 1945.

Dr. Schreiber's work at the Army Orientation Branch directly influenced his subsequent life work. Early in 1945 he conceived of a plan to form an organization which would provide for the general American public the same type of assistance that discussion groups had provided soldiers. By 1945 Dr. Schreiber felt Americans were becoming increasingly apathetic and prejudiced, suffering from what he saw as a social illness. Similar to producing better soldiers through discussion-based education, he believed that he could use the same techniques to improve American society.

While working with the National Jewish Welfare Board, he was further encouraged and assisted in the formation of the National Institute of Social Relations (NISR). Planning was well under way before he left the Army. Upon its incorporation in early 1946, the NISR established six community discussion councils in the northeast and south. Under his directorship, however, the NISR failed in its effort to bring change. In the highly charged post-war atmosphere, some attacked the NISR's programs as communistic, while others drew negative parallels between communism and the Jewish race, who made up much of NISR's leadership and who provided much of the organization's funding. Whether due to suspicions of communism, anti-semitism, the concept of voluntary community discussion, or other reasons, the NISR failed in promulgating its mission and subsequently dissolved financially. By December, 1948 Dr. Schreiber had no connections to NISR and was in private practice in Washington, D.C.

During his time with the NISR in Washington, Dr. Schreiber also was active in psychiatric organizations such as the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, the Public Education Committee of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, and the Public Education Committee of the American Psychiatric Association. After 1948 he continued these associations and also became a member of the Washington Committee of the Menninger Foundation. He remained in Washington after his retirement and died, at the age of 93, in 2001.