Depicted in this collection of silhouettes are two couples: Samuel and Richea Hays, together with their daughter Sarah Ann and her husband, Major Alfred Mordecai.
The son of Isaac Hays and Rebecca Judah, Samuel Hays was born in New York but lived most of his adult life in Philadelphia. Before striking out on his own as a merchant trader, Hays apprenticed with Haym Salomon. He subsequently established himself in the East India trade and as his mercantile success increased so too did his connections to Philadelphia’s mercantile elite, Jewish and non-Jewish. In 1793, the twenty-nine-year-old Hays courted nineteen-year-old Richea Gratz, the second daughter, and fourth of twelve children, of Philadelphia’s leading Jewish merchant, Michael Gratz, and his wife, Miriam Simon, the first Jewish woman to attend college in the United States.
Samuel and Richea, married in January of 1794, and in 1805 Sarah Ann was born, the sixth of ten children. Sarah’s aunt Rebecca Gratz oversaw and left an indelible mark on her. Sarah became very interested in literature and art, and a commitment to Judaism remained important to her throughout her life. In 1836 she married Malfred Mordecai, with whom she had eight children.
Son of Jacob educator and merchant Jacob Mordecai and his second wife, Rebecca Mears Mordecai, Alfred Mordecai was born in Warrenton, North Carolina, a few years before his father opened his renowned female academy there. Although most of his Alfred’s thirteen siblings and half-siblings would make their lives in North Carolina (such as half-brother Moses Mordecai) or in Richmond Virginia, his future lay elsewhere.
At age fifteen Mordecai entered West Point. Graduating top of his class four years later, he then became an assistant professor there. Commissioned in the Army Corps of Engineers, he oversaw the construction of two forts in Virginia. He subsequently served as commander of the Washington Arsenal and was then promoted to Major in recognition of his service during the Mexican War. After the war he remained in Mexico to survey damages and oversee the construction a national railroad. In 1854 he was dispatched to observe military maneuvers during the Crimean War. Perhaps his biggest impact on the American military was his in helping institute scientific and technical standards, particularly in armaments. He instituted the scientific testing of munitions and weapons for the United States military. He authored the “Second Report of Experiments in Gun Powder” (1849) and “Ordinance Manual for the Use of Officers of the United States Army” (1841), the first manual for standardized manufacturing of weapons with interchangeable parts.
With the coming of the Civil War, Mordecai faced a dilemma: he had, of course, been raised in the South and his mother and all of his siblings still lived there, many, if not all, of them ardent defenders of slavery and secession. The governor of North Carolina even offered him command of the state troops, but he declined. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to fight. And so, at the age of fifty-seven, Mordecai resigned his army commission. Over the coming decades he worked in the private sector as a railroad executive.