MARWICK, LAWRENCE

MARWICK, LAWRENCE (1909–1981), librarian and Oriental scholar. Born in Poland, Marwick immigrated to the United States in 1929. During World War II he served in the U.S. intelligence corps. From 1948, for more than 30 years, he was head of the Hebraic section of the U.S. Library of Congress. After the war he was the assistant director of the Board of Jewish Education in St. Louis. In 1954–56 he lectured in Arabic and Islamic studies at Dropsie College and from 1961 in modern Hebrew literature and Arabic at New York University. Marwick was a member of the American Academy of Jewish Research and the board of governors of Dropsie College. He wrote A Handbook of Diplomatic Hebrew (1957) and edited Solomon B. Jeroham's Arabic Commentary on the Book of Psalms, Chapters 42–72 (1956). He also wrote Biblical and Judaic Acronyms (1979) and compiled Diplomatic Hebrew: A Glossary of Current Terminology (1980). In 1993 the Library of Congress published Yiddish American Popular Songs, 1895 to 1950, a bibliographic catalog of Yiddish music based on Marwick's work. He had compiled entries of more than 3,000 Yiddish songs from the Catalog of Copyright Entries. Focusing on Yiddish-American plays and sheet music that had been deposited in the Library of Congress for copyright registration but were virtually unknown to scholars, Marwick's work provides a historical perspective on the evolution of Yiddish music in America. Musicologist Irene Heskes completed the volume for publication. (Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)