SLAWSON, JOHN

SLAWSON, JOHN (1896–1989), U.S. communal executive and social worker. Slawson, who was born in Poltava, Ukraine, was taken to the U.S. in 1904. From 1920 to 1924 Slawson was an investigator and psychologist for the New York State Department of Welfare. He was subsequently head of the Jewish welfare federations of Cleveland and Detroit (1924–32) and executive director of the Jewish Board of Guardians (1932–43). From 1943 to 1967 Slawson served as executive vice president of the american jewish committee (AJC), where he directed a comprehensive program of scientific research on prejudice and the methods of combating group hostility. During his tenure, the committee grew into an international organization with more than 40,000 members and offices in 20 U.S. localities, as well as in Europe, Israel, and Latin America. In 1957 Slawson and an AJC delegation met with Pope Pius XII, the first audience ever accorded a Jewish organization by the Vatican. He wrote The Delinquent Boy (1926), a basic treatise on juvenile delinquency; The Role of Science in Intergroup Relations (1962); and Unequal Americans (1979). (Geraldine Rosenfield (2nd ed.)