Printed Invitation from the President of the United States: “The Union League of Philadelphia Requests the Pleasure of Rev. S. Morais and Ladies Company on Wednesday Evening April 24th from 8 until 10 o’clock to Meet The President & Mrs. Hayes.

Prominent philadelphia rabbi invited to meet with the president of the united states. Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-93) was the 19th President of the United States, who served one term from 1877 to 1881. As president, Hayes presided over the end of Reconstruction and the United States’ entry into the Second Industrial Revolution. He began the efforts that would lead to civil service reform and attempted to reconcile the divisions that had led to the American civil War fifteeen years earlier. Rabbi Sabato Morais (1823-97) was the leader of Mikveh Israel Synagogue of Philadelphia in succession to the celebrated Rev. Isaac Leeser and a very active member of good works in both Jewish and non-Jewish Philadelpia society. In his later career he was the founder of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City in 1886.