Beatrice and Sidney Berry scrapbooks

Sidney Norton Berry was born October 30, 1908, in Brooklyn. He attended City College of New York, New York University, the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Columbia Law School. Sidney was admitted to the New York bar in 1932 and started practice as an insurance lawyer. He married Beatrice Mendelson in 1931, of whom less is known at this writing of her life before her marriage. They lived at 898 West End Avenue on Manhattan's Upper West Side in a penthouse apartment with a roof garden that appears often in the scrapbook's photographs. Beatrice and Sidney had at least one son, Roger Julian Berry (1935-2018), who would move to England and have a prestigious career in atomic energy research.

After a short stint in 1933 as a special assistant attorney-general, Sidney continued his private law practice, based at 116 John Street, through the 1930s. In 1942, as America entered World War II, he joined the Office of War Information and the Armed Forces Radio Service. After the war, Sidney joined the Voice of America (VOA) as a commentator and special events coordinator, a position he held through the mid-1950s. During his radio career, Sidney covered the United Nations while it was based in its early years at San Francisco, President Harry Truman's inauguration, the Berlin airlift, receptions for Chaim Weizmann and Jawaharlal Nehru, and the Lincoln Center groundbreaking ceremony. Sidney left VOA at some point in the early to mid-1950s, eventually forming his own film production company. He remained in that line of work until his death in New York in 1975.

Beatrice worked as a saleswoman for the Laura Grayson Company, selling what were then known as "made-to-measure-lines." She later wrote fashion articles for "C&D," a Michigan newspaper, reporting on the latest Hollywood, Paris and New York styles. Both Beatrice and Sidney were active members of their temple, Rodeph Sholom. Sidney was a Cantor there and, briefly in 1932, a vice-president. Both Berrys were in the temple's League Players, Sidney as an actor, Beatrice as a director. Both were also involved in B'nai B'rith, including as editor (Sidney) and associate editor (Beatrice) of the organization's "Manhattan-Washington Chronicle."

(The above note was based primarily on a biographical sketch written by an unknown author at N-YHS for an internal document describing the scrapbooks; the sources used for that note are unknown, but likely were drawn, at least in part, from the scrapbooks. Sidney's obituary in the New York Times of February 20, 1975, was also used for the above note.)