Rudowitz, Christian Ansoff (c. 1873-?)

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James Bronson Reynolds to Jane Addams, December 22, 1908

Remarks at the National Conference of Charities and Corrections, June 12, 1909

Autobiographical Notes Upon Twenty Years at Hull-House: Echoes of the Russian Revolution, September 1910

Benjamin Barr Lindsey to Jane Addams, June 5, 1914

Rudowitz Conference (1908)

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Birth Date

c. 1873

Birthplace

Courland, in modern-day Latvia

Biographical Text

Christian Ansoff Rudowitz, a Lutheran carpenter, was a Russian revolutionary who fled Czarist Russia sometime after January 1906 and settled in Chicago. In January 1908, the Russian Consul in Chicago requested his extradition because he was a suspect in a brutal robbery and murder in what is now central Latvia. Rudowitz was arrested and held in the Cook County jail. Clarence Darrow headed the team of lawyers who defended Rudowitz before a hearing of the U.S. Commissioner in Chicago. Rudowitz admitted to being a member of the revolutionary Latvian group but maintained his innocence in the crime. After hearing evidence, Commissioner Mark A. Foote ruled in favor of the extradition, arguing that Rudowitz was a murderer who had played a role in planning the crime. Foote's decision met with immediate opposition, and various groups in Chicago rallied behind him. Jane Addams and the Political Refugee Defense League waged a public campaign in Rudowitz' behalf. The public pressure was successful; on January 26, 1909, Secretary of State Elihu Root overturned the extradition and Rudowitz was released.

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Edited By

Hajo, Cathy Moran

Lynn, Stacy

Rights

Rightsholder being researched

Gender

Male

First appears

1908

Bibliography and Links

"Calls Rudowitz Plain Murderer," Chicago Tribune, 27 December 1908, 1:6-7:1-2.

"Political Refugee League Made National in Scope," Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL), 30 December 1908, 4:6.

"Russia's Price for Refugees," Saturday Evening Post, 2 January 1909, 14:3.

Elliott Robert Barkan, ed., Immigrants in American History: Arrival, Adaptation, and Integration, 4 vols. (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2013), 1:483.

Frederick C. Griffin, "The Rudowitz Extradition Case," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 75 (Spring 1982): 61-72.

Citation

“Rudowitz, Christian Ansoff (c. 1873-?),” Jane Addams Digital Edition, accessed May 19, 2024, https://digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu/items/show/5730.