Lois Weisberg (May 6, 1925 – January 13, 2016) was the first Commissioner of Cultural Affairs for the

City of Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, from 1989 until January 2011. She was profiled by writer

Malcolm Gladwell Malcolm Timothy Gladwell (born 3 September 1963) is an English-born Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1996. He has published seven books: '' The Tipping Point: How Little ...

in a 1999 ''New Yorker'' essay, "Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg"; Gladwell, who called Weisberg a "connector" and included the essay about her in his book '' The Tipping Point'', asked: "She's a grandmother, she lives in a big house in Chicago, and you've never heard of her. Does she run the world?" Weisberg was appointed by Mayor

Harold Washington Harold Lee Washington (April 15, 1922 – November 25, 1987) was an American lawyer and politician who was the 51st Mayor of Chicago. Washington became the first African American to be elected as the city's mayor in April 1983. He served as may ...

to head the city's Office of Event Planning (in the Department of Cultural Affairs) in 1983. She helped establish the Gallery 37 program, which gathered Chicago youths to a vacant block in downtown Chicago to make art; she also created the Chicago Blues Festival, the Chicago Gospel Festival, multiple citywide neighborhood festivals, and the Chicago Holiday Sharing It Program. She launched Chicago's Cows on Parade exhibit, the first in the US. Before her appointment in city government, she helped found the Chicago Cultural Center and Friends of the Park. She was given many civic and arts awards, including the League of Women Voters Civic Contribution Award,

Governing Magazine ''Governing'' is a website, edited and published in Washington, D.C., that covers state and local government in the United States. Originally a national monthly magazine, it was published in print 1987 and 2019. It covers policy, politics, and the ...

's Public Official of the Year Award, the Harold Washington History Maker Award, an honorary Doctorate from Chicago's Spertus Institute, and the ''

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'' "Chicagoan of the Year" award.

Family

Born Lois Porges in Chicago to a lawyer father and homemaker mother on May 6, 1925, she initially pursued an acting career, but soon realized she would rather work behind the scenes. She married Leonard Solomon, and they had two daughters: Jerilyn yffe(d. 2011) and Kiki llenby She and Solomon divorced, and she married lawyer (and later judge) Bernard Weisberg. They had two sons:

Jacob Jacob (; ; ar, يَعْقُوب, Yaʿqūb; gr, Ἰακώβ, Iakṓb), later given the name Israel, is regarded as a patriarch of the Israelites and is an important figure in Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. J ...

and Joseph (Joe). Jacob became editor of '' Slate online magazine'' and co-founded with Gladwell the audio content publisher Pushkin Industries. Joe is a former CIA agent turned television writer-producer. Judge Weisberg died in 1999.

Awards

In 2014, Weisberg received an inaugural Fifth Star award from the City of Chicago. In a 2009 interview with '' Chicago Life'', she reported not always enjoying the process of fundraising, "Even since I first started with the Shaw celebration in 1956, I've never really liked asking people for money. I don't mind asking people for money for something I'm not involved with, and I bet a lot of people feel that way."

Death

Weisberg died in

Palmetto Bay, Florida Palmetto Bay is a suburban incorporated village in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The population was 24,439 as of the 2020 US census. Palmetto Bay includes three neighborhoods that were former census-designated places, Cutler, Ro ...

, aged 90. She had been ill for a short time.

References

External links

* Malcolm Gladwell
Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg

Profile
chicagomag.com; accessed January 17, 2016.
Notice of death of Lois Weisberg
newyorker.com; accessed January 17, 2016. {{DEFAULTSORT:Weisberg, Lois 1925 births 2016 deaths People from Chicago American activists American socialites 20th-century American Jews People from Palmetto Bay, Florida 21st-century American Jews