Abstract Activism: Sam Maitin's Philadelphia

Sam Maitin’s upbringing taught him to be critical of the injustices he saw in the world. Maitin grew up steeped in the socialist and pacifist beliefs of his father, Isaac Boris Maitin, who had fled Russia at the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Isaac Maitin and his wife, Ruth Pollack Maitin, an immigrant from Ukraine, raised their three sons to be politically engaged in the Jewish community in their North Philadelphia neighborhood. They held regular discussions of political philosophy around the family dinner table above the grocery store that they ran at 1738 Oxford Street. Later in life, Sam Maitin recalled how his parents emphasized mutual aid, hospitality, equality, and education as the principles of their political and community life.

The Maitin family nurtured their love of learning in Philadelphia’s many educational institutions. Maitin recalled, “We used libraries voraciously. There was one library in particularly in that neighborhood, called the Wagner Branch of the Free Library… I used to practically live in that bloody place.” He also attended free art classes at the Fleisher Art Memorial’s Graphic Sketch Club, founded to make art instruction accessible to working-class children. Maitin devoted himself to art as he advanced through the Philadelphia public schools. After high school graduation, he accepted a City Scholarship to the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art.