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Alan J. Altheimer

American lawyer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 24, 2025
Entity authorityQ110636160 ↗
Source-derived summary

Alan J. Altheimer (September 2, 1903 – March 30, 1999) was an American lawyer with Altheimer & Gray and nonprofit leader who was the former president of the Chicago-based Jewish Council on Urban Affairs.

Biography

Altheimer was born in St. Louis and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. He is a descendent of the Altheimer brothers, who are the namesake of Altheimer, Arkansas. He studied law at Columbia University, graduating from Columbia College in 1923 and Columbia Law School in 1925. Upon being admitted to the Illinois Bar, he joined his uncle, prominent Chicago lawyer and civic leader Benjamin Altheimer's law firm, Altheimer, Mayer, Woods & Smith, which eventually became Altheimer & Gray and where he remained for the next 73 years.

Altheimer was involved in the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, a non-profit organization that focuses on improve housing, business opportunities and education in low-income neighborhoods, shortly after it was founded and served as the organization's president. He also worked with mayor Harold Washington and Jesse Jackson to promote interracial dialogue.

Altheimer also served as president of North Shore Congregation Israel in Glencoe, Illinois. He was also a president of the Phi Sigma Delta fraternity, and the midwestern section of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and National Jewish Welfare Board.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Alan J. Altheimer” as american lawyer. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1903, 1999, 1923, 1925—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1903-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Alan, Altheimer and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american lawyer. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 24, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q110636160. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1903, 1999, 1923 and 1925.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Alan J. Altheimer”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Alan J. Altheimer primary sources, Alan J. Altheimer archive and Alan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Alan J. Altheimer”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Alan J. Altheimer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.