Selim Franklin
Selim Franklin, aged 14 years old
Selim Franklin, one of few individuals to have a college education in Tucson’s territorial days, played a vital role in the founding of the University of Arizona.
Selim Franklin was born to a family of English Jews but became a pioneer of the West. Unlike his merchant and banker uncles, Lionel and Barron Jacobs, and even less like his brother Abraham, who brushed elbows with infamous gunfighters, Selim was an academic. After obtaining his law degree from the University of California and passing the California Bar in 1883, Selim moved to Tucson. He was drawn by the thriving livelihoods that his uncles had created for themselves, and was able to get himself hired as city attorney as he had hoped.
In 1884, Selim was elected to the lower house of the Thirteenth Territorial Legislature, which became known as the “Thieving Thirteenth.” Rampant corruption and bribery plagued this particular legislative assembly, which was, in Selim’s own words, “... the most contentious and the most corrupt legislature that Arizona had had.” He also cited malpractice: legislators who bribed the press and voted to afford themselves extra pay. Franklin’s scruples prevailed, however, when in 1885, a bill was proposed to found a university in Tucson. This plan had been in the works for well over a year: Jacob Mansfeld, another Jewish pioneer in Tucson, hosted meetings in his bookstore that sparked momentum for the 1885 proposal. Selim was present during many of these meetings and was ultimately chosen to propose the bill in the lower House. On March 11 of that year, the bill had been approved by the upper House, and Selim then assumed full responsibility for passing the legislation in the lower House. He appealed to the conscience of his fellow legislators, arguing successfully that the creation of an institution for higher education could amend the damage that they had caused with their corrupt ways. The bill became law on March 12, 1885.
Although the university struggled for years to obtain the four acres necessary to establish a campus, things progressed steadily. The Board of Regents deemed the University’s $25,000 appropriation insufficient, so they created a College of Agriculture as well, in order to attract an $15,000 benefit due to land grant universities. In the absence of any professors who had the credentials, Selim Franklin took the post of professor of agriculture. He worked for a whole year without pay until the university found a replacement.
For the rest of his life in Tucson, Franklin pursued his career in law and became both a successful local lawyer and a U.S. District Attorney. He married Henrietta Herring and together they had three sons and one daughter. Selim died in November 1927, when he had a heart attack at the age of 68 during a game of golf.
Cholent and Chorizo, by Abraham Chanin
Jewish Settlers in the Arizona Territory, by Blaine Lamb
Photo credits: Bloom Southwest Jewish Archives