Daniel J. Ransohoff

Daniel J. Ransohoff was born to the German Jewish Ransohoff family in Cincinnati, Ohio. He began his career as a documentary photographer. After serving in the Navy, he obtained a bachelor's degree at Bard College, a master's degree in social work at Columbia University and a doctorate at Union Graduate School and returned to Cincinnati to pursue a dual career as a social worker for Family Service of the Cincinnati area, the Community Chest, and the United Way (United Appeal) and as an associate professor of community planning at the University of Cincinnati.

Aside from documenting substandard living conditions of the clients of Family Service, for which he was appointed Community Relations Director, he also photographed to show what social work was and the vital roles that social workers performed in the community. With World War II over, there was a new generation of families who needed the assistance of a clinically trained social worker for marital problems, alcoholism, parent-child relationships, and emotional problems, during a time of tremendous change for American families when men were returning from the military services to the workforce, and women who had worked during the war were back at home; together they were producing babies in record numbers. Ransohoff's specialty was public relations through photography to help families become aware of the ways Family Service could help. In the early 1960s, the New York-based Family Service Association of America published a pamphlet Their Career: Helping People Help Themselves which used Ransohoff's imagery to recruit young adults into social work.

Ransohoff went on to work for Community Chest, where he continued to capture images of life in the Cincinnati community. His two official jobs were teaching community planning at the University of Cincinnati and directing special projects for the United Way and Community Chest, but in his unofficial role, he conducted hundreds of tours of the city for residents and visitors and for companies who used him to help recruit workers who may have had negative feelings about the city. He co-founded Cincinnati's classical music public radio station WGUC and was chairman of the Friends of Judaic Studies. Ransohoff died of pancreatic cancer in a hospital in Cincinnati, on May 29, 1993, and was survived by two daughters, Sallie Ransohoff Kreines and Lela Ransohoff, both of Cincinnati; two brothers, Jerry and William, both of Cincinnati; a stepson, Charles Fleischmann, of Unionville, Pa.; a stepdaughter, Melanie Fleischmann of North Salem, N.Y., and two grandchildren.

• Skirball Museum in Cincinnati George S. Rosenthal, Daniel J. Ransohoff and Ben Rosen: Documenting Cincinnati’s Neighborhoods October 22—December 21, 2014 • Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art • 44 E. 6th Street, Cincinnati, Photographs by Daniel J. Ransohoff, December 1–December 31, 1961

Cincinnati History Library and Archives, Cincinnati Museum Center: The collection covers the years 1934 to 1981. The negatives have been reproduced on microfiche, and the prints are arranged by subject. A finding aid for the collection is available in the library.