Subject Guide: Migrations and Immigration

Baron de Hirsch (I-80)

The Baron de Hirsch Fund Records document the organization's involvement in the planning of agricultural communities across the United States and to some extent in South America; the founding and administrative dealings of agricultural and trade schools; the establishment of the Jewish Agricultural Society; and the business records of the Fund itself. In addition, the collection documents the protection offered to immigrants through port work, relief, temporary aid, promotion of suburban industrial enterprises and removal from urban centers through the Industrial Removal Office, land settlement, agricultural training, and trade and general education. In this respect, the collection is of major interest for Jewish genealogists as it documents a number of individual immigrants. 

Cecilia Razovsky Papers (P-290)

The papers consist of correspondence and reports of Cecelia Razovsky, noted social worker specializing in immigration and resettlement of refugees. The collection includes information about her work with the National Council of Jewish Women in the 1920s, and with the National Refugee Service (and predecessor organizations) in the 1930s. Information is included about her work as a Resettlement Supervisor in the post-World War II Displaced Persons camps in Europe, and as a field worker in the southwestern U.S. for the United Service for New Americans in 1950. 

Hadassah Archives on Long-term Deposit at the American Jewish Historical Society (I-578)

The Hadassah Archives documents the activities of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America. Founded in 1912, the organization engaged hundreds of thousands of American Jewish women in the Zionist project. Materials include extensive records of its social welfare projects in Palestine and later Israel, such as Youth Aliyah and the Hadassah Medical Organization. Administrative records document the organization's governance, operations, and functions. The collection also includes the papers of Hadassah founder, Henrietta Szold, as well as the organization's national presidents, executive directors, and other important individuals. Additional materials also document Hadassah's organizational activity in the United States such as annual and midwinter conventions and the dozens of active local chapters from all over the United States. 

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society Papers (I-363)

HIAS is an international migration agency of the American Jewish community. They resettle vulnerable refugees and help them build new lives, while advocating for the protection of refugees and other displaced people. HIAS grew out of organizations that started in the 1880s to help Russian Jews resettle in the United States. As needs have changed in rescuing and resettling Jews and other refugees in the United States, the HIAS mission has broadened to rescue and advocate for all those in the continual wave of refugees and asylum seekers. This collection is held off site and needs to be requested at least 3 weeks in advance. 

Industrial Removal Office (I-91)

The Industrial Removal Office was created as part of the Jewish Agricultural Society to assimilate immigrants into American society, both economically and culturally. It worked to employ all Jewish immigrants. The collection contains administrative and financial records, immigrants' removal records, and correspondence. A database has been constructed to search for persons removed by the Industrial Removal Office. The Removal Records have been digitized and made available online.

Lawrence I. Lerner papers (P-952) [Digitized]

The Papers of Lawrence I. Lerner represent one collection housed within the Archive of the American Soviet Jewry Movement (AASJM). These papers reflect the effort, beginning in the 1960s through the late 1980s, of thousands of American Jews of all denominations and political orientations to stop the persecution and discrimination of Jews in the Soviet Union. The collection contains the papers of Soviet Jewry movement activist and New Jersey-based attorney, Lawrence I. Lerner, who repeatedly traveled to the Soviet Union in the 1980s to visit Refuseniks. Mr. Lerner participated in filing legal pleas for Prisoners of Conscience based on international treaties and the Soviet Constitution

National Committee on Post-War Immigration Policy records (I-173)

National Committee on Post-War Immigration Policy established in 1944 to study the conditions relating to immigration to the United States and to make recommendations to adapt existing laws to the post-war economic and social needs of the United States. The collection contains the minutes and memoranda of the Interim Committee, and the minutes, memoranda, and correspondence of other committees, such as the advisory committee.

National Refugee Service records (I-92)

This collection contains records of the National Refugee Service (NRS), including committee files, correspondence, publications, and project files organized by partner organization and location. A few case files and a small amount of materials on predecessor organizations, notably the National Coordinating Committee, are also included. The records cover the major functions of the NRS related to migration, resettlement, retraining, employment, and social adjustment of refugees. 

Records of the Jewish Immigrant Information Bureau (Galveston, Tex.) (I-90) [Digitzed]

The Galveston immigration records document the attempt of the Jewish Immigrant Information Bureau, working in cooperation with several other Jewish organizations, to receive Jewish immigrants through the port of Galveston, Texas rather than New York City. The papers further describe the JIIB's efforts to resettle the immigrants in communities throughout the United States. Papers include ship passenger lists, correspondence, and statistical reports, as well as papers dealing with individual immigration cases.

Chernyshevskii goes west: how Jewish immigration helped bring Russian radicalism to America / by Steven Cassedy. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh], 1994. 

After they closed the gates: Jewish illegal immigration to the United States, 1921-1965 / by Libby Garland., 2014. 

Jewish immigration to the United States from 1881 to 1910 / by Samuel Joseph. New York: Columbia University; [etc., etc.], 1914. 

The politics of ethnic pressure: the American Jewish Committee fight against immigration restriction, 1906-1917 / by Judith S. Goldstein. of European Immigrants and American Society. New York: Garland Pub., 1990. 

Through narrow gates; a review of Jewish immigration, colonization and immigrant aid work in Canada (1840-1940) / by Simon Belkin. Montreal: Canadian Jewish Congress and the Jewish Colonization Association, 1966. 

With faith and thanksgiving: the story of two hundred years of Jewish immigration and immigrant aid effort in Canada, 1760-1960 / by Joseph Kage. Montreal: Eagle Pub. Co., 1962.

Words of the uprooted: Jewish immigrants in early twentieth-century America / [compiled by ] Robert A. Rockaway. of Documents in American Social History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.