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Subject Guide: American Midwest

Queen Mary...Chicago (2/2), circa 1938. Walter and Hedwig Grossmann Collection. LBI.

Cars driving down a highway with electrical poles and fields on either side

General History

Eric Mendelsohn's Synagogues in America / Michael Craig Palmer; with an essay by Ita Heinze-Greenberg. London: Lund Humphries Publishers, 2019.

From the Jewish Heartland: Two Centuries of Midwest Foodways / Ellen F. Steinberg, Jack H. Prost. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2011.

Jewish Communities on the Ohio River: A History / Amy Hill Shevitz. 

The Jews of the Midwest, or ride 'em cowboy / Sylvia Kirshner. 

Memories of the Jewish Midwest: Mom and Pop Grocery Stores  / Omaha: Nebraska Jewish Historical Society, 2011.

And Prairie Dogs Weren't Kosher: Jewish Women in the Upper Midwest Since 1855 / Lucy Mack Schloff. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1996.

Synagogue Architecture in Michigan and the Midwest: Material Culture and the Dynamics of Jewish Accommodation, 1865-1945 (Volumes I and II) / Rochelle Berger Elstein. Thesis (Ph.D.)--Michigan State University, 1986. [Available digitally on-site]

Who Knew?: Stories Unearthed from the Archives / ed. by Linda Mack Schloff. Saint Paul, MN: The Society, 2011.

Biography & Memoir

Bittersweet Berries: Growing up Jewish in Minnesota / Ruth F. Brin. 

Building the Modern World : Albert Kahn in Detroit / Michael H. Hodges.

Dakota Diaspora: Memoirs of a Jewish Homesteader / Sophie Trupin. Lincoln: University of New Brunswick Press, 1988.

Hunger Artist: A Suburban Childhood / Joanne Jacobson. Huron, Ohio: Bottom Dog Press, 2007.

I Remember When...: Personal Recollections and Vignettes of the Sioux City Jewish Community, 1869-1984 / Susan Marks Conner. Sioux City, Iowa: Jewish Federation of Sioux City, 1985.

Jewish Life in Cleveland in the 1920's and 1930's: The Memoirs of a Jewish Journalist / Leon Wiesenfeld. Cleveland: The Jewish Voice Pictorial, 1965.

A Leak in the Heart: Tales from a Woman's Life / Faye Moskowitz. Boston: Godine, 1985.

Leaving South Dakota: A Memoir of a Jewish Feminist Academic / Beryl A. Radin. Herndon, VA: Mascot Books, 2017.

Omaha Blues: A Memory Loop / Joseph Lelyveld. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.

A Woman of Uncertain Character: The Amorous and Radical Adventures of My Mother Jennie (who always wanted to be a respectable Jewish mom) by her Bastard Son / Clancy Sigal. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2006.

Scrapbook of Walter and Hadassah Plaut, 1930-1957 1942-1946. LBI.

cropped image from an advertisement about traveling to Detroit Lakes, Minnesota including a map

By State

Illinois

Avengers and Defenders: Glimpses of Chicago's Jewish Past / Walter Roth. Chicago, IL: Academy Chicago Publishers, 2008.

Five Small Jewish Communities in Illinois: Place and Time in Ottawa, Spring Valley, LaSalle, Joliet and Aurora / Aaron Kohen. Thesis (B.A.) -- University of Chicago, 1995.

History of the Jews of Chicago / ed. by Hyman L. Meites; new introduction by James R. Grossman; foreword by Thomas R. Meites and Jerome B. Meites. Chicago, IL: Chicago Jewish Historical Society: Wellington Pub., 1990.

The Jews of Chicago: From Shtetl to Suburb / Irving Cutler. of Ethnic History of Chicago, 1996.

Looking Backward: True Stories from Chicago's Jewish Past / Walter Roth. Chicago, IL: Academy Chicago Publishers, 2002.

Sundays at Sinai: A Jewish Congregation in Chicago / Tobias Brinkmann. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012.

Indiana

Intimate Circles: Nineteenth-Century German Jewish Immigrants in Northeastern Indiana / Judith Saul Stix [Digitized]

Middletown Jews: The Tenuous Survival of an American Jewish Community / edited by Dan Rottenberg; introduction by Dwight W. Hoover.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.

Iowa

A History of the Sioux City Jewish Community, 1869 to 1969 / by Bernard Shuman. Sioux City, Iowa: Jewish Federation, 1969.

Memories of the Jewish Midwest: Council Bluffs, Iowa Mishpocha / Joey Hoffman. Omaha, NE: Nebraska Jewish Historical Society, 2017.

Mount Sinai Cooks! / Mount Sinai Temple Sisterhood of Sioux City, Iowa.

Kansas

Guide to Jewish life in Kansas City, 1987 / Overland Park, Kan., 1987.

Michigan

Catskills of the Midwest: The Jewish Resort Era in South Haven Driving Tour / South Haven, MI.: Historical Association of South Haven, 2005.

Jewish Detroit / Irwin J. Cohen. Chicago, IL : Arcadia, 2002.

Jewish Life in the Industrial Promised Land, 1855-2005 / Nora Faires and Nancy Hanflik. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2005.

Jews in Michigan / Judith Levin Cantor. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2001.

Metropolitan Jews: Politics, Race, and Religion in Postwar Detroit / Lila Corwin Berman. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2015.

Strangers and Sojourners: A History of Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula / Arthur W. Thurner. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, [1994

A Time to Remember: A History of the Jewish Community in South Haven / Bea Kraus. Allegan Forest, Mich.: Priscilla Press, 1999.

Minnesota

Gender, Ethnicity and Space: Jews in Minneapolis and St. Paul, 1900-1930 / Elizabeth Ann. Lorenz-Meyer. Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Minnesota, 2006.

Jews in Minnesota / Hyman Berman and Linda Mack Schloff; foreword by Bill Holm. St. Paul, Minn.: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2002.

The Lost Jewish Community of the West Side Flats, 1882-1962 / Gene H. Rosenblum. Chicago, IL: Arcadia Pub., 2002.

Reform Jews of Minneapolis / Rhoda Lewin. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia, 2004.

Missouri

The Lead Belt Jewish Oral History Project / as told to Anita Hecht, Life History Services in collaboration with The Missouri Lead Belt Jewish Historical Society. Madison, Wisconsin: Life History Services, 2012.

Winter Harvest: Jewish Writing in St. Louis, 2006-2011 / ed. by Howard Schwartz and Barbara Raznick. St. Louis, MO: The Brodsky Library Press, 2011.

Zion in the Valley: The Jewish Community of St. Louis / Walter Ehrlich. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997-2002.

Nebraska

Jewish Life in Omaha and Lincoln: A Photographic History / Oliver B. Pollak.

North Dakota

History of the North Dakota Jewish Community / Isadore Papermaster. Milwaukee: 1959.

Jewish Communal Life in Fargo, North Dakota: The Formative Years / Robert J. Lazar. Bismarck: 1969.

Ohio

Jewish Life in Akron / Arlene Cohen Rossen and Beverly Magilavy Rose. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2005.

The Jews of Cincinnati / Jonathan D. Sarna and Nancy H. Klein. Cincinnati, OH: Center for Study of the American Jewish Experience, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, 1989.

Manischewitz, The Matzo Family: The Making of an American Jewish Icon / Laura Manischewitz Alpern; introduction by Jonathan D. Sarna.

Merging Traditions: Jewish Life in Cleveland / Judah Rubinstein with Jane Avner. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2004.

South Dakota

Deadwood's Jewish Pioneers: A Gold Rush Odyssey / Ann Haber Stanton. Prairie Hills Publishing, 2019.

Wisconsin

The Golden Land: 150 Years of Jewish Life in Milwaukee / Ruth Traxler. Milwaukee, Wis.: Sesquicentennial Celebration, 1994.

Jews in Wisconsin / Sheila Terman Cohen. Madison, Wisconsin: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2016.