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American Jewish History

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Jews in the Mines: The Industrial Removal Office Contends with Butte, Montana

June 21, 2024
By Cassandra Euphrat Weston, 2023-24 Lapidus Graduate Fellow

Jews in the Mines: The Industrial Removal Office Contends with Butte, Montana

In January 1904, Henry Jonas of Butte, Montana, wrote to the Industrial Removal Office (IRO) in New York, asking for their help sending a man named A. Pickholz from New York in order to work in Butte’s booming copper mines,…

Center for Jewish History
Center for Jewish History
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Building a Jewish Union and the ILGWU

By Ella Jordan-Smith

Reference Services Librarian, Center for Jewish History

Building a Jewish Union and the ILGWU

In 1900, eleven delegates representing seven major local unions in the Northeast convened to form the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union. All eleven of these delegates were Jewish men (the “ladies” in the organization’s name refers to the garments, not…

Center for Jewish History
Center for Jewish History
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Selling Chanukah in America

By Cassia Kisshauer
Senior Reference Services Librarian, Special Collections

Selling Chanukah in America

As Chanukah transformed in 20th century America from a smaller, home-based festival to a popular public holiday, businesses saw an opportunity to manufacture and market decorations and gifts to Jewish consumers.

In the mid-19th century, new waves of German Jewish immigrants focused on Christmas as a winter holiday, in order to…

Center for Jewish History
Center for Jewish History
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“Yours very respectaly, M. Blum”: Correspondence between a New Jersey Jewish Farmer and the Industrial Removal Office, 1902-1905

By Lauren Gilbert, Director of Public Services, Center for Jewish History

“Yours very respectaly, M. Blum”: Correspondence between a New Jersey Jewish Farmer and the Industrial Removal Office, 1902-1905

In response to the massive waves of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe around the turn of the 20th century, leaders of the German-Jewish community in New York City founded the rather forbiddingly named Industrial Removal…

Center for Jewish History
Center for Jewish History
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