National Jewish Immigration Council

Minutes from meetings on 1/31/1911, 3/15/1911, 4/4/1911, 5/9/1911, 6/13/1911, 7/11/1911, 8/8/1911, 9/21/1911, 10/11/1911, 11/8/1911, 12/12/1911, and 12/21/1911.

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. In addition, the collection contains documentation on the administration and organization of the fund, documentation on Jewish farming colonies such as the Jewish Agricultural Society, Woodbine Colony and Agricultural School, and documentation on the Baron de Hirsch Trade School. In addition, the collection contains blueprints and photographs of facilities.

The collection includes conventional proceedings, speeches, annual reports, informational pamphlets, and other public documents of the organized Jewish Community of New York City, formed in 1908 and incorporated in 1914.

The Galveston immigration records document the attempt of the Jewish Immigrant Information Bureau, working in cooperation with several other Jewish organizations, to receive Jewish immgrants 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.

This collection contains constitutions, by-laws, membership organizations list, minutes of the 1912 Annual Meeting, Executive Committee Minutes (1911, 1913), Committee on Confidential Exchange Minutes (1912), Committee to Discuss Medical Examinations Minutes (1912), 1912 meeting with the Jewish Immigration Committee of New York, and a special meeting on the problem of illiteracy (1913). Also includes the correspondence of the American Jewish Committee, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Jewish Colonization Association offices in Canada and Paris, and the Jewish Emigration Congress in Vienna. Also included is the correspondence of Simon Wolf, counsel to the National Jewish Immigration Council.