Dispersing the Ghetto

In the early twentieth century, the population of New York City's Lower East Side swelled with the arrival of vast numbers of eastern European Jewish immigrants. The teeming settlement, whose inhabitants faced poverty and frequent unemployment, provoked the attention of immigration restrictionists. Established American Jews—arrivals from the German states only a generation before—feared that their security might be threatened by the newcomers. They established the Industrial Removal Office (IRO) to assist in relocating the immigrants to the towns and cities of the nation's interior. Dispersing the Ghetto is the first book to describe in detail this important but little-known chapter in American immigration history.Founded in 1901, the IRO for nearly two decades directed the resettlement of Jewish immigrants in New York and other port cities to hundreds of communities nationwide, where the prospects of employment and rapid assimilation were brighter. Drawing on a variety of sources, including the IRO archive, local records, first-person accounts of resettlement, and the lively Jewish press, Jack Glazier recounts the operations of the IRO and the experiences of those it aided. He closely examines the complex relationship between the two sets of Jewish immigrants, emphasizing the mix of motives underlying the assistance the American Jews of German origin rendered the newcomers from eastern Europe.

Glazier effectively uses personal stories and quotations from Jewish immigrants... to personalize the consequences and effectiveness of the program Industrial Removal Office.... This well-researched and well-written book explores issues relevant to contemporary attitudes toward new immigrants. It is suitable for use in graduate and undergraduate courses on ethnic history and relations as well as in courses on the history and sociology of America's Jews., Jack Glazier writes a... careful, sensitive, and intelligent study.... An excellent job of placing the IRO in the context of other efforts by American Jews to protect themselves.... In a cogent and concise conclusion to this valuable book, he makes a number of helpful comparisons and contrasts between contemporary and turn-of-the-century immigration to America, intimating that the continuing struggle to reconcile diversity and universalism is not only formidable but as full of promise as it was one hundred years ago., Anthropologist Jack Glazier has made an important contribution to the fields of American Jewish history and immigration and ethnic history in presenting this book on the Industrial Removal Office.... It will make an important contribution to the scholarly discussion of ethnicity and immigration. It should achieve a place of significance in the scholarship., Dispersing the Ghetto is a well-researched, well-written, and informative study of a small but important aspect of American Jewish life. It is highly recommended for students of immigration and Judaica.... One of the strengths of Glazier's book is the extensive amount of data presented in appendices as well as throughout the book., Glazier's examination of the origins and implementation of IRO policies and practices is based on extensive use of primary and secondary sources. The book is a model of interdisciplinary research and makes an interesting contribution to the study of American immigration history. Recommended for both public and academic libraries.

Jack Glazier is Professor of Anthropology at Oberlin College. He has conducted ethnographic and historical research in East Africa and in the United States and has written on community life and social change among both the Mbeere of Kenya and American Jews.