Jewish Life in the American West

This oversized illustrated paperback, the catalog for an ambitious exhibition at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage (Los Angeles) combines trenchant historical narrative, essays, and opinion with a treasure trove of photographs, mini-biographies, contemporary descriptions, diary entries, letters, maps, paper arcana and more in order to explain and explore the complex and interesting story of the Jews of the American West. The story begins in the 1880's and ends with the 1924 Immigration Restriction Act, which severely curtailed further Jewish immigration to the US.James Nottage contributes a Foreword in which he poses the question, Just what is a Westerner? In fact, the American Jewish westward migration was a picture of diversity and variety. Married and unmarried men and women, entire families, and orphans found their way West, often in reaction to economic conditions in the eastern United States, sometimes because of wanderlust or an urge to farm - or just out of curiosity. Immigrants experienced problems of adjustment and, often, acute isolation. The early years were often difficult. Community had to be built from scratch. One boy wrote to a popular newspaper column," I am all alone in this world, and am an orphan and live out here among the cowboys trying to earn an honest livelihood." Communities in Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington were begun, grew, and thrived. Dr. Kahn contributes two essays. The first, "Looking at America from the West to the East, 1850-1920's" explores Jewish expectations of economic opportunity: the Gold Rush, the fur trade, and opportunities in mercantilism and agriculture. Hasia Diner's "American West, New York Jewish" explores picture of the West as drawn by Easterners, and includes a remarkable "Map of the United States in Yiddish," first published in 1912 in the book "Guide to the United States for the Jewish Immigrant," by John Carr, and published under the auspices of the Connecticut Daughters of the American Revolution.Agriculture, the building of community, politics, culture, inevitable class tensions, anti-Semitism, and the various roles of women are explored at length in this exhibition as in its catalog. The names - of people, congregations, and businesses - are here, too. Historical societies and families have provided archival material. Along with seventy illustrations there are census data, notes, and a good index in this smart and moving tour of the historic Jewish American West.In his Afterword historian M. Rischin asserts that the mandate of the Autry Museum was to "divest the history of the American West of its bunkum and hokum." This book succeeds handily.