Jewish Life in America

Jewish Life in America is a rich collection of archival materials and primary sources documenting the history of Jewish settlement and life in the US from colonial times through the mid-twentieth century. Digitized archival documents from 6 organizational collections (including Industrial Removal Office, the Papers of the Jewish Immigration Information Bureau, etc.), 24 personal collections, and other documents— letters, postcards, telegrams, notebooks, scrapbooks, reports, financial records are searchable from the full text. It provides digital images of documents from the American Jewish Historical Society in New York in addition to biographies, a chronology, contextual scholarly essays, and articles from the American Jewish Yearbook.

The website itself is beautifully designed and easy to navigate—with five sections on the navigation menu, with buttons for introduction, browse documents, searching guide, visual resources, research tools; as well as a search bar at the top right corner. Below that the screen has three sections: nature and scope, which introduces the key topics of the collection, and provides a list of digitized original manuscript collections; research tools, offering the links of key events, personalities and organizations, and articles and data from the American Jewish Yearbook; and, explore the documents, directing users to the page that can views all document in collection. 

The "Browse Documents" section is the core section of the site, featuring all 3968 that have been digitized with visitors able to view all documents. Visitors can also sort the documents by date, theme, collection type, collection name, and series. Each document is thoughtfully laid out, with the high-resolution image of the document. Below the image of the documents, the team has also included as many details about the item as possible, such as title, description, collection name, copyright and source archive, etc. Browsing and searching are also possible within specific collections such as the Emma Lazarus Collection, the Gratz Family Papers, and the Franks Family Papers. 

While all the Collections are important, it’s definitely worth highlighting the “Research Tools” section. The “Guide to Archival Collections” section provides the full research guide for each of the collections, it also provides a link to the original digitized documents for that collection. The “Thematic Areas” section allows access to all archival material in a particular category. Each Collection is based around a specific theme (e.g., from Early Jewish Experience to Reflections on the Jewish Experience, etc.) and generally comes with an overview of its contents, as well as a number of featured entries from the collection, each of the thematic areas expands to provide direct links to related documents. Under the "Biographies" section, the page directs students and instructors with biographical contents and the links of the documents that relate to this person. Also included are "Chronology", "Essays", and "American Year Books Articles" to provide much-needed historical background to the material at hand.   

The site as a whole is user-friendly, and beautifully presented, with a focus on digitizing materials to a high standard. The team has done an excellent job of collecting, digitizing, and archiving such a range of materials. The clean, uncluttered layout, too, goes a long way in ensuring that the attention is always on the digitized item. Beginners can go directly to the Date and Theme sections to find resources for term papers, while scholars can examine collections in detail, as well as run sophisticated searches across the vast primary-source material. What it does offer is a rich treasure trove for the teachers looking for primary documentation of the history of American Jewish life and culture, the site thus addresses the lack of access to readily available teaching resources for those instructors wanting to introduce students to a more complete historical picture of American Jewish life.  Overall, Jewish Life in America presents an opportunity to develop new understandings of the immigration process of the Jews, the role of Jews in U.S. history, the Jewish Diaspora, and the development of Jewish schools, charitable institutions, and communities. The archive brings to life the communal and social aspects of Jewish identity and culture, while tracing Jewish involvement in the political life of American society as a whole.