Jewish Life in America, c1654-1954

Content

Jewish Life in America c1654-1954 is a digital archive of original manuscript materials from the holdings of the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) in New York. Materials to be found here include organization and institutional records and papers, as well as autobiographies, letters, notebooks, and scrapbooks dating from the 17th to the mid-20th century. The file draws from six institutional collections (American Jewish Historical Exhibition Records, American Jewish Tercentenary Collection, Baron de Hirsch Fund Records, Board of Delegates of American Israelites, Industrial Removal Office, and the Papers of the Jewish Immigration Information Bureau) and 24 large personal collections.

In addition to the manuscript collections there are full-text searchable rare printed books and pamphlets from the Soble and Rosenbach collections at the AJHS and supplemental resources including biographies, a chronology, interactive maps, scholarly essays, a selection of American Jewish Year Book articles, links to related websites, and a visual resources gallery that draws from two collections of photographs: the Baron de Hirsch Fund Records collection and the Graduate School for Jewish Social Work (New York) Records.

Usability

The opening screen of Jewish Life in America has a title bar at top (with a Search box at top right) and a toolbar below, with buttons for Introduction, Documents, Maps, Further Resources, Help, Advanced Search, and Popular Searches. Below that the screen has three sections: at left, a revolving carousel of images, and links into specific collections; at center, a welcome, introduction, and outline of the nature and scope of the file; and at right, a Getting Started box (containing links to View the User Guide, See the Collection Highlights, Go Straight to the Documents, and Explore the Interactive Maps) over a Register for “My Archive” Now box, which lets you create personalized slideshows, build your own library of documents, and save your searches.

First, I dipped into the User Guide, where I found a short and informative history of the AJHS (with links to the AJHS website and the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan website), a Guide to Archival Collections (with links to collection research guides and finding aids, as well as to original digitized documents in the collection), and a guide to thematic areas within the file (including Business, Industry and Enterprise; Civil Rights and Liberties; Culture, Literature and the Arts; Early Jewish Experience; Everyday Life: Personal and Family Narratives; Immigration and Settlement; Politics and the Law; Reflections on the Jewish Experience; Religion, Tradition and Community; War, Conflict and Persecution; and Welfare, Health and Education). Each of the thematic areas expands to provide direct links to related documents.

I selected Reflections on the Jewish Experience and got a table of some 130 documents, ranging from the 1881 Chronological Table of Jewish History (with a thumbnail link to read it) to The Settlement of the Jews in North America, an 1872 address by Charles P Daly at the 50th anniversary of the Hebrew Benevolent Society of New York. Then I clicked on Date at the top of the table to arrange the materials in ascending chronological order and found the Lucien Moss Scrapbook Collection Vol. 1 1840-1881 (from the Moss Family of Philadelphia Collection), with material covering thematic categories such as Immigration and Settlement; War, Conflict and Persecution; Civil Rights and Liberties; and many others. I pulled up the thumbnail, chose the large view, and started paging through the scrapbook.

At this point, this file completely hooked me. I was able to read the contents of this scrapbook better through this file than I could have in print, because I’d have been scared to death of disturbing some of the clippings and destroying some of the very detailed information there. Not only could I read the clippings clearly, I could read the marginalia, too (it’s faded, but it’s there).

Devising a quick test, I thought I’d try a search to see if these clippings, most of them quite brief, were really searchable. My search for “ eshuru hart” and “bnai eshurun” located the clipping I sought in about three seconds.

The content is phenomenal, and interactive features are not just “add-ons”- they’re integral parts. The Map feature is superb, the Chronology is eye-opening, and the Visual Resources Gallery is vividly evocative. The organization is brilliant, making material accessible to a range of researchers from school children to subject scholars. 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.

Pricing

The price, however, may make it unattainable to the broad audience it could serve. The list price for Jewish Life in America is $51,000 (this is a one-time price with no annual maintenance or cost-per-user fees). Please note that AM uses a banded pricing structure to determine discounts and payment plans for institutions of all sizes, and that they want you to "contact [them] to request a bespoke price quotation for your institution," which leads me to believe you can get a lower price if you've got a good negotiator on your acquisitions/collections team.

Bottom line

The main elements of Jewish Life in America rate a scale-busting 12. This is strongly recommended for all libraries serving Jewish studies researchers.

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. It provides digital images of documents from the American Jewish Historical Society in New York in addition to biographies, interactive maps, articles from the American Jewish Year Book, visual resources, and contextual scholarly essays, "bringing to life the communal and social aspects of Jewish identity and culture, whilst tracing Jewish involvement in the political life of American society as a whole." Digitized archival documents from 6 organizational collections, 24 personal collections, and other rare books and pamphlets that originated in typescript or print are searchable from the full text. Consultant editors Hasia Diner (New York Univ.) and Jonathan D Sarna (Brandeis) organize the material into 11 thematic areas: Business, Industry and Enterprise; Civil Rights and Liberties; Culture, Literature and the Arts; Early Jewish Experience; Everyday Life: Personal and Family Narratives; Immigration and Settlement; Politics and the Law; Reflections on the Jewish Experience; Religion, Tradition and Community; War, Conflict and Persecution; and Welfare, Health and Education. Browsing and searching are also possible within specific collections such as the Emma Lazarus Collection, the Gratz Family Papers, and the Franks Family Papers. All sources include finding aids and contextual notes that further understanding of the item's historical and cultural significance. From the home page, users can access resources through the Introduction, Documents, Maps, and Further Resources tabs. References are also made to outside sources and Web sites. Special features include the capability of storing searches, documents, and images across sessions in My Lightbox and My Archive. The Getting Started section provides instruction and tips to those viewing the User Guide and exploring all the other sources. Searches can be approached through Simple, Advanced, or Popular Searches modes. Jewish Life in America is not an encyclopedia or article index; except for the contextual essays, it does not offer interpretative perspectives on the information provided. Many other resources can be consulted for literature research and background information on the topics within its scope. What it does offer is a rich treasure trove for the scholar or researcher looking for primary documentation of the history of American Jewish life and culture.

Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars; knowledgeable general readers.

Reprinted with permission from Choice http://www.cro2.org, copyright by the American Library Association.

Anyone researching the history of the American Jewish community will benefit from this treasure trove of primary sources.