Pennsylvania, under William Penn's gener ous plan for founding a home for victims of persecution, attracted Jewish settlers, and in the early decades of the 18th century a little stream of immigration began which brought a number of German, English and Polish Jewish settlers to Philadelphia, whose numbers were increased, after the capture of New York by the British in 1776, by the arrival of Portuguese Jews from that city. The Jewish settlement in Lancaster, Pa., was made shortly before the American Revolution; and there was a small Jewish immigration into Maryland and Vir ginia, with communities in Schaefersville, Eas ton, Baltimore and Richmond. Before the close of the Revolution a Portuguese synagogue had been erected in Philadelphia; soon a Ger man Jewish congregation was established there; and about the same period one was erected in Richmond, Va. The laws of Mary land prohibited Jewish settlement, and as early as 1658, Dr. Jacob Lumbrozo, "the Jew physi cian,* figured there as defendant in a blasphemy trial, which nearly cost him his life. Baltimore is of particular interest because it was the only city in the United States in which systematic and long-continued efforts were necessary, sub sequent to the Revolution, in order to secure full civil and political rights for Jews as such; they acquired them finally in 1826. Georgia attracted Jews almost immediately after the founding of the colony, parties of both Ger man and Portuguese Jewish settlers having ar rived at Savannah in 1733. Some of these were indigent Jews who were assisted to emigrate by coreligionists in England. Off-shoots from this colony migrated to South Carolina before the first half of the 18th century and a congre gation was formed in Charleston in 1750. By the time of the Revolution, and for some dec ades thereafter, Charleston contained one of the most important and prosperous Jewish communities in the United States. In both of these colonies Jews seem to have figured as holders of responsible civil office before the close of the Revolutionary War.
The various places which contained Jewish communities prior to the Revolution have now been enumerated; the total Jewish population embraced in them and in other and more iso lated settlements was, as seen, somewhat less than 3,000 in the year 1800.
Interior Space does not per mit consideration of the various Jewish settle ments and their date of establishment outside of the limits of the 13 colonies. The great ma jority of Jewish residents of the United States still reside along the eastern coast-line. In time, the westward movement carried Jewish settlers along with it, some into interior cities in the original 13 States, others farther west. In fact during the second half of the 18th cen tury, the Gratz, Franks, Simon and Henry fam ilies, in conjunction with George Croghan and others, did much to open up the territory west of the Mississippi. By 1800 there were several Jewish residents at Pittsburgh. Judah Touro (q.v.), the well-known Jewish philanthropist, went to New Orleans about 1801, and Jews were destined, during the latter half of the 19th century, to achieve considerable political distinction there, though probably there were some Jewish settlers in the Louisiana Territory nearly a century earlier, who were persecuted by reason of the prohibitions in the French *Code Noir" upon Jewish settlement.• The first indisputable Jewish resident of Kentucky seems to have settled there about 1806. Ohio appears to have received its first Jewish residents about 1817-19 and after 1830 a considerable tide of German-Jewish immigration flowed to ward Cincinnati. In Illinois, which has to-day a considerable number of Jewish inhabitants especially in and about Chicago, the first Jew ish settler probably arrived about 1841; and after a couple of years, numbers of German Jews began to come. A little later this same tide reached Detroit, Mich. Texas, while still belonging to Mexico, had quite a contin gent of Jewish settlers, who began to arrive about 1821. California attracted a considerable number of Jews at the time of the gold discov ery in 1849, and in 1850 they had two congre gations in San Francisco. It will be observed
that the great majority of Jews in the United States are to be found in the large cities, due largely to prohibition abroad in Russia and Rumania on their owning land and living out side of specified urban sections, which habits the immigrants carry with them to this coun try.
The reactionary movement that followed the Napoleonic wars in Germany, early in the 19th century, and particularly the barbarous Jewish marriage laws of some of the German states (which, among numerous disabilities from which Jews suffered, were possibly the most objec tionable, as they forbade more than a certain number of Jewish couples to live in any dis trict), greatly stimulated German Jewish emi gration to the United States from about 1815. After the revolutions of 1848 the political and economic unrest in Germany and throughout Europe caused a particularly valuable and in telligent class of Jewish immigrants to come to this country, including, in addition to Germans, also Hungarians, Poles and Bohemians; while after 1K1 the Russian-Jewish exodus assumed large dimensions, and the Rumanian-Jewish emigration began to be heavy about 1900. The volume of these tides can be gauged by com paring the estimates of Jewish population at various periods, already quoted, with these va rious dates. The forced emigration of recent years from Russia and Rumania has naturally had the effect of bringing to these shores per sons less adequately equipped, and who had known fewer opportunities for development and self-improvement than the earlier immi grants, generally speaking, had enjoyed, but their Americanization and progress here have been phenomenal.
The Jews in American Commerce, Indus tries and the Professions.— Reference has al ready been made to early activities in the field of commerce, exhibited in Brazil and the West Indies particularly. It is most im portant here to note the consequences which followed the dispersion of the Jews throughout so many different lands and districts, resulting in their opening of international and intercolo nial trade relations with each other long before those having no such ties of relationship or confidence, and no such common language or commercial abilities, were ready for any such mutual intercourse. The result was that in early colonial days Jews were pioneers and prime promoters of intercolonial and foreign commerce in America, which became not merely profitable, but actually indispensable, for the maintenance of the colonies. The most distant points thus became interlinked by means of their Jewish residents. Every industry and branch of trade engaged their attention. Among persons who were particularly prominent in these fields, besides Lopez, Rivera and Touro, already referred to, were Lewis Gomez and his sons, who were exporters of wheat on a very large scale in colonial NeW York, early in the 18th century; Hayman Levy, the fur dealer of New York, who had close relations with the Indians and was at one time the employer of the first John Jacob Astor; David Gradis of Bordeaux, who is described as having *con trolled the trade of France with the West Indies,* in the 18th century, the Gratzes, etc. Aaron Lopez of Newport had a fleet of over 30 vessels shortly before the Revolution, engaged in trade between Newport, the West Indies and Africa. Newport Jews also created the sper maceti industry. Jews were among the found ers of the New York Chamber of Commerce and, one figures on its seal as a member of the committee receiving its charter from the colonial governor. They were also among the founders of the New York Stock Exchange and ever since that time have been growing in import ance in America as bankers, brokers, financiers and railroad magnates. They have been par ticularly influential in certain lines of trade, in cluding the cotton, tobacco, sugar, coffee, jewelry, leather, hides, meat-packing and cloth ing industries and department-store activities.