Massachusetts

Jews in the Shoe Trade

Thousands of Russian Jews came to Lynn to work in its shoe factories. The economic life of the Lynn Jewish community was inextricably linked to the shoe industry, which became the major source of the Jews’ upward economic mobility. Even…

Read more

Lynn

Immigrant neighborhood in downtown Lynn, looking up Amity Street from Washington Street, ca 1900. Courtesy of Lynn Public Library.

Read more
A 1922 postcard of the Central Square in Cambridge Mass. The postcard shows a busy street with many people waiting to board the streetcar in the middle of the street. On either side of the street are businesses and individuals walking on the sidewalks.

Cambridge

Central Square became Cambridge's largest commercial center in the early 20th century, serving growing immigrant communities from Ireland, Canada, Portugal, and the West Indies. After World War II, the Square and an adjoining area known as "the Port" would become…

Read more

Joe Portaleki PDF

The owner of the Ace Hardware store in Roslindale, Josef (Joe) Porteleki was born in 1947 in Hungary, son of Gertrude Gerersdorfer, an Austrian national, and Joszef Porteleki, a Hungarian. Joe and his family were among the more than 900,000 war…

Read more
A postcard that depicts "Chelsea Square. Chelsea. Mass." A parkway with streetcars, horse drawn carriages, and pedestrians walking about. The road is in a U-shape and there are large three and four story buildings that mark the sides of the streets.

Chelsea

Chelsea Square, ca. 1905, just prior to the massive fire of 1908 that would destroy the dowtown but also bring thousands of Jewish and other immigrants to this industrial city north of Boston.

Read more
Back To Top