The Galveston Movement

The program's rules explain both its reach and its limits. Recruiters wanted able-bodied laborers and skilled workers under forty, and kept down the number of Hebrew teachers and kosher butchers, fearing that strict observance would slow assimilation. Jacob Schiff presided over the Galveston Committee in New York, and David Bressler ran the work from his office there. Infighting among the cooperating groups on both sides of the Atlantic, a weak economy and the restrictive attitudes of Galveston's immigration officials handicapped it. By 1913 merchants feared competition, and Cleburne's representative complained about the newcomers' demands.

What the plaque says

The Galveston Movement By the late 1800s, thousands of Jews began fleeing their homes in Russia and Eastern Europe to escape anti-Semitic policies and violent pogroms. Many immigrated to the U.S., establishing communities in New York City and elsewhere along the east coast. Overcrowding in these neighborhoods coincided with growing anti-Semitic sentiment. The Galveston movement, a humanitarian effort that brought nearly 10,000 Jewish immigrants through the Port of Galveston between 1907 and 1914, was initiated to address these issues by dispersing Jews throughout the U.S. Jacob Schiff, a banker and philanthropist, championed the idea of bringing Jews to the south. He was the sole donor of the plan, pledging $500,000. Galveston was chosen because its railroads and relatively small size would encourage immigrants to move elsewhere. It was also home to Rabbi Henry Cohen, leader of the local reform synagogue B'Nai Israel, and a small but thriving Jewish community. The first ship to arrive under the plan was the S.S. Cassel, on July 1, 1907, from Bremen, Germany; 86 of the passengers were Jewish. Cohen welcomed the new immigrants, as he would every group that came during the program. The arrivals were processed at the Jewish Immigrants' Information Bureau (JIIB) Headquarters. JIIB workers informed them of communities needing workers of varying skills and gave the immigrants railroad tickets and rations. More than 150 towns requested that the JIIB send skilled workers. In 1914, the program ended when the JIIB office in Galveston closed. A total of 9,332 Jews came through Galveston. While the number of Jews living in the American Midwest, South and West has never matched the numbers living in the East, the program brought thousands of Jews to places they had never imagined. (2008)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• 1859 Ashton Villa — steps away
  A brick Italianate house on Broadway, built with enslaved labor in 1859, whose lawn has held Galveston's Juneteenth commemoration of General Orders, No. 3 every year since 1979.
• Moody Mansion — 0.3 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.
• The Strand — 0.4 mi
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.
• Texas Seaport Museum and the Elissa — 0.5 mi
  An iron barque launched in Aberdeen in 1877 that called at Galveston twice, ended up smuggling in the Adriatic, and was bought back from a Greek scrapyard to sail again from Pier 22.

More markers nearby

• The Rosenberg Library — steps away
• Confederate Mariner: Leon Smith — steps away
• Rabbi Henry Cohen — steps away
• Norris Wright Cuney — steps away