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Community Structure On The Urban Frontier: The Jews Of Portland, Oregon, 1849-1887, Robert Scott Cline

Dissertations and Theses

No other ethnic group enjoyed the level of success, defined in terms of economic status and social acceptance, attained by Portland Jews in the second half of the nineteenth century. Hailing predominantly from the German states of northern and central Europe, the Jewish pioneers transplanted middle class values and mercantile skills in their new home. From a small unstable population of single men in the 1850s, Portland Jewry grew into an affluent class conscious family oriented community by the mid-1880s.

The center of Portland's Jewish life during the formative years was Congregation Beth Israel, the first congregation in the Pacific …