Roads taken : the great Jewish migrations to the New World and the peddlers who forged the way / Hasia R. Diner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Diner, Hasia R., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jewish businesspeople.

Jewish peddlers.

Jews--Economic conditions.

Jews.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : illustrations (black and white)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New Haven, Connecticut : Yale University Press, [2015]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Between the late 1700s and the 1920s, nearly one-third of the world's Jews emigrated to new lands. Crossing borders and often oceans, they followed paths paved by intrepid peddlers who preceded them. This book is the first to tell the remarkable story of the Jewish men who put packs on their backs and traveled forth, house to house, farm to farm, mining camp to mining camp, to sell their goods to peoples across the world. Persistent and resourceful, these peddlers propelled a mass migration of Jewish families out of central and eastern Europe, north Africa, and the Ottoman Empire to destinations as far-flung as the United States, Great Britain, South Africa, and Latin America. Hasia Diner tells the story of millions of discontented young Jewish men who sought opportunity abroad, leaving parents, wives, and sweethearts behind. Wherever they went, they learned unfamiliar languages and customs, endured loneliness, battled the elements, and proffered goods from the metropolis to people of the hinterlands. In the Irish Midlands, the Adirondacks of New York, the mining camps of New South Wales, and so many other places, these traveling men brought change-to themselves and the families who later followed, to the women whose homes and communities they entered, and ultimately to the geography of Jewish history.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Road Maps: An Introduction

1. Road Warriors: The Migration and the Peddlers

2. Road Runners: Jewish Peddlers in Their New Worlds

3. Along the Road: Jewish Peddlers and Their New-World Customers

4. Road Rage: Jewish Peddlers and the Perils of the Road

5. The End of the Road: Life After Peddling

Legacies of the Road: A Conclusion

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780300234398

0300234392

9780300210194

0300210191

OCLC:

898893380