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9 1 Immigrants and the Old Northwest: Lincoln’s First Encounters with American Jewry In the 1830s, dramatic demographic changes transformed American Jewry. The Jewish population began to grow, and prominent centers of Jewish life sprang up west of the Eastern Seaboard. By the 1860s, cities such as Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Louisville, and San Francisco each had between 800 and 2,000 Jewish citizens. Abraham Lincoln’s political ascendancy occurred at this very time, when the immigrant population in the territories of the Old Northwest and the population of American Jewry were both undergoing a dramatic growth spurt. The mass immigration of Jews from Central Europe—primarily from present-day Germany and Austria—would come to play, as we will see, an important role in Lincoln’s personal and political development. Lincoln, Politics, Jews, and the Old Northwest In 1809, the year of Lincoln’s birth, there were very few population centers in the territories of the Old Northwest. Yet by the time Lincoln became president in 1861, almost a quarter of the nation’s population—approximately 7 million people—resided in that section of the country. Before 1830, the vast majority of new settlers in the Old Northwest hailed from one of the original thirteen states. During the 1840s and 1850s, however, a wave of foreigners swelled that region’s population, and by the mid1840s , immigrants constituted 79 percent of the net migration to the Old Northwest. In the 1850s, that figure jumped to 88 percent. As one historian noted, “Lincoln, even if he would, could not help coming in contact with the few Jewish people in the part of the country which was then the Middle West. They were the same hardy pioneers . . . who trekked along with others to open up the country, ever westward-bound.” It would indeed have been difficult for any aspiring politician to ignore the rapidly increasing number of foreigners who migrated to this part of the country during the two decades that preceded the Civil War.1 What was it that made the Old Northwest so appealing to newcomers during this period? Even before territories became states, the region drew many settlers because it seemed so full of promise. Many of the vital freedoms enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights were safeguarded by the Northwest Ordinance, including freedom of religion, the inviolability of private contracts, and the legal right to convey Immigrants and the Old Northwest 10 inheritance to one’s heirs. The availability of land for settlement, periodically encouraged by federal legislation, also attracted newcomers looking for a place to settle in the expanding nation. The Northwest Ordinance’s ban on slavery, which was carried over into the states’ constitutions, was particularly appealing to European immigrants. Above all, the region of the Old Northwest offered people promising opportunities to earn a dependable livelihood. For instance, many of the German and Irish immigrants who came during the 1830s found reliable work wherever the rivers, the various canal projects, and even the fledgling railroad lines carried them.2 As the number of foreign newcomers ballooned during the 1830s and 1840s, the number of Jewish immigrants who settled in the Old Northwest similarly rose. Beginning in the 1830s and continuing in waves throughout the course of the nineteenth century, a large number of Jews from Central Europe immigrated to the United States. The political, social, and economic disabilities that plagued Jews in the Old World pushed them to emigrate, and America beckoned them to its shores. Eager to make a reliable living, many of these Jewish immigrants quickly left the East Coast cities where they originally disembarked and followed the settlement patterns of the general American population. To earn their livelihood, these immigrant Jews made use of their business skills and the various trades they had learned in the Old World. They contributed to the region’s growing economic infrastructure by establishing shops and businesses or by working as skilled tradesmen. It was at this time that many Jewish immigrants were drawn to the fast-growing cities of the Old Northwest—cities such as Chicago, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Louisville, Milwaukee, and St. Louis. Others made their way into the smaller communities all across the vast Mississippi River basin, where they settled and remained for many years. Abraham Lincoln’s life unfolded in this region, just as all of these changes transpired . He not only was a firsthand witness to these demographic transformations but also was personally affected by...

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