The complete Records of the Baron de Hirsch Fund (I-80) have been digitized and are now publicly available through our online collections database. From August 2021 to November 2024, the American Jewish Historical Society worked with the Center for Jewish History (CJH) to digitize original collection materials (approximately 110 linear feet) to preserve and provide public access to their contents. For decades, a large portion of the Baron de Hirsch collection has only been available to researchers using microfilm – a predecessor to digitization which uses rolls of plastic film to store photographs of documents too fragile to be handled. This was a great way to preserve archival materials in the past, but the chemicals in microfilm break down over time and become too hazardous to use or store. The digitization of the Records of the Baron de Hirsch Fund enhances the accessibility of this invaluable resource to researchers of all backgrounds – uninhibited by global location – indefinitely.
Brief collection description from the finding aid:
“The Baron de Hirsch Fund Records document the organization’s involvement in the planning of agricultural communities across the country and to some extent in South America; the founding and administrative dealings of agricultural and trade schools; the establishment of the Jewish Agricultural Society; and the business records of the Fund itself.”
AJHS gratefully acknowledges the support of the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Save America’s Treasures grant program in digitizing and making available these historic materials.
Below are a selection of documents from the collection.
Select jokes from the above:
“Miss Lipshitz, how you assemble your sister.”
“They raised the taxes on my farm. They should have “produced” them.
January 27th, 1914
Prof. H.L. Sabsovich,
80 Maiden Lane, New York
Dear Sir: –
For your information I beg to advise you, that Clara Basch fifteen years old, daughter of Abraham Basch, while cleaning a hot stove yesterday afternoon with gasoline was badly burnt by the explosion of the gasoline. She was immediately taken to a Philadelphia Hospital but she died this morning.
Yours very truly,
Jacob S. Levin
May 19th, 1909
Mr. Lazar Koenig
Woodbine, N.J.
My dear Sir:-
I have returned to you, under separate cover, checks to the W.J. & S.S.R.R. Co. for $69.62 and one to Julius Weiss. Return the bills of these respective parties and Rothman’s bill. If you do not send the bill with the check, at least let me know what the bill is for. I did not know that Rothman is a blacksmith; he might just as well have been a baker or a vegetable man.
Yours very truly,
General Agent.
Paris May 21, 1897
To the Central Committee of the
Baron de Hirsch Fund
New York
Gentlemen:
I read with great interest your letter of May 4th, signed by your Hon. Secretary, in which you lay before me the propositions you have under consideration for relieving the poor inhabitants of the bowery.
I wish to state again that, in giving one million dollars for this purpose, I only had in view to purchase a track of land in the suburbs of your city and to build thereon a certain number of dwelling houses which could be occupied by the poor at the lowest rental they pay for the worst lodgings in the “Ghetto,” in order to induce them to remove their homes to healthier quarters. I understand however that, in your opinion there ought to be other and even more evident reasons for making them quit their actual homes, especially as their occupation keeps them mostly in the Bowery during daytime. I therefore agree to make a trial of the two other schemes you propose, viz.
- To procure to the people, within the limits they are now confined in, improved tenement houses, in order to make them feel that they could live better;
- To induce them by some advantages to remove from the Bowery to several other parts of the city, in harmony perhaps with the Philanthropic Commercial Society you refer to in your letter.
I therefore will place at once at your disposal the sum of $250,000, the income of which will enable you to make these first experiences. As to the balance of the promised $1,000,000, I will remit it to you as soon as you will have found the land for creating the suburban homes, which, in fact, remains the main object of my donation, unless, in a short time, you are able to ascertain that one or both of the former schemes would be preferable and possible on a large scale.
I will send you at the same time the $150,000 I promised for the Trade Schools, so that I will have to place at your disposal the total amount of $400,000, for the approximate value of which I will have to endorse to your name a certain number of American securities. I hope to be able to sign the necessary transfers next week and will send them at once to you.
Yours very truly,
Mme De Hirsch Geruth
