Lecture descriptions Jane Neff Rollins, FEEFHS 2021

Westward Ho! The Jewish Agricultural Colony in Sanpete County, Utah (Jewish track)

Although we may think of American Jews as being primarily urban, there were Jews who heeded Horace Greeley’s suggestion (SYN) to “Go West!” Some of these Jews established agricultural colonies in places like the Dakotas, Colorado, Wyoming and Oregon. This talk highlights the Clarion Colony established in 1911 in Sanpete County Utah by recent immigrants from the Russian Empire. These Jewish settlers worked the arid land – Jews had not been allowed to own land in Russia -- as they built what was ultimately a short-lived Jewish community.