A Shtetl Grew in Bessemer - Southern Jewish Historical Society

BARR/A SHTETL GREW IN BESSEMER 7
between Meridian and Chattanooga, Mobile and Nashville, Savannah
and Memphis, and New Orleans and Louisville. Even in
1888 its rail lines led “directly to Texas via Vicksburg and
Shreveport and via New Orleans; to Gulf ports, directly to New
Orleans, to Mobile and to Pensacola; to all of the Atlantic ports
and to the North, Northwest and West.” 26 More specifically,
Bessemer’s proximity to Birmingham, which by the turn of the
century boasted three Jewish congregations, and to Tuscaloosa,
home of the University of Alabama, made it attractive to the early
Jewish pioneers. While economic reasons brought Jews to
Bessemer, religion and social/cultural cohesion contributed to
their continuity.
Finally, as many historians have noted, 27 Jewish immigrants,
particularly from eastern Europe, were adept at filling the needs
of a new town. Many were performing similar roles to those they
performed in Russia or Poland. But while they were marginalized
in the old country because their occupations were peripheral to
the central agricultural economies, in small towns like Bessemer
they fulfilled their own desires by making a comfortable living for
themselves and their children. Concurrently, they met the needs
of the then-mainly-mining community by their willingness and
ability to launch complementary businesses, such as dry goods
and retail clothing stores and even saloons. Because of their
adaptability and willingness to participate in civic affairs, they
achieved a great degree of acceptance as business leaders and thus
even their Jewishness was tolerated, if not theologically, at least
practically.
The earliest group of Jews to settle in Bessemer included
many who contributed to the city’s growth. Samuel Stein was a
“bright particular star” from “Bessemer’s earliest dawn.” According
to The Bessemer Weekly, Stein was “among the first of our
young businessmen to recognize the grand possibilities of the
Marvel City and to cast his lot in with her.” An Alabama native,
Stein founded the North Calera Land Company in 1886 and made
a fortune from it. He moved to Bessemer in August 1887, where
he “laid the foundation of his career,” and then apparently established
a new occupation, for soon “the famous query ‘Who’s Your