Baron de Hirsch agricultural school in Woodbine, New Jersey, ca. 1895.

Jewish Agricultural Colonies

In the 1880s, East European immigrants established a variety of agricultural colonies in New Jersey, the Dakota Territories, Louisiana, and the Carolinas. One such group of immigrants, with the financial assistance of the Baron de Hirsch Fund, bought 5,200 acres of land in Woodbine, New Jersey, in 1891. In 1894, they opened a school, the Baron de Hirsch Agricultural College, which was the country's first secondary school specializing in agriculture. The school closed in 1917.