Potato harvesting at Woodbine, New Jersey, ca. 1900. Potatoes were among the main staples of the colony.

Jewish Agricultural Colonies

The Woodbine Agricultural Colony was founded in New Jersey as part of a national movement to establish agricultural colonies as homes and workplaces for immigrants, especially Jews. This colony opened in 1891 with approximately sixty families, most of them Russian Jewish immigrants. By 1903, Woodbine was known to be the first all-Jewish municipality in the U.S. Eventually, the focus on agriculture widened to include industry as well, and non-Jews began to settle in Woodbine. The Jewish population gradually declined, and by 1958, the Jews were less than fifteen percent of the population. The residential center of today's Woodbine continues to use the same grid layout that the colonists first established in 1891.