Between 1907 and 1914, the “Galveston Movement,” a philanthropic effort spearheaded by Jacob Schiff, fostered the immigration of approximately 10,000 Russian Jews through the Port of Galveston, Texas. Upon arrival, households were given train tickets to pre-selected locations west of the Mississippi River where a job awaited. Despite the program’s stated purpose to locate new Russian Jewish immigrants to the Western part of the U.S., we find that roughly 85 to 90 percent of the prime-age male participants ultimately moved east of the Mississippi, typically to large Northeastern and Midwestern cities. We use a standard framework for modeling location decisions to show destination assignments made cities more desirable, but this effect was overwhelmed by the attraction of religious and country of origin enclaves. Economic conditions appear to be of secondary importance to our ethnic measures, even for participants at the top of the skill distribution.

1907年至1914年之间，由雅各布·希夫（Jacob Schiff）率领的慈善活动“加尔维斯顿运动”促进了大约10,000名俄罗斯犹太人通过德克萨斯州加尔维斯顿港的移民。到达后，为住户提供了前往密西西比河以西的预先选定地点的火车票，那里等待着工作。尽管该计划的明确目的是将新的俄罗斯犹太移民安置到美国西部，但我们发现，大约有85％至90％的成年男性参与者最终移居密西西比州以东，通常移居东北和中西部大城市。我们使用标准的框架对位置决策进行建模，以显示目的地分配使城市变得更加理想，但是这种影响被宗教和原籍国飞地的吸引力所淹没。