If you’re looking to research the community, or if you’re looking to focus on your particular ancestors, you will find the following resources useful in addition to this website.
Homestead locations
- The former Homestead Hebrew Congregation building at 335 E 10th Ave. (at McClure) in Homestead is now owned by a church. They have been very welcoming to families wanting to tour the building as it now. Except for where the bima used to be, it largely looks as it did when it was a synagogue.
- The Homestead Hebrew Cemetery is at the intersection of Bellwood Road and Home Street in West Mifflin. It is adjacent to a much larger cemetery, so make sure you’re in the right one. If you’re unable to make a visit, some of the headstones are photographed and transcribed here, thanks to Michael May and CemoMemo.
- The Homestead Hebrew Chapel on the second floor of Beth Shalom in Squirrel Hill has replicas of the original yahrzeit tablets and veterans’ plaques.
Online resources
- The Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project
- Historic Pittsburgh City Directories — includes directories for Homestead from 1890-1945 (also here)
- The burials in the cemetery are indexed on the Rauh Jewish Archives’ Generations to Generations website (except for the most recent ones). Select pictures are available at Find A Grave.
- Maps of Homestead, 1891-1913 — these maps include Lower Homestead, which was demolished in 1941 for the steel mill expansion (note that most of the Jewish community settled in Lower Homestead originally, so your ancestors’ first addresses likely will not appear in Google Maps)
- National Council of Jewish Women, Pittsburgh Section, Oral History Collection — three interviewees lived in Homestead and five more worked there (and all of their interviews you can listen to online!)
- The Rauh Jewish Archives’ Small Towns Project covers the history of Homestead and many other small-town Jewish communities in Western Pennsylvania.
Books
- Homestead: The Glory and Tragedy of an American Steel Town
- From Shtetl to Milltown: Litvaks, Hungarians, and Galizianers in Western Pennsylvania 1875-1925
- Homestead: The Houses of a Mill Town — a sociological study from the first decade of the 20th century (available online). Though the study does not discuss the Jewish community at all, it focuses on the Second Ward, where most of the Jewish families then lived.
- A Town Without Steel: Envisioning Homestead — though ostensibly about Homestead after 1986, a good deal of history is discussed & analyzed deeply
- Homestead and Mifflin Township (Postcard History Series) — you can browse this book online here
- Homestead and the Steel Valley (Images of America Series)
(Please note: There are also numerous books about the famous Homestead Strike of 1892.)
Heinz History Center – Rauh Jewish Archives
- Records of the Homestead Hebrew Congregation (detailed explanation of what they contain here)
- Homestead Hebrew Congregation oral histories and transcripts (not all are online; full list here)
- 1929 Sanborn map of Homestead — only available in person (see above for note on Lower Homestead)
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
- Homestead’s daily newspaper changed names frequently, but issues from 1881-1979 are available on microfilm under call number N-141. (Some issues are available in libraries in Harrisburg and NYC; the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America site lists what is located where.) Jewish-related clippings have been curated for select years on this website.
Carnegie Library of Homestead
- Numerous city directories and high school yearbooks are available in person.
Local history organizations
- Mifflin Township Historical Society
- Jewish History at the Heinz History Center — especially check out their “Research Help” section
Research Guides