Ukrainians in New Jersey, 1880s-1940s

Ethnic Ukrainian immigrants have been arriving in New Jersey in substantial numbers starting in the final decades of the 19th century, in several waves during the 20th century, and continue to arrive today. They formed communities in many parts of the state, many of which still exist, while others have nearly been forgotten. These communities had churches, fraternal benefit societies, and a myriad of other social, civic, and political organizations. Some were extremely local and did not survive. Others, such as the New Jersey-based Ukrainian National Association, were national in scope and continue to exist and thrive today.

Surprisingly, there has been a remarkable lack of secondary sources devoted specifically to the history of Ukrainian immigrants in New Jersey.

The “Ukrainians in New Jersey” project by the Ukrainian History and Education Center’s archivist Michael Andrec and external researcher and writer Michael Buryk is an attempt to help remedy this. It consists of a historical overview, histories of a small number of urban, suburban, and rural communities of Ukrainian New Jerseyans, and a collection of primary and secondary source materials that can be searched, or browsed by date or geography. It also includes the transcription of the minutes of a Ukrainian American community group that was active in Hillside, New Jersey in the mid-1920s that is held in the archives of the Ukrainian History and Education Center.

The current phase of the project covers the period from the first substantial arrivals in the 1880s up to but not including the mass wave of post-World War II displaced persons. That migration wave, the economic migrants in the 1990s and 2000s, and the current wave of war refugees will be researched and described in the second phase of the project in 2025, with the goal of having a full-scale “Ukrainians in New Jersey” web portal in time for the 250th anniversary of American Independence in 2026.

This is an ongoing project – expect further additions and improvements to this site during 2025 and beyond. Currently, the source collection is focused on English-language material, but we expect to add additional material from the Ukrainian-language press in the coming months.