Resources on the History of Prostitution, Underground Economies & Family Histories

A supplement for Episode 89: Dangerous Liaisons: Jailbird Relatives and The Freaky Underside of Genealogy. Black ProGen Live! July 30, 2019

Lewis Hine, View of Red Light District on C. Street, N.W., near 13th,
Lewis Hine, View of Red Light District on C. Street, N.W., near 13th, with Griffin Veatch, who was showing me around. No. 6 Special Messenger Service, 1223 New York Ave., N.W.; he lives 1643 Cramer St., N.E. He said he commenced the messenger service at 11 yrs. old. Has worked all night a couple of years, and now works until 10 P.M. Is known to Truant Officers. Family has had trouble with him. Says he is 17 but doesn’t look it. Quite profane, but (apparently) not very wise about this district although he says he goes to these houses occasionally. Location: Washington (D.C.), District of Columbia. Library of Congress.

There’s no family history left untouched in some way by underground economies and prostitution. Prostitution or sex work, can be understood as a means of survival first and second, an avocation, either by choice or coercion. Beyond the economic question of support, there are questions about the nature of history that can exclude the marginalized worker, questions around ideas of gender, masculinity, power and the network of beliefs and the structure of law that declares it legal, illegal or a fusion of the two. So, if we think about family histories that deal with aspects of an underground economy, it means dealing with variables in time and place. For many this was a temporary connection or situation, a form of employment that was often unpredictable. Only for a select few, was it a situation under their direct control.

In art, prostitution is the subject of painting, literature, cinema and photography; it shapes the nature of urban, modern experience and informs the realms of tourism and the military. There are stereotypes that circulate in popular culture, in different societies, best viewed as means of defining ideas and assumptions around gender, race and various social boundaries. Looking further back, sexual slavery was also a feature of the transatlantic slave trade that used men women and children, and there’s the trafficking that continues into the present.. Columbus established a sex trade on Hispanola by 1490, with children as young as 9 years old serving as sex slaves.

Prostitution as an organized business arrived in Puerto Rico (and by extension to other colonies) with Spanish colonization in the sixteenth century. After the Spanish American War, for example, policing these boundaries of gender and race drew on discourses of eugenics and public health, so that women were subjected to moral judgements, incarceration, forced medical treatment and framed them both as a targeted category of control and as fulfillment of eugenic policies. Any behavior viewed as questionable by women living in poverty, or regarded as promiscuous, were targeted and swept up as a means of social control, even if they never worked ‘the life’.

Family, Context, Options and Motivation

Understanding how illicit businesses like prostitution, numbers running, and black market participation shapes your family history, can open up a history of different social networks, and is an opportunity to understand the various social constraints and options people faced to sell the only thing they had left to sell to survive.

Often there is an economic reason that leaves people in desperate situations, as with the women mantua makers of the 1840s whose poor pay for long hours hand sewing then-fashionable hooded outerwear. As they contended with rising expenses many were left working a sex trade in order to make ends meet. Some were persons who suddenly found themselves without other means of support; still others (a much smaller group) decide on it as a business, contending with the legal structures on the local and national level to keep business going. Employment by any means necessary was for some, key to survival. In Harlem of the 1930s, Stephanie St. Clair known as “Queenie”, “Madam Queen”, “Madam St. Clair”, and “Queen of the Policy Rackets”, ran a numbers racket that kept some 2,000 people employed during the Great Depression, despite attempts by the Mafia to take her empire over. When a young man in New York City, my paternal grandfather kept food on the table for his family by being a numbers runner, the person who brought the bets to the bookie.

Violence & social control

Depending on the age and racial designation, there may be no effort to help or investigate the murder of sex workers, denying justice as well as legal and medical support services to those who remain. Or, there is wholesale denial on offer, as with the so-called Korean ‘Comfort Women‘ forced to serve the Japanese Army during WW2, who went on the promise of factory employment and instead found themselves in harrowing conditions. Yet, acknowledgement and apologies from the Japanese government were not forthcoming. Oral histories are key to knowing and understanding what happened.

Violence, repression and incarceration are also part of the picture, adding to the complexity of understanding the past. Law enforcement was anything but consistent. Conditions vary, whether streetwalking, brothel, escort, and the legal stance per country can exacerbate or support those involved, and class made a huge difference. Military prostitution, child prostitution, trafficking and tourism are other aspects to consider when researching the past. The question of slavery, whether legal condition or condition of labor repeatedly comes up. Studies do show it’s better to have regulation and laws that protect the worker rather than have an illicit trade where it is not those who labor who gain the income.

Finding Information: Some Resources

Oral histories, photographs, police reports, newspapers, census and military records, are just some of the materials in various collections that may have information on a family member. As the essay from the Framing Resources site at GMU notes, there is no one class, cultural, religious or social perspective on prostitution, and it’s a field of study that has much to offer in terms of understanding the historical context of family histories involved with the practice, some of it very recent. Also the site provides a small area that lays out some questions helpful for working on genealogical research in terms of the nature of primary and secondary materials you’ll encounter in libraries, special collections both online and off.

Take a look at Tyler Schulze’s Black Sheep Ancestor pages “Search for your Blacksheep Ancestors in Free Genealogical Prison and Convict Records, Historical Court Records, Executions, Insane Asylum Records and Biographies of Famous Outlaws, Criminals & Pirates in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada” http://blacksheepancestors.com

I Dream of Genealogy has a cluster of 7 states (CA, FL, IL, IA, LA, NV, NY) with access to admittedly a small group of free Prison and Arrest Records listed in http://www.idreamof.com/prison.html?src=gentoday

The Internet Archive has over 1400 items in a search result, some of them guidebooks, others, legal statutes published during the 19th century, books and other related materials to download or borrow. See link below.

Also included are the links to special collections on Storyville, New Orleans from the Library of Congress website. Please scroll down towards the end of this post.

This list is not exhaustive, but intended to give a sense of the wide variety of materials and approaches that you can apply to your searches.

Resources

General

“Framing Resources Essay: Case study on prostitution” – Women in World History Website “These varied materials reflect differing class, cultural, religious, and social perspectives on prostitution, especially in the modern, Western world. They tell us what observers thought about prostitution and how their attitudes changed over time. Until recently, there were few personal accounts by prostitutes to provide clues about their varying motivations or their attitudes toward the governments, organizations, or individuals that sought to regulate the practice or abolish prostitution. Oral histories as well as the anthropological and sociological studies that document the lives of prostitutes, many of them from Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe and almost all of them poor, have begun filling this gap.”
http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/essay/essay.php?c=resources&r=case

Andy McCarthy, “Genealogy Tips: New York City Cops in the City Record.”
“…For the five boroughs, there really is no collection of historical “police records.…”
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2017/08/18/researching-nypd-city-record

NYPL Record Requests: FOIL
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/services/law-enforcement/record-requests.page

Cyndi’s List: Occupations: Prostitution
https://www.cyndislist.com/occupations/prostitutes/

Judy Rosella Edwards, “Genealogy of Communities: Prostitution” Genealogy Today.
https://www.genealogytoday.com/articles/reader.mv?ID=2916

“Researching the Oldest Profession.” Family Tree Magazine
https://www.familytreemagazine.com/premium/researching-the-oldest-profession/

“Prostitution in the Americas.” Wikipedia.
[Note the status of countries as legal, legal and regulated and illegal]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_the_Americas

“Prostitution in the United States.” Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_the_United_States

“Prostitution in Paris” Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Paris

Andrew Israel Ross,  “Sex in the Archives: homosexuality Prostitution and the Archives de la Prefecture de Police de Paris”, French Historical Studies, 2017 (free access)
https://read.dukeupress.edu/french-historical-studies/article/40/2/267/9914/Sex-in-the-ArchivesHomosexuality-Prostitution-and

Elizabeth Garner Mazaryk, “Selling Sex: 19th C New York City Prostitution and Brothels.” 3 Sep 2017
https://digpodcast.org/2017/09/03/19th-century-new-york-city-brothels/

New York State Prostitution Laws
https://statelaws.findlaw.com/new-york-law/new-york-prostitution-laws.html

William E. Nelson, Criminality and Sexual Morality in New York, 1920-1980. Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities.
https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1091&context=yjlh

LaShawn Harris . “Playing the Numbers Game: Madame Stephanie St. Clair & African-American Policy Culture in Harlem”. Black Women, Gender and Families (2008). (2): 53–76.

Bastiaens, Ida (2007) “Is Selling Sex Good Business? : Prostitution in Nineteenth Century New York City,” Undergraduate Economic Review: Vol. 3: Iss. 1, Article 8.
http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/uer/vol3/iss1/8

Oral History of the Korean “Comfort Women”, Columbia University http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/ps/korea/comfort_women.pdf

Blackburn, George M., and Sherman L. Ricards. “The prostitutes and gamblers of Virginia City, Nevada: 1870.” Pacific Historical Review 48.2 (1979): 239-258
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3639274?seq=1/subjects

Fabiola Bailón Vásquez, 2017. “Reglamentarismo Y Prostitución En La Ciudad De México, 1865-1940.” Historias, n.º 93 (junio), 79-98.
https://revistas.inah.gob.mx/index.php/historias/article/view/10910

Revista Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña.
Carlos A Rodriguez Villanueva, “Amor licito e ilícito: un escape a los patrones amorosos establecidos [Historia socio-sexual en ella Caribe Hispanico, siglos XVIII-XIX: Cuba, Santo Domingo y Puerto Rico]”; Jose E Flores Ramos, “Vida cotidiana de la prostitutas en San Juan de Puerto Rico: 1890-1919”;
Nelly Vazquez Sortillo, “La violencia dentro de la violencia: un caso de violencia domestica en una hacienda esclavista en Puerto Rico (1871).”. 2006 vol 13, 2nd series. Issue downloadable from issuu.com
https://issuu.com/coleccionpuertorriquena/docs/segunda_serie_n__mero_13

348 Dra. Nieves de los Ángeles Vázquez Lazo “Historia de la prostitución en Puerto Rico, de 1876 a 1917.” Angel Collazo Schwarz, La Voz del Centro http://www.vozdelcentro.org/2009/08/23/la-historia-de-la-prostitucion-en-puerto-rico/ Podcast: http://www.vozdelcentro.org/mp3/Prog_348.mp3

Isabel Luberza Oppenheimer, ‘Isabel la Negra’, Madam & owner of Elizabeth’s Dancing Club, Ponce, PR. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabel_Luberza_Oppenheimer

Juan A Vera Mendez “Legalización de la Prostitución” (slide presentation has helpful overview on prostitution in PR)
https://studylib.es/doc/6024328/la-prostitución—universidad-interamericana-de-puerto-rico

“1970s New York City: The dangerous & gritty streets during a decade of decline.” NY Daily News. Photographs of NYC’s sex workers included.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/gritty-new-york-city-1970s-gallery-1.1318521

Basin Street brothels, New Orleans, 1908. Wikipedia

Books

Timothy J Gilfoyle, City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790-1920. (1994)

Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860. (1987)

Shirley Stewart, The World of Stephanie St. Clair, An Entrepreneur, Race Woman and Outlaw in Early Twentieth Century Harlem. Peter Lang Publishers, 2014.

LaShawn Harris, Sex Workers, Psychics and Numbers Runners: Black Women in New York City’s Underground Economy. U Illinois Press, 2016.

Shane White, Graham White, Stephen Garton, Stephen Robertson, Playing the Numbers: Gambling in Harlem Between the Wars. Harvard UP, 2010.

Karen Abbott, Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys and the Battle for America’s Soul. [Chicago] Random House, (2008).

Laura Briggs, Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science and US Imperialism in Puerto Rico, University California Press, (2002).

Eileen J Suarez Findlay, Imposing Decency: The politics of sexuality and race in Puerto Rico, 1870-1920. Duke UP (1999).

Donna J. Seifert, Elizabeth Barthold O’Brien, & Joseph Balicki, “Mary Ann’s First Class House: The Archaeology of a Capital Brothel.” Robert A Schmidt & Barbara L. Voss, Archaeologies of Sexuality. Routledge, (2000), 117-128.

Wild West Book Review: Jan McKell’s Red Light Women of the Rocky Mountains UNM Press, 2009
https://www.historynet.com/wild-west-book-review-red-light-women.htm

Heather Branstetter, A Business Doing Pleasure: Selling Sex in the Silver Valley 1884-1991. Wallace, Idaho. (author blog)
https://abusinessdoingpleasure.com
Race & the Houses
https://abusinessdoingpleasure.com/2017/08/17/race-and-the-houses/
Files at the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office
https://abusinessdoingpleasure.com/2014/10/02/aboutthescsofiles/

Isabel Luberza Oppenheimer (1908-1974), colloquially known as ‘Isabel la Negra’ Madam & Owner, Elizabeth’s Dance Club, Ponce, PR

Reports

“Garden of Truth: the trafficking of Native Women in Minnesota.” Minnesota Indian Women Sexual Assault Coalition.  Report (2011)
https://vawnet.org/material/garden-truth-prostitution-and-trafficking-native-women-minnesota

“Prostitution: A violent reality of homelessness” (2001) report
https://www.issuelab.org/resource/prostitution-a-violent-reality-of-homelessness.html

Historical resource
Medievalists.net list of posts on prostitution, various locations during the medieval period 
http://www.medievalists.net/tag/prostitution/

Mapping

Hell’s Half Acre, 2017 [Victorian Los Angeles]
https://la.curbed.com/2017/11/17/16654292/history-prostitution-los-angeles

Selected Items from the Internet Archive, Archive.org items

Search results: simple search, prostitution yields 1400+ items 
https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Prostitution%22

US Congress, House Committee on Interstate Commerce, Memorandum on white slave trade. 1909
https://archive.org/details/memoranduminrewh00unit/page/n6

Rosine Association, Reports and realities from the sketch-book of a manager of the Rosine Association, December 1855.
https://archive.org/details/reportsandreali00pagoog/page/n7

An ordinance relating to houses of ill fame and prostitution Salt Lake City, UT, 1877
https://archive.org/details/ordinancerelatin03salt

Special Collections

KC History Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library Results – 60 objects
https://kchistory.org/islandora/search/Prostitution%20?type=dismax

Annie Chambers, (1843-1945) 19 results 
https://kchistory.org/islandora/search/Prostitution%20?type=dismax&islandora_solr_search_navigation=0&f%5B0%5D=kcpl_mods_local_subject_ms%3A%22Chambers%2C%5C%20Annie%22

Modern Pornography & Sex Work Collection, 1960-1990. University of South Florida 
https://digital.lib.usf.edu/SFS0050529/00001

CSUN, The Oldest Profession (Collections overview)
https://library.csun.edu/SCA/Peek-in-the-Stacks/prostitution

Dr Bonnie Bullough Collection, 1954-2000. CSUN, Oviatt Library, Special Collections
https://findingaids.csun.edu/archon/?p=collections/controlcard&id=445

Reverend Wendell M Miller Collection, 1928-1988.
Citizens independent Vice Investigating Committee (CIVIC)  CSUN, Oviatt Library, Special Collections
http://findingaids.csun.edu/archon/?p=collections/controlcard&id=102

Prostitution Collection, 1834-1954., Five Colleges (MA)
http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/sophiasmith/mnsss108.html

Prostitution at Brigham Young University, 1997
https://findingaid.lib.byu.edu/viewItem/FA%207/Series%2010/Subseries%204/6.10.5.6.2/

Minnie Fischer Cunningham Papers, Standard Statistics on Prostitution Syphilis & Gonorrhea (1919)
https://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/p15195coll33/item/224

Guide to Shelley Bristol Papers UNLV
https://www.library.unlv.edu/speccol/finding-aids/MS-00398.pdf

The Real Rainbow Row, Charleston Hotel
College of Charleston, Special Collections
https://speccoll.cofc.edu/the-real-rainbow-row/charleston-hotel-200-meeting-street/

New Orleans

The Library of Congress’ page on Storyville has several special collections from New Orleans which I have included below.

Storyville: A resource guide to commercialized Vice in New Orleans. Library of Congress
https://www.loc.gov/rr/business/storyville/books.html

IAL COLLECTIONS
Storyville: a resource guide to sources about commercialized vice in historic New Orleans.
February 2018
Table of Contents
Overview
Selected Book Titles
Newspapers
Special Collections
LC Subject Headings

Archives of the City of New Orleans. New Orleans Public Library.
http://nutrias.org/~nopl/inv/synopsis/synopsis.htm 
This includes ordinances related to prostitution.

Louisiana State Archives. Baton Rouge.
https://www.sos.la.gov/HistoricalResources/Pages/default.aspx 
See Research Historical Records  section.

Louisiana and Special Collections. Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans.
http://libguides.uno.edu/special 
Includes the following collections: New Orleans Chamber of Commerce Records, MSS 66  and Josie Arlington Collection, MSS 270.

Louisiana Research Collection. Howard-Tilton Library, Tulane University.
http://larc.tulane.edu/ 
Search in the following collections:
Al Rose Collection, RG 606  : Although listed as a jazz archive, Storyville was the place to hear jazz musicians. Search:  Prostitution.
Master Rolls, Battalion Washington Artillery: 1861-1865.  
New Orleans Travelers’ Aid Society Papers, RG 365.

New Orleans Records. New Orleans City Archives, Louisiana Division New Orleans Public Library.
http://nutrias.org/spec/speclist.htm 
This collection includes arrest records, arrest index, ‘Jewell’s Digest of the City Ordinances’, etc.
Note: this collection is also available on microfilm at the Library of Congress.

New Orleans. Ordinances, etc. Jewell’s Digest of the city ordinances, Rev. ed. New Orleans, 1887. 
LC Call Number: Microfilm 21895 JS
LC Catalog record: 47035734

Williams Research Center. Historic New Orleans Collection.
https://www.hnoc.org/ 
Blue Books in the Williams Research Center’s collection, probably the largest extant, is available for research. View one of the digitized Blue Books here. Please contact the center for more information.
Last updated: 02/09/2018

NY – NJ Archives: Notable Latinx & Caribbean Resources

View of New York and New Jersey from airplane. Wikipedia

Following up on BlackProGen LIVE’s Episode #31: People of Color in the Northeast and New Jersey, I offer a brief compilation of archival websites that can be helpful for locating additional details for genealogy and family history of Latinx & Caribbean POC in New York and New Jersey.

First, a little background….

Over time, as archives develop along with the growth of communities, a variety of materials can be located within state and city library systems, universities and institutions. New York and New Jersey have a number of significant archival repositories,  of which some collections can be searched on line, and to gain the most, arrange for an in-person visit. Plan to check them out after exhausting initial sources such as census and vital records.

Why this matters for your family history…

Migration occurs in waves: interviewing elders and others within your family network may ease the process of where to look for records, and determining when ancestors turn up in a given location. During the nineteenth and early-mid twentieth centuries, voluntary migration began, and metropolitan areas offered opportunities for work, housing and education that many moved to, in hope of bettering their family’s situation, if not simply to resolve issues of flat out survival. This cycle was driven by the needs of labor and industry, and people clustered in small overlapping ethnic communities. Upheaval of a system, whether due to war, political instability or economic collapse can be part of the larger context of why ancestors moved to New York, New Jersey and other locations.

Understanding this larger context will help you as you write your family history.

Outward migration for the Dominican Republic from the MigrationPolicy.org site- note that locations are worldwide.

As Jie Zong and Jeanne Batalova note in their article on “Caribbean Immigrants in the United States”: “In 2014, approximately 4 million immigrants from the Caribbean resided in the United States, accounting for 9 percent of the nation’s 42.4 million immigrants. More than 90 percent of Caribbean immigrants came from five countries: Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, and Trinidad and Tobago”[1.] Some movement to the states was due to restrictions on immigration instituted by British government on former colonies. The Haitian diaspora began in the 1920s-1930s, and New York City has the largest and oldest concentration of Haitians in the US. [2]

Each country’s history varies in terms of who and why different groups of people arrived and departed its shores. The reasons why can give additional clues for tracing your family’s movement across the globe.

Note that diasporic movement of populations means potential family connections can extend worldwide.  Take a look at the interactive map on Migration Information – it provides information on contemporary migrations by country, depicted on maps, along with reports on different populations.

http://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/immigrant-and-emigrant-populations-country-origin-and-destination

New York
FamilySearch Wiki
A Preliminary Guide for Historical Records Sources on Latinos in NY State (2002)
Although dated, this 112 page guide provides details on archival holdings around the state. Also has appendices organized by topic, includes correctional facilities, various institutions. Check against more recent listings as a number of collections were augmented since it was compiled, and may also have websites.
Dominican Archives & Library, City College of NY
CUNY Institute for Dominican Studies
160 Convent Avenue, Room N/A 2/202
    T:  212.650.8865
    F: 212.650.7225

Hunter College: Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños

The Lois V. and Samuel J. Silberman School of Social Work
2180 Third Avenue at 119th Street, 1st Floor, Room 120
New York, NY 10035
Largest repository of primary and secondary source materials and collections about Puerto Ricans in the United States.

Has Online Public Access Catalog: https://centropr.hunter.cuny.edu/

Records of the Offices of the Government of Puerto Rico in the United States, 1930-1933

https://centropr.hunter.cuny.edu/sites/default/files/faids/pdf/OGPRUS.pdfThis 88 page guide in English and Spanish, includes community organizations, education programs 1943-1989, applications for Certificates of Identification 1930-1989, needed for Puerto Ricans to work in NYC.  Note: the application records can include photographs and thumbprints.

As discussed on the program, if there are activists among your ancestors, then it’s likely that there are records from government agencies such as the FBI.

Also at Centro: FBI and Puerto Rico

Ramon Bosque Perez’ testimony before Congressional Briefing gives an overview of the archival material held at Centro, which covers four decades. (The URL is long, so you may have to cut and paste into your browser.)

http://aclu-pr.org/ES/VistaFBI/PDFs/Statement%20of%20Professor%20Ram%F3n%20Bosque%20P%E9rez.pdf

FBI vault- Cointelpro on Puerto Rican groups- 11 file groups

https://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro/puerto-rican-groups

NYPL- Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture,

Manuscripts, Archives Rare Books Division
515 Malcolm X Boulevard (135th St and Malcolm X Blvd) New York, NY, 10037
(917) 275-6975
“The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of The New York Public Library is generally recognized as the world’s leading research library devoted exclusively to documenting the history and cultural development of people of African descent worldwide.”

Also, there’s a 1938 digitized manuscript, “Influence of the Haitian Revolution on N.Y”., also at the Schomburg, along with other archival materials from the Caribbean.

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/2a8fa3a0-6eb4-0133-01eb-00505686d14e

Lapidus Center for the Study of Transatlantic Slavery

Also has Livestream events for new books, and a podcast.

https://www.nypl.org/about/locations/schomburg/lapidus-center

NYU – Caribbean Studies – has section on Guides to Regional Archives
Caribbean Studies: Guides to Archives
National Archives and Records Administration, NYC
One Bowling Green, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10004
Toll-free: 1-866-840-1752 or 212-401-1620Has historically relevant archives for federal agencies and courts of New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands dating from 1685 to the present.

 

Guide to Puerto Rican Records at the National Archives, NYC– 94 pages

Note: some items are on Ancestry (RG85- Passenger Lists Airplanes arriving San Juan, RG 186- Foreigners in PR 1815-1845, see below on FS), some are not.

https://www.archives.gov/files/nyc/finding-aids/puerto-rican-records-guide.pdfAlso see:

RG 186- Puerto Rico Records of Foreign Residents, 1815-1845

 

New Jersey

New Jersey is home to the seventh largest Latino population in the US, which increased nearly 40% between 2000-2010.

Library of Congress: Resources for local history and genealogy:

New Jersey
New Jersey Hispanic Research & Information Center
http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/scua/genealogical-resourcesPDF of guide, Archibald S Alexander Library (Ethnic identity not specified)

BYU Guide on NJ (Ethnic identity not specified)

http://files.lib.byu.edu/family-history-library/research-outlines/US/NewJersey.pdf

General resources, but helpful:

dLOC: Digital Library of the Caribbean

http://www.dloc.com/

A great overview on Afro-Caribbean Immigration in NARA’s Prologue:

Damani Davis’ “Ancestors from the West Indies: A Historical and Genealogical Overview of Afro-Caribbean Immigration, 1900-1930s.”

https://www.archives.gov/files/publications/prologue/2013/fall-winter/west-indies.pdf

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division

West Indian Ladies Aid Society, 1915-1965

Benevolent society open to ‘all female Virgin Islanders; provided assistance with medical and funeral expenses.

http://archives.nypl.org/scm/20904

Background information on history of sugar in Dominican Republic and Haitian workers, which contextualizes the impetus for migration:

“History.” Visions of Haiti: Documentaries of the Dominican Sugar Industry

https://sites.duke.edu/sugardocumentaries/history/

Cyndi’s List- Caribbean/ West Indies

Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Netherlands Antilles, Puerto Rico, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Virgin Islands

http://www.cyndislist.com/cyndislistsearch/?q=caribbean

References:
[1.] Jie Zong and Jeanne Batalova, “Caribbean Immigrants in the United States.” 14 September 2014. Migration Information Source. Accessed 25 Apr 2017.  http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/caribbean-immigrants-united-states/
[2.] “Haitian diaspora, 2.3 New York City” Wikipedia. Accessed 28 Apr 2017.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_diaspora
Some recommended titles for context:

Felix Matos-Rodriguez & Pedro Juan Hernandez, Pioneros: Puerto Ricans in New York City, 1892-1998.  Images of America series, Arcadia Publishing, 2001.

Virginia Sanchez Korrol & Pedro Juan Hernandez, Pioneros II: Puerto Ricans in New York City, 1948-1995. Images of America series, Arcadia Publishing, 2010.

Virginia E. Sanchez Korrol, From Colonia to Community: The History of Puerto Ricans in New York City, 1917-1948. Greenwood Press, 1983.

Jesse Hoffnung-Garsof, A Tale of Two Cities: Santo Domingo and New York after 1950. Princeton University Press, 2007.

Regine O. Jackson, Geographies of the Haitian Diaspora. New York: Routledge, 2011.

Original post 8 May 2017; revised 1 Dec 2017