Passaic

Passaic. See Google Map. A city (2020 pop 70,537) on the Passaic River in northern New Jersey, with a Ukrainian population (1980) of 600. Its textile industry attracted many immigrants in the 19th century, including Ukrainians from Transcarpathia and the Lemko region (from 1885) and Galicia (from 1895). The first Ukrainian organization, the Saint Nicholas Mutual Aid Society, was formed there in 1900. Catholic (1910) and Orthodox (1925) churches were built in the city, as well as a Ukrainian People's Home (est 1913). By 1925 approximately 20 Ukrainian organizations, including branches of the four major fraternal societies, could be found in the city. In the 1930s its Ukrainian population reached 2,000. Passaic is the seat of a ‘Carpatho-Ruthenian’ Catholic eparchy and the site of the head office of the Organization for the Defense of Lemkivshchyna. One of the parks in the city was named after Taras Shevchenko in 1964.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]