I can't speak to the specific question of material
culture,only to the question of Jews in small towns.
Many of the Jews in small Midwestern towns began
as rag and junk dealers. It was a business that one
could get into without a great deal of capital.
Many Jewish merchants parlayed these operations
into more established, Main Street businesses.
For example, in the city Marshall, Minn., Louis Wiener
began as a junk and rag dealer. His daily contacts
with farmers and their wives soon led to a side-
business: egg buying. From this start, Wiener
expanded his operation in a very successful,
multi-million dollar food-processing business.
(During World War II his Marshall Foods was one
of the major suppliers of dried eggs to the military
and the plant received a special award for its
work.)
There has been some work on Jews in small-town
Minnesota. There was an article on Jews in the
towns of Austin and Mankato, Minn., that appeared
some years ago in MINNNESOTA HISTORY. A section
on the Wiener family and small Jewish population
of Marshall will appear in my forthcoming history
of that city. Marilyn Chiat has, I believe, also done
some work on smaller Jewish communities,
particularly in the area of small-town synagogues.
For Minnesota there is also a fine chapter in THEY
CHOSE MINNESOTA: A SURVEY OF THE STATE'S ETHNIC
GROUPS.
For Iowa there is Michael J. Bell, "'True Israelites
of America': The Story of the Jews of Iowa," THE
ANNALS OF IOWA 53, no. 2 (Spring 1994): 85-127.
--John Radzilowski