The documents and photographs of four diverse family clrcles provided the foundation for my analysis. I drew upon the only two works published on family circles: a 1939 study of family circles by the Works Progress Administration's Yiddish Writers' Group and a 1979 anthropological analysis of family circles by William Mitchell. Mitchell originally suggested that family circles changed over time from an aid to a social function. Using the records of previously unstudied family clrcles and scholarly literature on subjects as diverse as American Jewish culture, communal organizations, families, and philanthropy, I update and enrich Mitchell's economic-to-social narrative. I structure my findings in two sections. The first discusses how family circles provided economic support to help members achieve stability and even social mobility in ther new country. The second focuses on how the family circle "kept the family together" through social activites, as well as how family circles restructured to remain relevant and accessible. Both sections describe how activities encouraged members to forge connections with Judaism without compromising their integration into American society.;During the first half of the twentieth century, many American Jewish families of Eastern European descent banded together to create formal organizations called family circles. Family circles brought the family together, rendering mutual aid, both financial and emotional, to help members survive and thrive in American society. As American Jews became more affluent and moved out of the neighborhoods they shared with other family members, family circles offered social opportunities, helping to cultivate kinship bonds that might not have existed otherwise. This paper traces how the family circle---a largely ignored topic in American Jewish history---changed throughout the twentieth century. In tracing the shift from aid-oriented family circles to social family circles, I argue that American Jews founded and, later, restructured family circles to meet their shifting economic and social needs and desires. As family circles fulfilled these needs, they helped their members thrive in American society while maintaining and strengthening connections to Judaism.