Historically, ORT has played a major role in assisting Jewish refugees and immigrants to adjust to their new homes: training 80,000 Holocaust survivors in displaced persons camps for new lives in Israel, the US, and Europe; North Africans relocating to France; and immigrants from the former Soviet Union to Israel. In today's increasingly complex and volatile world, ORT continues to educate and train newcomers around the globe so they can become productive, self-sufficient members of their adopted countries. Schools and centers have been developed in Israel to meet the unique needs of immigrants from Ethiopia, and ORT vocational training programs in Croatia assist refugees from Bosnia, as well as displaced Croatians. Additionally, ORT is an active participant in the revival of Jewish life in the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union, with schools and centers in cities throughout this region, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, and Odessa.

An important aspect of ORT's mission is to connect Jewish students from Argentina to Cuba, to Russia and Ukraine with their culture, traditions, and values by offering classes in Jewish history and Judaic studies. Now celebrating over 120 years of good works, ORT (now known as the Organization for Educational Resources and Technological Training) is the largest nonprofit, non-governmental network of vocational education and technological training programs in the world, operating over 800 schools and projects in 60 countries that serve upwards of 300,000 students, regardless of their ethnic background and religious affiliation.

A vital component of the global ORT network, Women's American ORT was founded in 1927 by a group of dedicated women gathered in a Brooklyn kitchen to raise funds to assist European Jews survive the devastating aftermath of World War I. Since then, Women's American ORT's mission has evolved into providing ORT schools and programs throughout the world with the financial resources and leadership vital to ORT's efforts. Women's American ORT is the largest ORT affiliate, as well as the biggest private contributor to World ORT. Women's American ORT's active and committed membership is over 50,000 strong, and spread out among 500 local chapters across the country.

In the US, in addition to its fund raising work, Women's American ORT's public policy platform advocates for quality public education, increased literacy, the bolstering of women's rights, strengthening the separation of church and state, combating anti-Semitism, and the fostering of Jewish communities worldwide.

1880	Barred from most professions and crafts, from universities and from holding Russian citizenship, 5 million Russian Jews endure lives of poverty and persecution in the Pale of Settlement under the regime of Czar Aleksandr II. A small group of prominent Russian Jews petitions the Minister of the Interior for permission to start a fund to assist Jewish trade schools and establish agricultural colonies in honor of the 25th anniversary of the reign of the czar. On April 10, 1880, "The Society for the Promotion of Handicrafts, Industry and Agriculture" is publicly announced in a letter of appeal for financial support that goes out to the Jewish community.
1881-1906	ORT raises over one million rubles and provides manual training to 25,000 Jews living in 350 Russian towns. After receiving its charter in 1906, ORT establishes affiliates in numerous Russian cities, and within several years, is operating in 20 cities.
1914-1919	ORT engages in war relief, establishing cooperative workshops, artisans' shops, soup kitchens, credit offices and a Relief-Through-Work Department to find employment for Jewish artisans and workers. Labor bureaus are created to assess the labor market and find work for refugees. More than 60,000 are served by ORT.
1927	A Brooklyn kitchen serves as the site for the establishment of Women's American ORT. Founders include Anna Boudin, Mrs. Jacob Panken and Florence Dolowitz.
1930s	ORT provides vocational training to refugees from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. In 1934, German ORT, with the help of the World ORT Union, opens a vocational school in Berlin. Two years later, a representative of British ORT requests that the school, including equipment, be relocated to England. The Nazis refuse permission to remove the equipment. Only days before the outbreak of the War, 100 students and their teachers leave for England, establishing the ORT school in Leeds. Between the Wars, ORT programs serve 500,000 people across Eastern Europe.
1941	ORT follows European refugees to Shanghai, where 17,000 Jews have fled there from the Holocaust. The school operates until the Jewish community is dispersed in 1950.
1942	The Leon Bramson School for training in needle trades opens in New York.
1945-1947	Immediately after the camps are liberated, ORT begins to address the enormous needs of the survivors, establishing the first vocational school for displaced persons in Landsberg, Bavaria. A vocational training unit is established in Bergen-Belsen. Most survivors in the camps are between the ages of 16 and 24. ORT schools are established in Italy, Marseilles and London to train blockade runners. More than 40 trades are taught in ORT schools in Germany, including lingerie, watch-repairing, auto driving and the manufacture of strings for musical instruments. By 1947, 700 ORT courses are offered in the DP camps. ORT provides over 80,000 survivors with training to start new lives and prepare them for emigration to the U.S. or Palestine. One out of every four DPs passes through an ORT center.
1948	ORT establishes operations in the newly-established State of Israel, creating workshops in Jaffa to train and rehabilitate discharged soldiers and war invalids. That same year, ORT opens a vocational training center in Casablanca for abandoned children of the Mellah, the Jewish ghetto.
1950	ORT Israel has schools and workshops in 14 cities. ORT begins operations in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Iran.
1959	Women's American ORT funds the establishment of the Syngalowski Center in Tel Aviv, the first modern vocational institution in Israel.
1950-1960s	ORT France meets the needs of hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants from North Africa (Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria).
1970s	Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay become major sites of operation for ORT Latin America.
1976	The ORT School of Engineering opens on the campus of Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
1977	Bramson ORT Technical Institute opens in Forest Hills, N.Y.
1985	The Los Angeles ORT Technical Institute is established.
1989	ORT Braude International Institute of Technology in Karmiel, Israel is dedicated with a grant from Women's American ORT. In 1994, it is formally accredited as ORT Braude International College of Technology, granting a B.S. degree in Engineering.
1990	Fifty-two years after being banished by Stalin, ORT returns to the former Soviet Union, opening a school in Moscow.
1991	The Zarem/Golde ORT Technical Institute in Chicago begins classes.
1992	An advanced electronics and automation laboratory is opened at ORT India in Bombay. ORT continues to function as the educational and cultural center of the Indian Jewish community.
1995	ORT returns to its birthplace, St. Petersburg, and opens schools there and in Moscow.
1999	Bramson ORT becomes accredited as a junior college and is renamed Bramson ORT College.
April 10, 2000	ORT celebrates its 120th anniversary.
May 2000	The revitalization of Jewish education in the former Soviet Union is launched with the dedication of ORT Technology Centers under the banner of Regeneration 2000.
June 2000	To commemorate the 120th anniversary, WAO delegates participate in international Missions to St. Petersburg and Israel, attending the World ORT Congress in Jerusalem.
October 2000	The second phase of Regeneration 2000 is completed with the dedication of ORT Technology centers in several cities in Ukraine.
November 2000	ORT returns to Cuba, establishing the Ana and Ben Dizik ORT Technology Center in Havana.
2002	WAO turns 75.