Many fled to London, Paris and Geneva, but at the same time New York and Chicago also received its share of such refugees from political oppression. Immigration figures are always a problematic issue, and those for Polish immigrants to the United States are no different.
For much of the modern era there was no political entity such as Poland, so immigrants coming to America had an initial difficulty in describing their country of origin.
Also, there was with Poles, more so than other ethnic immigrant groups, more back-and-forth travel between host country and home country. Poles have tended to save money and return to their native country in higher numbers than many other ethnic groups.
Additionally, minorities within Poland who immigrated to the United States confuse the picture. Nonetheless, what numbers that exist from U.
Immigration and Naturalization Service records indicate that fewer than 2, Poles immigrated to the United States between and The second wave of immigration was inaugurated in when about Polish Catholics from Silesia founded Panna Maria, a farming colony in Texas. This symbolic opening of America to the Poles also opened the flood gates of immigration.
Louis—where they became steelworkers, meatpackers, miners, and later autoworkers. These cities still retain their large contingents of Polish Americans. A lasting legacy of these Poles in America is the vital role they played in the growth and development of the U. Confusion over exact numbers of Polish immigrants again becomes a problem during this period, with large under reporting, especially during the s when immigration was highest.
Most agree, however, that between mid-nineteenth century and World War I, some 2. This wave of immigration can be further broken down to two successive movements of Poles from different regions of their partitioned.
This photograph was taken shortly after this Polish woman and her three children arrived in New York City; they settled in Rensselaer, Indiana. The first to come were the German Poles, who tended to be better educated and more skilled craftsmen than the Russian and Austrian Poles. High birthrates, overpopulation, and large-scale farming methods in Prussia, which forced small farmers off the land, all combined to send German Poles into emigration in the second half of the nineteenth century.
German policy vis-a-vis restricting the power of the Catholic church also played a part in this exodus. Those arriving in the United States totalled roughly a half million during this period, with numbers dwindling by the end of the century. However, just as German Polish immigration to the United States was diminishing, that of Russian and Austrian Poles was just getting underway.
Again, overpopulation and land hunger drove this emigration, as well as the enthusiastic letters home that new arrivals in the United States sent to their relatives and loved ones. Many young men also fled from military conscription, especially in the years of military build-up just prior to and including the onset of World War I.
Moreover, the journey to America itself had become less arduous, with shipping lines such as the North German Line and the Hamburg American Line now booking passage from point to point, combining overland as well as transatlantic passage and thereby simplifying border crossings. Numbers of Galician or Austrian Poles total approximately ,, and of Russian Poles—the last large immigration contingent— another , It has also been estimated that 30 percent of Galician and Russian Poles arriving between and returned to their homelands.
The influx of such large numbers of one ethnic group was sure to cause friction with the "established" Americans, and during the last half of the nineteenth century history witnesses intolerance toward many of the immigrants from divergent parts of Europe. That the Poles were strongly Catholic contributed to such friction, and thus Polonia or the Polish Americans formed even tighter links with each other, relying on ethnic cohesiveness not only for moral support, but financial, as well.
Polish fraternal, national, and religious organizations such as the Polish National Alliance, the Polish Union, the Polish American Congress, and the Polish Roman Catholic Union have been instrumental in not only maintaining a Polish identity for immigrants, but also in obtaining insurance and home loans to set the new arrivals on their own feet in their new country.
Such friction abated as Poles assimilated in their host country, to be supplanted by new waves of immigrants from other countries. Polish Americans have, however, continued to maintain a strong ethnic identity into the late twentieth century.
The creation of the parish was central to the creation of Polonia. Since the midcentury arrival of large numbers of Irish and German Catholic immigrants in Chicago, the creation of ethnic Catholic parishes provided both a stable institutional base for community and a status symbol that announced the importance of the new immigrant colony.
Stanislaus Kostka became the first of nearly 60 Polish parishes in the archdiocese. In , Bishop Thomas Foley invited the Polish Resurrectionist congregation to minister to Polonia's religious needs. Stanislaus Kostka. Barzynski proved to be the great builder-priest of Polonia and remained pastor at St. Stanislaus Kostka until his death in Kiolbassa paved the way for Polish participation in local elections, and others soon followed.
Among the most important of these early politicians was John F. Smulski — , a Republican who was elected city attorney in and state treasurer in , and served on the West Side Park Board. By , 23 Polish Catholic parishes were located throughout Chicago and its nearby industrial suburbs. None of these neighborhoods was exclusively Polish in ethnicity. Like other European ethnic groups at the time, Poles lived in diverse neighborhoods that were residentially integrated by ethnicity, if not by race , but tended to be socially segregated.
These ethnic groups developed their own churches, schools, and other institutions around which their social lives revolved. The growth of Polonia was not without conflict. Questions of ethnic and religious identity often resulted in strife, including street battles in the early years. Many of these difficulties revolved around church ownership and the concept of parish. Sometimes these conflicts were a result of Polish regionalism transported to American shores.
Within the community, nationalists battled with other Poles who were more focused on Roman Catholicism as a unifying factor. One result was the growth of the independent church movement in the s that led to the formation of the Polish National Catholic Church. Like other immigrant groups, Polish Americans struggled over competing visions of the homeland.
This was especially true of the large national fraternals such as the Polish National Alliance and the Polish Roman Catholic Union, as well as for the U. Polish women organized their own ethnic organizations, including the Polish Women's Alliance , spearheaded by Stefania Chmielinska.
All of these organizations aided the Polish independence movement by any means they could. In these efforts proved successful; Poland regained its independence as a result of negotiated settlements after World War I. By the end of the nineteenth century, Polonia constituted the core of an almost institutionally complete ethnic community, with the parishes providing the base for much of this community development, along with institutions such as fraternal organizations, newspapers, and schools.
Most of the large national fraternals located their headquarters near the intersection of Milwaukee and Ashland Avenues with Division Street. This neighborhood, home to the parishes of St. Stanislaus Kostka and Holy Trinity, quickly developed as the national capital of the American Polonia. John Barzynski, brother of the pastor of St. The parochial school provided another foundation for the creation and maintenance of the ethnic community.
These ethnic schools first taught classes exclusively in the Polish language, but quickly the archdiocese forced them to teach in both Polish and English. Another concern was to prepare the children for life in the United States. In addition to parochial grammar schools, Polish Chicago developed Catholic high schools run both as independent institutions and as part of parish structures.
In the Resurrectionists opened St. Stanislaus College, the first secondary school opened by the congregation in the United States. In the school was renamed Weber High School. Polish parishes, such as St. Joseph in the Back of the Yards, also opened high schools.
The Catholic Church and the fraternals provided a layer of ethnically based social service institutions. Polonia debuted its own hospital , St. Mary of Nazareth, in and established St. Joseph's Home for the Aged in Hedwig's Orphanage opened in The Polish Catholic sisterhoods played a central function in these organizations. Polish Chicagoans created the Polish Welfare Association to help Polish communities deal with juvenile delinquency and other social problems. Polish Americans, in cooperation with Czech Catholics, opened St.
Thus Polish institutions provided for Polish Chicagoans from birth through death. Chicago's Polonia also developed a significant class of small business owners. Milwaukee Avenue, Division Street, Archer Avenue, Ashland Avenue, Commercial Avenue, and West 47th Street provided some of the sites for this growing group of entrepreneurs throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Many served a narrow ethnic clientele, but others reached beyond the ethnic community.
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