Many Polish immigrants during the 1800's and early 1900's left Poland because "occupied, disremembered, and economically backward, Poland held little hope for the future except economic stagnation in an overcrowded population center." Poles fled their motherland in search of a better lease on life and "America offered the poorer Polish classes the possibility of a more accelerated pace of advancement than in the old country." Though Polish immigrants came to America to better themselves, they left their way of life overseas. Many Poles were overcome by homesickness, "endured nativist opposition, and acclimate themselves to a society composed of diverse ethnic and religious groups." To deal with the culture shock, "in Chicago, particularly, the Polish churches have fostered the development of 'citizens clubs.'" These citizen clubs were primarily in cities in America. Polish Americans created organizations for a number of reasons such as: helping them get jobs, retaining their heritage as Polish people, and assisting them to successfully integrate into American society. Polish immigrants formed these clubs with the help of parishes in America, to help deal with social and labor issues they were facing. These groups helped "the communal response, they established small inward-looking communities that fostered stability and strength..." Citizen clubs in Chicago during World War II were important because they helped understand the strife Poles were facing.
Polish Americans in Chicago during World War II battled constant issues from immigration to labor. Social historians since the 1960s have been trying to understand the social and labor strife Poles faced and why organizations were key in Polish American society. Social and labo...
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...immigrants who helped dramatically reshape America's working class now posed the first serious challenge to America's industrial capitalist order. He focuses in on Bayonne, New York in a heavily populated Polish area, which made up the majority of laborers. Bukowczyk explains the immigrant workers in this area were vulnerable to high unemployment rates because they could not speak or read English and did not have the skills needed to work the job. This resulted in financial insecurity for the Polish immigrants. Some of Bukowczyk's research is from the U.S Senate Immigrants in Industries: Reports of the Immigration Commission and Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, Bayonne, New Jersey, U.S.A, Seventy-five Years, 1898-1973. The evidence he uses strongly supports his take on how Polish immigrants took shelter in their communities and shows the problems they faced as well.
Ethnicities wanted to be with their own race. This began the movement of the development of ethnic neighborhoods. Although many et...
At the time that this family arrived in the United States, a new wave of Eastern European immigration - spurred by growing industrialization and the advances in technology leading to the establishment of steel mills and other manufacturing and raw material processing factories and plants - was reshaping the American labor force. Djuro's experiences, and those of his son-in-law, Mike Dobrejcak, reflect a certain level of hostility towards these Eastern and Central Europeans from "mainstream" Americans and earlier, more acc...
In the years from 1860 through 1890, the prospect of a better life attracted nearly ten million immigrants who settled in cities around the United States. The growing number of industries produced demands for thousands of new workers and immigrants were seeking more economic opportunities. Most immigrants settled near each other’s own nationality and/or original village when in America.
During the time of World War II, there was a dramatic change in the society of America and its way of life. Men were needed at war, and the women were left at home. People were mistrusted and were falsely accused of something they didn’t do. Some people were even pushed away because they were different. These people are the minorities of America.
American minorities made up a significant amount of America’s population in the 1920s and 1930s, estimated to be around 11.9 million people, according to . However, even with all those people, there still was harsh segregation going on. Caucasians made African-Americans work for them as slaves, farmers, babysitters, and many other things in that line. Then when World War II came, “World War II required the reunification and mobilization of Americans as never before” (Module2). They needed to cooperate on many things, even if they didn’t want to. These minorities mainly refer to African, Asian, and Mexican-Americans. They all suffered much pain as they were treated as if they weren’t even human beings. They were separated, looked down upon, and wasn’t given much respect because they had a different culture or their skin color was different. However, the lives of American minorities changed forever as World War 2 impacted them significantly with segregation problems, socially, and in their working lives, both at that time and for generations after.
"Black, White & Beyond: Multiculturalism in Greater Akron, An Interactive History. " Black, White & Beyond: Multiculturalism in Greater Akron, An Interactive History. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2014. "The Depression, The New Deal, and World War II.
A well-discussed debate in today’s economy is the issues concerning immigrants and their yearning desire to become American citizens. As displayed in The Jungle, a rather perturbing novel about the trials and ruthless temptations early America presents to a Lithuanian family, adjusting to a new surroundings and a new way of life is quite difficult. To make matters worse, language barriers and lack of domestic knowledge only seem to entice starvation and poverty among newly acquired citizens, who simply wish to change their social and economic lives to better themselves and their families. Such is the case of Jurgis Rudkus and his extended family, consisting of cousins, in-laws, and their multitude of children. Natives to the country of Lithuania, Jurgis and his family decide that, after Jurgis and his love, Ona, marry, they will move to Chicago to find work in order to support their family.
Between 1880 and 1920 almost twenty-four million immigrants came to the United States. Between better salaries, religious freedom, and a chance to get ahead in life, were more than enough reasons for leaving their homelands for America. Because of poverty, no future and various discrimination in their homelands, the incentive to leave was increasing. During the mid-1800's and early 1900's, the labor and farm hands in Eastern Europe were only earning about 15 to 30 a day. In America, they earned 50 cents to one dollat in a day, doubling their paycheck. Those lower wage earners in their homeland were st...
Isaac Hourwich's purpose in writing this book is to inform readers on the actualities of the immigration movement. The purpose of most scholary pieces of literature are stated at the beginning of the book, as Hourwich did. His text was written as a response to The Immigration Commission. Hourwich wished to respond to the prejudiced Americans who thought that the goal of the new immigrants was to take jobs away. Hourwich begins by stating that restricted the labor market (1). He goes onto say that during the 1880s and the early 90's the general consensus of "native" Americans, the past Northern and Western immigrants was that the new (southern and eastern) immigrants goal wad to come to America in search for employment. In return each immigrant
Arrivals, from the same year, from all countries of persons of German race were 29,682 and Hebrew arrivals were 60,764. Changing the Character of Immigration, Pg. 103. 1) Unfortunately, with such a large influx in population during a short amount of time and other variables such as immigrants being unable to speak English, inadequate affordable urban housing, and insufficient jobs, a large amount of immigrants ended up in growing slums without the feeling of security or knowledge of how to find help, if there was any, from an unrepresentative government. These factors transformed incoming immigrants into easy prey for patronage from the political machine and sustained them by giving their votes. In the 1930’s, mass immigration had stopped and representative government had begun, leading to a decline in patronage needed by then integrated immigrants and a decline in votes for the machine....
During the industrial revolution, many immigrants migrated to big cities in America for the promise of a better life. Unfortunately, this “promise” was a lie. Many immigrants were exploited by the Americans during the 19th century. In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair demonstrates how immigrants were exploited in their wages. Another reason would be their work condition, and also laws and policies.
Gollab, Caroline. The Impact of Industrial Experience on the Immigrant Family: The Huddled Masses Reconsidered. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1977.
They talked about how the came over about 10 years ago, so in 1886 when Russia was just starting to get hit with the industrialize revolution, and Poland was also coming over during this time. They were young adults at the time with no family with them and only their bag that they brought to the US. It wasn’t uncommon for people to travel young to the United States because they were most likely to migrate because they had no children or a family to take care of, and they weren’t part of the older generation in their country. They came to America much like everyone else with hopes and dreams to make it big in their new country. Mami wanted to open up her own dance academy while Jake wanted to get his family from Russia over to America, and make a living out of himself. We also see in this opening scene a new migrant who had just came off the boat, going to this bar where they are at and Mami, Jake, and the others being welcoming to him. You also get a glimpse at what an immigrant looks like when they have just gotten off the boat, this immigrant had his beard, one bag, hat, and he doesn’t speak English at all. Luckily for him, he is in a neighborhood that speaks the same language as
There are several reasons for why Poles have made the 4,000-mile journey to America, many of which have already been explored and discussed within past research studies. In the present research study, the Polish immigration rates to America during the years of 1929 to 1931 will be examined. Statistics show that a large number of Poles move to the United States in 1929 and an even greater number of Polish immigrants come during 1930. Why such a large of mass of new emigration Poles came to America during this time frame poses as an interesting question as the ...
It is beyond uncertainty that the Warsaw Uprising which took place 70 years ago in 1944 is one of the most significant, heroic and tragic events in the 20th century of Polish history. During 63 days of patriotic uprising many thousands of predominantly young Poles were killed in an imbalanced battle with the German occupiers. This investigation will focus on the areal support for the Home Army (AK) during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. The essay will discuss the causes and consequences of the action taken by the authority of Great Britain, United States of America and Soviet Union as well as the Polish government in exile regarding the Warsaw Uprising.