Immigration to the United States

Polish
Immigrants

W. Scott Ingram
Robert Asher, Ph.D., General Editor

Immigration to the United States: Polish Immigrants

Copyright 2005 by Facts On File, Inc.
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Ingram, Scott.
Polish immigrants / W. Scott Ingram, Robert Asher.
p. cm. (Immigration to the United States)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8160-5686-2
1. Polish AmericansHistoryJuvenile literature. 2. ImmigrantsUnited States
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Previous page: Pulaski Day parades, named in honor of Revolutionary War

hero Kazimierz Pulaski, are one way Polish Americans celebrate their
heritage. These marchers took part in New York Citys parade in October 1997.

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Contents
Preface to the Series A Nation of Immigrants

.............

Introduction Polish Immigration:

Seeking a Better Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Chapter One Early Immigration:

The First Polish Americans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Chapter Two The First Great Wave:

Poles Leave the Homeland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Chapter Three The New Century:

Polish Immigrants in America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Chapter Four War and Depression:

19141941 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Chapter Five War and Communism:

Poland in Turmoil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Chapter Six Postwar Polish Americans:

Assimilation Continues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Chapter Seven Modern Polonia:

1980Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Time Line of
Polish Immigration

.......................................

90

Glossary

.......................................

92

Further Reading

.......................................

93

Index

.......................................

94

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Preface to the Ser ies

A Nation
of Immigrants
Rober t Asher,

Ph .D.

5
Preface to
the Series

uman beings have always moved

from one place to another.
Sometimes they have sought territory with
more food or better economic conditions.
Left: This view of
Sometimes they have moved to escape
Milwaukee Avenue
poverty or been forced to flee from invaders
in Chicago, taken
who have taken over their territory. When
in 1995, shows one
people leave one country or region to settle
of the vibrant
in another, their movement is called emigraPolish communition. When people come into a new country
ties in that city,
which has a huge
or region to settle, it is called immigration.
Polish-American
The new arrivals are called immigrants.
population.
People move from their home country to
settle in a new land for two underlying
reasons. The first reason is that negative
conditions in their native land push them to
leave. These are called push factors. People
are pushed to emigrate from their native land
or region by such things as poverty, religious persecution, or
political oppression.
The second reason that people emigrate is that positive
conditions in the new country pull them to the new land. These
are called pull factors. People immigrate to new countries
seeking opportunities that do not exist in their native country.
Push and pull factors often work together. People leave poor
conditions in one country seeking better conditions in another.
Sometimes people are forced to flee their homeland because
of extreme hardship, war, or oppression. These immigrants to
new lands are called refugees. During times of war or famine,
large groups of refugees may immigrate to new countries in

6
Preface to
the Series

search of better conditions. Refugees have been on the move

from the earliest recorded history. Even today, groups of
refugees are forced to move from one country to another.

Pulled to America
or hundreds of years, people have been pulled to America
seeking freedom and economic opportunity. America has
always been a land of immigrants. The original settlers of
America emigrated from Asia thousands of years ago. These first
Americans were probably following animal herds in search of
better hunting grounds. They migrated to America across a land
bridge that connected the west coast of North America with
Asia. As time passed, they spread throughout North and South
America and established complex societies and cultures.
Beginning in the 1500s, a new group of immigrants came
to America from Europe. The first European immigrants to
America were volunteer sailors and soldiers who were promised
rewards for their labor. Once settlements were established, small
numbers of immigrants from Spain, Portugal, France, Holland,
and England began to arrive. Some were rich, but most were
poor. Most of these emigrants had to pay for the expensive
ocean voyage from Europe to the Western Hemisphere by
promising to work for four to seven years. They were called
indentured servants. These emigrants were pushed out of
Europe by religious persecution, high land prices, and poverty.
They were pulled to America by reports of cheap, fertile land
and by the promise of more religious freedom than they had in
their homelands.
Many immigrants who arrived in America, however, did
not come by choice. Convicts were forcibly transported from
England to work in the American colonies. In addition,

thousands of African men, women, and children were kidnapped

in Africa and forced onto slave ships. They were transported to
America and forced to work for European masters. While voluntary emigrants had some choice of which territory they would
move to, involuntary immigrants had no choice at all. Slaves
were forced to immigrate to America from the 1500s until about
1840. For voluntary immigrants, two things influenced where
they settled once they arrived in the United States. First, immigrants usually settled where there were jobs. Second, they often
settled in the same places as immigrants who had come before
them, especially those who were relatives or who had come from
the same village or town in their homeland. This is called chain
migration. Immigrants felt more comfortable living among
people whose language they understood and whom they might
have known in the old country.
Immigrants often came to America with particular skills that
they had learned in their native countries. These included occupations such as carpentry, butchering, jewelry making, metal
machining, and farming. Immigrants settled in places where they
could find jobs using these skills.
In addition to skills, immigrant groups brought their
languages, religions, and customs with them to the new land.
Each of these many cultures has made unique contributions to
American life. Each group has added to the multicultural society
that is America today.

Waves of Immigration
any immigrant groups came to America in waves. In the
early 1800s, economic conditions in Europe were growing
harsh. Famine in Ireland led to a massive push of emigration of
Irish men and women to the United States. A similar number of

Preface to
the Series

8
Preface to
the Series

German farmers and urban workers migrated to America. They

were attracted by high wages, a growing number of jobs, and low
land prices. Starting in 1880, huge numbers of people in
southern and eastern Europe, including Italians, Russians, Poles,
and Greeks, were facing rising populations and poor economies.
To escape these conditions, they chose to immigrate to the
United States. In the first 10 years of the 20th century, immigration from Europe was in the millions each year, with a peak of
8 million immigrants in 1910. In the 1930s, thousands of Jewish
immigrants fled religious persecution in Nazi Germany and
came to America.

Becoming a Legal
Immigrant
here were few limits on the number of immigrants that
could come to America until 1924. That year, Congress
limited immigration to the United States to only 100,000 per
year. In 1965, the number of immigrants allowed into the
United States each year was raised from 100,000 to 290,000. In
1986, Congress further relaxed immigration rules, especially for
immigrants from Cuba and Haiti. The new law allowed
1.5 million legal immigrants to enter the United States in 1990.
Since then, more than half a million people have legally immigrated to the United States each year.
Not everyone who wants to immigrate to the United States
is allowed to do so. The number of people from other countries
who may immigrate to America is determined by a federal law
called the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA). This law
was first passed in 1952. It has been amended (changed) many
times since then.

Following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in

New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., in 2001,
Congress made significant changes in the INA. One important
change was to make the agency that administers laws concerning
immigrants and other people entering the United States part of
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The DHS is
responsible for protecting the United States from attacks by terrorists. The new immigration agency is called the Citizenship and
Immigration Service (CIS). It replaced the previous agency, which
was called the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
When noncitizens enter the United States, they must
obtain official permission from the government to stay in the
country. This permission is called a visa. Visas are issued by the
CIS for a specific time period. In order to remain in the
country permanently, an immigrant must obtain a permanent
resident visa, also called a green card. This document allows a
person to live, work, and study in the United States for an
unlimited amount of time.
To qualify for a green card, an immigrant must have a
sponsor. In most cases, a sponsor is a member of the immigrants family who is a U.S. citizen or holds a green card. The
government sets an annual limit of 226,000 on the number of
family members who may be sponsored for permanent residence. In addition, no more than 25,650 immigrants may come
from any one country.
In addition to family members, there are two other main
avenues to obtaining a green card. A person may be sponsored
by a U.S. employer or may enter the Green Card Lottery. An
employer may sponsor a person who has unique work qualifications. The Green Card Lottery randomly selects 50,000 winners
each year to receive green cards. Applicants for the lottery may
be from any country from which immigration is allowed by
U.S. law.

Preface to
the Series

10
Preface to
the Series

However, a green card does not grant an immigrant U.S.

citizenship. Many immigrants have chosen to become citizens of
the United States. Legal immigrants who have lived in the
United States for at least five years and who meet other requirements may apply to become naturalized citizens. Once these
immigrants qualify for citizenship, they become full-fledged citizens and have all the rights, privileges, and obligations of other
U.S. citizens.
Even with these newer laws, there are always more people
who want to immigrate to the United States than are allowed by
law. As a result, some people choose to come to the United
States illegally. Illegal immigrants do not have permission from
the U.S. government to enter the country. Since 1980, the
number of illegal immigrants entering the United
States, especially from Central and South America,
has increased greatly. These illegal immigrants are
Right:
pushed by poverty in their homelands and pulled
Photographed
by the hope of a better life in the United States.
around 1910,
Illegal immigration cannot be exactly measured,
two young
Polish women
but it is believed that between 1 million and
prepare to
3 million illegal immigrants enter the United States
leave the
each year.
immigration
This series, Immigration to the United States,
center at Ellis
describes the history of the immigrant groups that
Island in New
have come to the United States. Some came
York Harbor to
because of the pull of America and the hope of a
begin new
lives in the
better life. Others were pushed out of their homeUnited States.
lands. Still others were forced to immigrate as
slaves. Whatever the reasons for their arrival, each
group has a unique story and has made a unique
contribution to the American way of life. l

Introduction

Polish
Immigration
Seeking a Better Life

oday, more than 9 million people of

Polish descent live in the United States,
making Polish Americans the seventh-largest
ethnic group in the country. Most of the
Poles who came to the United States arrived
between 1870 and 1920, a period when
millions of immigrants from Europe came to
America. During that period, it is estimated
that more than 2 million people of Polish
descent entered the United States.
It is difficult to estimate the number of
Poles who came to the United States during
that period because at that time there was
no actual country of Poland as it is known
today. Polish immigrants were identified in
the U.S. Census, the official count of the
population, as people who spoke the Polish language and
followed the Roman Catholic faith. But some Poles did not fit
that description because they followed the Jewish faith.

12

Early Kingdom

Introduction

or several centuries before the 1700s, Poland was a large

European kingdom that was widely admired for its political,
religious, and intellectual freedoms. Poland eventually changed
from an independent kingdom to a land of colonies ruled by
other European countries, mostly because of its location. In fact,
much of Polands history has been guided by its geography and
its environment.
Poland is located in eastern Europe, with a northern border
along the Baltic Sea. The country of Lithuania lies to the northeast, Belarus is on the eastern border, and Ukraine lies to the
southeast. To the south are the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Germany lies to the west.
Poland is a land of great natural resources. Southwest
Poland has enormous coal deposits and eastern Poland is a
region of thick forests. More than three-fourths of Poland,
however, is flat farmland intersected by the Vistula, Odra, Warta,
and Bug rivers. Polands capital, Warsaw, lies in the center of
these fertile plains.
Throughout European history, the plains of Poland have
been a battleground for opposing armies as well as a breadbasket
that provided food for conquering countries.

Earliest Arrivals
he first Polish immigrants to the United States arrived in
Jamestown, Virginia, in 1608. In the early 1700s, several
hundred Poles who converted from Catholicism to the Quaker
faith came to the Pennsylvania colony that had been founded by
Quaker leader William Penn.

13

The first whole community made up of Polish Americans

was founded in 1854 on the plains southeast of San Antonio,
Texas. The settlement was named Panna Maria, which means
Virgin Mary in Polish. The first major wave of Polish immigration brought about 400,000 Poles to the United States by 1860.
Most of these Polish immigrants came to the United States
alone or in small family groups. They settled in American cities
of the Northeast and Midwest.
In the final decades of the 19th century, Poles joined the
flood of European immigrants entering the United Stated from
eastern and southern Europe. Among these immigrants were
more than 2 million people of Polish descent who came to the
United States from various nations of Europe, including the
areas of their homeland under foreign control.

Tragedy in the
20th Century
or Poles and for Poland, the 20th century was a time of
tragedy that began in 1914, with the outbreak of World War I
in Europe. Polands location between Germany and Austria to the
west and Russia to the east made it a battleground during the war.
When the war ended in November 1918, Poland became an
independent nation for the first time in 123 years. Over the next
decade, as Poles attempted to rebuild their own country, few of
them immigrated to the United States. Restrictions on immigration to the United States also contributed to the decrease in the
number of Polish immigrants.
In 1939, an even greater tragedy struck Poland than the
disaster of World War I. After just 21 years of independence,
Poland again fell to a conquering power. On September 1, the

Introduction

14
Introduction

armies of Nazi Germany, under orders from dictator Adolf

Hitler, invaded Poland. This event triggered World War II,
perhaps the most devastating period in the history of Poland.
In 1945, the armies of the Soviet Union drove the Nazis
from Poland. The liberation, however, left war-torn Poland under
the control of the Soviet Union and its leader, Joseph Stalin, a
dictator who was in many ways as brutal as Hitler. Because the
United States was engaged in a rivalry with the Soviet Union
called the cold war, over the next decade a number of laws were
passed that allowed more people seeking freedom from Soviet
control to come to the United States, including Poles.
Poland remained under the economic and political control
of the Soviet Union until 1980, when strikes by Polish shipyard
workers forced changes in the government. Over the first half of
that decade, Polands military rulers attempted to regain political
power through violence and intimidation, causing a number of
Poles to flee to the United States.
In August 1989, the Soviet Union and all of the European
governments it controlled collapsed. Poland became an independent nation once again. Even so, Poland suffered from
economic problems throughout the 1990s. As a result of the
difficulties in Poland, many Poles continued to immigrate to the
United States.
The United States and Poland are close allies. Polish troops
were stationed in Iraq and supported U.S. troops during the Iraq
War, which began in 2003. The relations that were first formed
between Poles and colonial Americans have grown stronger over
several centuries. Polish Americans, both citizens and new
arrivals, have become an important part of the fabric of the
United States. l
Opposite: Among those who worked to build the Jamestown Colony in
Virginia were a number of Poles, who arrived in 1608. Some early
settlers are shown in this illustration.

Chapter One

Early
Immigration
The First Polish Amer icans

16

Poles in Jamestown

Early
Immigration

olish immigration to the North American continent began

long before there was a country known as the United States.
It began at a time when most Americans were Native Americans,
and there were very few white people anywhere on the continent.
The first Poles to arrive in North America came to Jamestown,
Virginia, in 1608. The first permanent English settlement in North
America had been established there a year earlier.
These first Polish immigrants quickly proved to be valuable
members of the small settlement at Jamestown. Among them
were skilled workers hired by the English to make pitch, tar, and
resins used to waterproof wooden ships, a key part of Englands
growth as an empire. In addition, the Poles made glass, which
became important in the Jamestown economy.

P o la n d

17
Early
Immigration

Jamestown settlers were probably happy to see Poles arrive in 1608.

Some of them were skilled workers who helped the colony thrive. In this
illustration, settlers greet a ship bringing more settlers to the colony.

The Polish immigrants were considered so important to

Jamestown that the settlements financial backers, the Virginia
Company of London, made arrangements for the workers to
train others. Yet, as important as the Poles were to Jamestown,
because they were Polish they were denied one basic right that
all of Jamestowns English male residents had: the right to vote.
In 1619, Polish workers refused to work until they were
granted the right to vote. The records of the Jamestown colony
note that the protest was successful. An entry from July 21, 1619,
states: Upon some dispute of the Polonians [Poles] resident in
Virginia, it was agreed that they shall be enfranchised [given the

18
Early
Immigration

right to vote], and made as free as any inhabitant there whatsoever. (At the time, no woman, no matter what nationality she
was, had the right to vote. Therefore, when the Poles in
Jamestown were given this right in 1619, it applied only to men.)

Events in Poland
y the time the first Poles arrived
in North America, the country
of Poland was more than 500 years
More than 150 years after Polish
old. In 1609, a year after the first
workers in Jamestown protested
Polonia arrived in America, Poland
for the right to vote, American
fought the first in a long series of
colonists would fight to be free
wars against invading armies from
from Great Britain. It was the
Sweden across the Baltic Sea, Turkey
Poles, however, who had staged
from the south, and Russia from the
the first political protest in the
east. For more than a century,
American colonies.
Poland was both a target of
conquering armies and a battleground for opposing kingdoms. To the Poles, this time is known
as the Deluge, a long period of death and destruction.
By the late 1600s, Poland was almost entirely under the
control of Russia. But the wars were not over. Poland was in
constant turmoil because of its location at the crossroads of
Europe. It became a pawn in the struggle for power of the three
great powers in that region of Europe at the time: Russia,
Prussia, and Austria.
In 1762, Catherine the Great became the empress of Russia.
In 1764, she picked Stanislaw Poniatowski to rule Poland.
Catherine assumed that Stanislaw, as he was known, would rule the
country as she wished. But Stanislaw turned against Catherine and
began to push for Poland to become an independent kingdom.

Its a Fact!

19
Early
Immigration

A young Catherine the Great is shown in this painting from 1748,

14 years before she became empress of Russia.

As a result, a revolt by Polish nobles arose against Catherine

in 1772. The revolt was successful at first, and the rulers of
Prussia and Austria, whose empires bordered Poland, grew
concerned. They quickly joined forces with Catherines army to
defeat the Poles. The Poles revolt not only failed, it resulted in
Polands being partitioned, or split, into three separate colonies,
each ruled by one of the three powers.

20

Poles in the
American Revolution

Early
Immigration

any Poles who fought unsuccessfully for Polands independence in 1772 felt a strong bond with the American colonists
who were fighting for independence from Great Britain. At the
beginning of the American Revolution in 1775, the American
inventor and statesman Benjamin Franklin was sent to Paris to
seek financial and military support from France. In Paris, Franklin
met a number of Polish exiles who supported the American cause.
During the American Revolution (17751781), more than
100 Poles came to America to fight for American independence.
Among these fighters were two of the most honored military
leaders of the Revolution: General Tadeusz Kosciuszko and
General Kazimierz Pulaski.
Kosciuszko was the first important military officer from
Europe to offer his services to the Americans. He was a skilled
construction engineer who
specialized in the design of
forts, bridges, and defensive
fortifications. In the key
American victory at Saratoga,
New York, in 1777, Kosciuszko
designed the fortifications that
protected American troops
from the British. In 1778, he
designed the fort overlooking
General Tadeusz Kosciuszko
the Hudson River at West
is shown in a portrait from
Point, New York, which is today
1790. Kosciuszko came from
the location of the U.S.
Poland to help the Americans
in the Revolutionary War.
Military Academy.

21

Pulaski, a cavalry officer in

Poland, came to the American
colonies in 1777 and immediately
took command of the disorganized
American horse-mounted troops.
Although the 30-year-old officer
did not speak English, he immediately won the support of General
George Washington at the Battle
Kazimierz Pulaski, was
of Brandywine in Delaware.
fatally wounded at
Although the Americans were
Savannah, Georgia, in
defeated at Brandywine, Pulaskis
October 1779, as shown in
fast-moving unit held back a
this illustration.
British force that had almost
surrounded the Americans and would have cut off their retreat.
For two years, Pulaski worked to build an American cavalry
that could scout and report on British movements. In 1779,
Pulaski was fatally wounded leading a cavalry charge at the battle
of Savannah, Georgia. A hero of the American Revolution,
Pulaski is known as the father of the American cavalry.

Vincinanki

fffffffffffffffffff

One of the most distinctive decorations

found in many homes of Polish Americans,
both past and present, are paper cutouts
called vincinanki (vee-chee-nan-ki). The
practice began in Polish farming regions
during the mid-1800s as a way to decorate walls, beams, doorways, and windows,
especially during the Easter holiday.

To make vincinanki, Polish women

used hand-colored paper that they
folded in half. With scissors, they cut out
the shapes of roosters, peacocks, and
other animals, as well as uniquely shaped
flowers and trees. They glued these
shapes to white backgrounds to create
country scenes.

Early
Immigration

22

The First
Polish Settlement

Early
Immigration

he revolts in Poland that led to its partition in 1772 would

rise and be crushed twice more until, in 1794, Poland was
divided for the third and final time by Russia, Prussia, and
Austria. The country known as Poland disappeared from the map.
The final partition, or division, of Poland pushed the first
large wave of Poles to the United States. Meanwhile, the success of
the new United States government, a democracy, pulled Poles
who hated the foreign domination of their homeland. Records of
the number of Poles who immigrated to the United States in the
late 18th and early 19th century, however, are not accurate
because there was no recognized country of Poland. Most Poles
who came to the United States during that time were listed as
Germans or Austrians.
In 1830, a short-lived revolt
broke out in Russian-controlled
Poland. The revolt was crushed, and
about 1,000 Poles from that region
Tadeusz Kosciuszko returned to
came to the United States. With
Poland after the American
financial assistance from Americans
Revolution and led the third and
who were sympathetic to the Polish
final revolt against the foreign
struggle for independence, these
powers in his native country, in
immigrants settled in New York City.
1794. Kosciuszko did not have
There, this small community of Poles
the success in Poland that he
formed the first Polish organization
had in America, however. His
to assist future immigrants, the
Polish forces were defeated by
Association of Poles in America.
the larger Russian army.
Polish-American organizations such
as this also collected funds to help

Its a Fact!

23

pay the costs of Poles who wished to immigrate. In 1849, a Pole

in Warsaw wrote a letter to the Association of Poles in America
asking for money to pay for a journey to the United States:
I want to go to America. But I have no money. I have nothing
but the ten fingers of my hands, a wife, and nine children. I have
no work at all, although I am strong and healthy and only fortyfive years old. I have been to many cities and towns in Poland.
Nowhere could I earn money. I wish to work. But what can I do.
I will not steal. I beg you to accept me for a journey to America.
From the very first years of Polish immigration, all newcomers
considered it a duty to write letters to family and local acquaintances back in Poland. This was impossible for many immigrants
who could not read or write, so they turned to local Polish organizations for help. These letters gave a great deal of practical advice

Polish Americans in the Civil War

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

At the outbreak of the American Civil War

in 1861 a number of Poles enlisted in the
Union, or northern, forces to fight against
the Confederate forces of the South.
Among the most distinguished military
officers of the war was Polish immigrant
Joseph Karge, who had been an officer in
the Prussian army before coming to the
United States. Karge led the New Jersey
Cavalry, a unit of soldiers on horseback.
He was the only Union cavalryman to
defeat the legendary Confederate general
Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Another important Pole who

contributed to the Union cause was
Wlodzimierz Krzyzanowski, who rose to
the rank of general. He commanded
troops in the Polish Legion, an immigrant unit, in battles at Bull Run and
Cross Keys in Virginia and at
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Appointed by
President Abraham Lincoln,
Krzyzanowski was said to have been
denied a promotion because members
of Congress could not pronounce or
spell his name.

Early
Immigration

24
Early
Immigration

to those about to emigrate to the United States about living and

working conditions in America. Although some letters wildly
exaggerated the possibilities for success in the United States, this
communication link was important in bringing Poles to America.
As a result of these communications, most Polish immigrants who came to the United States during the first half of the
19th century settled in cities, such as New York City, where large
numbers of immigrants from other countries had also settled. In
the late 1840s, however, conditions for Poles in the Prussiancontrolled region of Silesia resulted in the establishment of the
first large Polish settlement outside of a major U.S. city.
Prussian Silesia, which is today in southwestern Poland, was
populated largely by Polish peasants who had kept their ties to
their conquered homeland by speaking Polish, observing Polish
customs, and following their faith, which was mainly Roman
Catholic. In the late 1840s and early 1850s, epidemics of disease
killed thousands of Poles in Silesia. Floods destroyed crops and
food shortages led to widespread starvation. In addition, Prussia
was engaged in a war during those years, and many Poles in
Silesia were forced to fight in the Prussian army.
In 1851, a Polish Roman Catholic priest, Father Leopold
Moczygemba, was sent to the town of New Braunfels, Texas, by
church authorities. He was assigned to a church founded by
German immigrants who had settled in the plains of south
Texas. Moczygemba soon realized that the wide-open lands of
the state would provide farmland for his fellow Poles from
Silesia. He wrote letters back to his family and friends in Silesia,
urging them to come to Texas.
In December 1854, a boat carrying 150 Poles arrived in the
Texas port of Galveston. Walking or riding in wagons, the Poles
traveled inland for three weeks before meeting Moczygemba.
The priest had gathered enough money to buy a piece of land
near the city of San Antonio.

Polish Names

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

One of the most distinctive aspects of

Polish identity is the surnames, or last
names, by which Poles are known. Polish
surnames are easily identified by their final
letters, or suffixes. The most common
suffixes in Polish surnames are -ski, -wicz,
and -czyk.
The suffix -ski means of the or
from the. A name ending in -ski may
indicate that a family has a close connection with a place or with a certain occupation. A family whose ancestors originated
in the city of Warsaw, for example, might
have the last name Warsawski. A surname

such as Pierkarski is based on the Polish

word for bakerpiekar. Thus, this
surname might mean of the bakers
family or from the place of bakers.
The suffix -wicz, pronounced wits,
means son of. Thus, the last name
Jakubowicz means son of Jacob.
The suffix -czyk, pronounced
chik, can also mean son of and also
means little. A surname such as
Kowalczyk is based on the Polish word
for blacksmithkowal. Thus,
Kowalczyk means son of the blacksmith or little blacksmith.

The Poles named their new community Panna Maria, which

means Virgin Mary in Polish. Throughout the winter of 1855,
the settlers built wooden houses and barns. They also built a
Catholic church in which Moczygemba held services. In the
spring, they planted corn, the main food of both people and
livestock in Texas. Unfortunately for these first settlers, they
faced challenges right away.
In the summer of 1855, a plague of grasshoppers invaded
the corn field and nearly destroyed the crop. That was followed
by a 14-month drought. The only food the settlers had for more
than a year was wild rabbits and deer hunted by the town residents. Further grasshopper invasions occurred throughout the
1850s, and some settlers moved away. Despite these hardships,
however, most of the Polish immigrants remained in Panna

26
Early
Immigration

Maria. By 1869, a stone school had been built for the settlements children.
News of the settlement at Panna Maria led to the establishment of similar Polish farming communities in Wisconsin and
Michigan. Although these towns were small, they established a
path of immigration of Poles to the Midwest.
After the Civil War (18611865), the U.S. economy
became more industrialized. As a result, most Poles who came
to the United States from 1860 on went to rapidly growing
cities. Large Polish communities formed in Buffalo, New York,
and in the eastern Pennsylvania cities of Scranton and WilkesBarre. Further west, industrial centers such as Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania; Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio; and Chicago,
Illinois, developed large Polish communities. By the 1870s, in
fact, Chicago was known as the American Warsaw, with a
population of more than 40,000 Poles. l

Opposite: Many Polish Jews who immigrated to the United States

during the last half of the 19th century left their homeland to escape
religious persecution. This Polish grandfather gives his grandson
religious instruction at home in Biala, Poland, a city that was ruled by
Austria-Hungary until after World War I.

Chapter Two

The First
Great Wave
Poles Leave the Homeland

28

A Change in Plans

The First
Great Wave

any of the Poles who came to the United States during

the first half of the 19th century did not plan to remain
in America. The dream of an independent Poland was shared by
many Polish immigrants, and most planned to return to their
homeland when Austria, Prussia, and Russia gave up control of
their colonies there. During the first five decades of the century,
there were a number of revolts by Poles in all three regions of
Poland under foreign control. None of the revolts was successful,
however, and each failure made the lives of the Polish people
worse, as the foreign rulers tightened their grip.
For this reason, many Poles who came to the United States
during the second half of the 19th century had little hope of
returning to an independent Poland. Most were primarily
concerned with their own basic survival and cared less about
political freedom for their homeland.

Prussia to Germany
he next large emigration of Poles to the United States
occurred as a result of turmoil in the area of Poland
controlled by Prussia. Much of this turmoil was caused by the
rise to power of a Prussian minister, or political leader, named
Otto von Bismarck. When Bismarck became prime minister of
Prussia in 1862, he started various programs that eventually
took land away from Polish peasant farmers and gave it to
wealthy nobles and business owners.
Along with these land policies, Bismarck, who believed that
ethnic Germans were superior to other groups, created what he
called a culture war. This policy was aimed at weakening the

29

power of the Catholic Church, which he felt threatened the

power of the German empire. The government closed Catholic
schools, imprisoned Polish church officials, and forbade Poles
from practicing their religion.
Bismarcks rigid ideas and his belief in German superiority
also affected another religious and ethnic group in Polandthe
Jews. In 1869, a follower of Bismarck named William Marr
founded the League for Anti-Semitism. (Anti-Semitism is the
hatred of and discrimination against Jews.) Marr promoted the
idea that Jews were inferior to Germans in every way. This
popular opinion made life unbearable for Polands Jews, who
were forced to live apart from others and had few rights.

The actions and prejudice of Prussian prime minister Otto von

Bismarck, who came to power in 1862, forced many Poles in Germancontrolled areas to flee to the United States. This photograph of
von Bismarck was taken in 1894.

The First
Great Wave

30
The First
Great Wave

This combination of actions by Bismarck and his followers

led thousands of Poles, both Jewish and Catholic, to leave
German Poland. The first wave of Polish immigrants from that
area began to arrive in the United States in the 1860s. Over the
next three decades, more than 400,000 Poles from Germancontrolled regions immigrated to the United States.
In general, German Poles were better educated than Poles
living in Austrian- or Russian-controlled areas of Poland. These
immigrants felt an obligation to form organizations to assist
other Poles who planned to follow them to the United States.
These organizations were called mutual aid societies.

Community Markets

jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj

Many Polish immigrants were people

from farming villages who were used to
small-town life. Arriving in a city where
most people spoke English, a language
that both sounded and looked unfamiliar, was a frightening experience for
most newcomers. For this reason, PolishAmerican markets became one of the
most popular gathering places for immigrants. These small stores provided more
than food. They helped immigrants stay
connected to their culture.
In these stores, immigrants could
buy kielbasa (Polish sausage) and pierogi
(dough stuffed with potato, cheese, or
cabbage). For the Easter holiday, they
could buy butter in the shape of a lamb, a

Polish tradition. For Christmas, Polish

shopkeepers sold ducks, whose blood
was used to make czerina (duck soup).
The stores also had the butter, flour, eggs,
and raisins needed to make placek (coffee
cake), which was served on Christmas
morning. Many larger stores also sold
dried mushrooms, books, toys, cloth, and
other items imported from Polish lands.
In addition to traditional foods, the
markets served as meeting places for the
exchange of news from the homeland or
from other Polish communities. While
the local church was the traditional
center of Polish life, the markets were
often the first step in establishing a
Polish neighborhood in an American city.

31

Polish immigrant Anton Schermann was one of the first to

organize a mutual aid society. Schermann came to Chicago from
Prussia in the 1860s. After working for several years as a laborer,
he opened a grocery store that became a gathering place for new
Polish arrivals. Schermann set aside a room in his store to hold
meetings of what became known as the St. Stanizlaus Society, a
group that raised funds to build a Catholic church and bring
over clergy to hold services.
For more than 40 years, Schermann advised and helped
start other organizations that served the growing Polish immigrant community in Chicago. In this role, he oversaw a community treasury that was established to help immigrant families
through crises such as sickness, accidents, or death. He also
helped individual Poles make travel arrangements and created a
system that assisted Poles in communicating with friends and
acquaintances in Europe. His store also served as a community
labor office where Poles looking for work gathered to be hired
by local bosses. Schermanns efforts are credited with having
brought over more than 40,000 Poles to Chicago in the last
half of the 19th century. Many Polish communities in the
northern and midwestern United States arose due to similar
efforts by German Poles.

Russian and
Austrian Poles
etween about 1860 and 1890, the majority of Poles
coming to the United States came from German lands.
The efforts of these immigrants to bring fellow Poles to United
States pulled immigrants from Polish lands ruled by Austria
and Russia beginning in the 1880s. Like the German Poles,

The First
Great Wave

32

many of these Poles suffered political and religious persecution. In some areas of Russian-controlled Poland, Poles were
prohibited from speaking their language. A person could be
imprisoned for speaking Polish in church.
Besides political or religious persecution, however, Poles in
Austrian- and Russian-held areas suffered extreme economic
hardship. In these mostly rural regions, people depended on
farming to survive. For Poles, land ownership was their only
security. With land they could grow food to eat and perhaps
enough to sell in a village market.
But as Bismarck had done in Germany in the 1860s, both
Austria and Russia started policies in the 1880s that took land
from small farmers and placed it
under the control of wealthy
nobles. Suddenly, peasants who had
farmed land for generations were
The era of Galician misery
forced to leave their family farms.
occurred at a time when the popuUnlike in the German areas,
lation of Poles in the area grew by
however, there were no large indusmore than 20 percent. Thus, at a
trial cities to which these peasants
time when peasants were being
could go for work. In the Austrianforced out of their traditional way
controlled area of Poland, called
of life, the population densitythe
Galicia, the period beginning about
number of people per square
1880 is known as the era of
milewas the highest of any rural
Galician misery.
area in Europe.
Because of the communication
system between Poles in the United
States and those in Europe, however, many of these peasants,
who were mostly uneducated, were attracted by the possibility of
work in America. Word that laborers in the United States earned
between 90 cents and a dollar a day10 times their current
wagepersuaded millions of peasants to make the long journey
to America.

The First
Great Wave

Its a Fact!

33

Journey and Settlement

oles were a major part of the enormous wave of immigrants that started coming to the United States from
eastern and southern Europe in the 1880s. Most Polish immigrants left their homeland by traveling across the Atlantic
Ocean to New York City. This journey remained basically
unchanged from 1880 to 1914.

Polish and Russian immigrants were photographed on the deck

of their ship to America around 1905.

The First
Great Wave

34
The First
Great Wave

A Polish immigrant carries his trunk as he leaves the ship

President Grant upon arriving at Ellis Island in 1907.
Poles generally sailed by steamship from one of two German
ports, Bremerhaven or Hamburg. A ticket from either of these
ports to New York City cost about $10, an amount equal to more
than three months wages in the region they were leaving. (In
todays money, this is roughly $189.) For this price, immigrants
were usually confined below decks for most of the trip, in the
travel class known as steerage. Conditions were dreadful during
these trips. An investigative reporter who made a trip across the
Atlantic in steerage wrote: How can a steerage passenger

35

remember that he is a human being when he must first pick the

worms from his food . . . and eat in a stuffy, stinking bunk, or in
the hot . . . atmosphere of a compartment where 150 men sleep.
Despite these conditions, more than 2 million Poles made the
journey to the United States between 1880 and 1914. Observing
Poles in steerage during a voyage in 1896, American author
Edward Steiner wrote: Poles . . . are among the most industrious
[hardworking] and patient people who come to our shores. Even
on board ship they are the most patient passengers, for hardships
are not new to them. For these desperate people, a week or two in
steerage would be forgotten once they were able to begin new lives.

Polish Dancing

ttttttttttttttttttttttt

One of the richest traditions Polish immigrants have brought to the United States
is their love of folk dancing. Dances have
always played an important part in Polish
festivals in both Poland and the United
States. Some dances, such as the oberek,
are done in groups, somewhat like
American square dancing. The krakowiak
is a group dance that is well known for its
rapid pace and its stamping, kicking, and
leaping. More formal dances, such as the
mazurka and the kujawiak, are traditionally done by couples.
Without a doubt, the most famous
Polish dance is the polka. The polkathe
name means Polish womanwas
brought to the United States by Polish

immigrants in the huge wave of immigration during the late 19th century. With its
quick, two-step sliding motion, the dance
was well-suited to a wide variety of
American immigrant musical styles. Thus,
the traditional violin-played polkas from
Poland were eventually played by bands
that included accordion, drums, clarinets,
and other instruments. By the mid-20th
century, polka music included jazz, Latin,
and country-and-western sounds.
Today, polka festivals are a
common event in Polish-American
communities. Some cities with large
Polish populations have regular radio
and television shows featuring polka
music and dancing.

The First
Great Wave

36

All immigrants who landed in New York City after 1892

were detained at the Immigration Center on Ellis Island in New
York Harbor. Even before the steamships landed, however,
American officials boarded the
ships. Few Poles who arrived in
this large wave of immigrants were
refused admission to the United
An immigrant usually purchased a
States for any reason. Records
steamship ticket to the United
show that fewer than 1 percent of
States with money raised from
all Poles were denied entry
selling personal belongings or livebetween 1892 and 1905.
stock. In some cases, money was
The overall acceptance of
sent from Polish-American organiPolish immigrants was mostly a
zations or other contacts in the
result of the strong community
United States.
organizations that had been established by the first arrivals. By the
1890s, Poles could count on any of dozens of Polish-American
welfare and immigration societies in the Poloniathe Polish
communityfor help in finding work and shelter.
In general, Poles who came to the United States also had
relatives, friends, or other acquaintances waiting for them in the
United States. Unlike many immigrants who arrived with little
idea of where to go, virtually all Poles, according to a 1900
report, were able to give immigration officials a definite destination and the names of people they were joining in the United
States. By the beginning of the 20th century, the massive migration of Poles from Europe was well under way. l

The First
Great Wave

Its a Fact!

Opposite: The Koscielski family, a Polish-American family from

Chicago, was photographed in 1930. The little girl on the right is
wearing a traditional Polish costume.

Chapter Three

The New
Century
Polish Immigrants in Amer ica

38

More Opportunity

The
New Century

ost of the immigrants who came to the United States

between 1880 and 1914 came as the result of the
countrys enormous industrial expansion. The manufacture of
steel used in steamships and especially railroads, for example,
created huge numbers of jobs in mines and factories.
Like many other immigrants, Poles were pulled to the United
States by stories of high pay and excellent living conditions. But
the reality, for many immigrants, was disappointing. One Polish
immigrant wrote back to acquaintances in Europe to complain
about his experience: What people from America write to Poland
is [false]; there is not a word of truth. For in America Poles work
like cattle. Where a dog does not want to sit, there a Pole is made
to sit, and the poor wretch works because he wants to eat.
It was true that pay was higher in the United States than in
Poland. But immigrants still had to cope with homesickness and
prejudice. Some wondered if they had made the right choice by
leaving their homeland.

From Rural to Urban

his letter reflects what was generally an uncomfortable
period of transition for Poles. While most Polish immigrants were persuaded to come to the United States by other
Poles, there was little waiting for them except other Poles who
were settled in crowded, ramshackle city neighborhoods. Most
Polish immigrants were forced to take jobs at the lowest level of
the economic scale in the worst urban areas of the time.
Adding to the difficult adjustment was the fact that most
Poles had lived in rural settings before coming to the United

39

States. Their lives were centered on farming. Yet fewer than onetenth of Polish immigrants in the peak years of immigration were
able to become farmers once they reached the United States.
Farming required large amounts of land, which poor Polish immigrants could not afford to buy. Some German Poles did settle in
farming areas of the Midwest, mostly in Minnesota and
Wisconsin. A few Poles arriving at the start of the 20th century
settled in farming areas of eastern Long Island, New York, and in
the Connecticut River valley region of New England.
Most Polish immigrants, however, were never able to leave
their backbreaking jobs in northern U.S. cities. According to a
1907 study, more than 80 percent of Polish immigrants were
unskilled laborers. Men were usually employed in the lowestpaying positions in coal mines, meatpacking factories, steel mills,
and garment-manufacturing sweatshops. (These workplaces were
called sweatshops because they were hot, unventilated, crowded,
and uncomfortable.) The pay averaged about $1.50 for a 12- to
14-hour workday. The average yearly income for a Polish immigrant was slightly more than $300 per year (about $6,000 in
todays money, which is well below the poverty line). Although
these wages were more than Poles could earn in their homeland,
they were not enough to ensure a comfortable life in America.
As they adapted from rural to city life in a new country,
Poles often managed to live similarly to the way they had in
Europe. Economic struggles they had faced in their homeland
taught them how to get by on very little. Most Polish-American
families in the cities, for example, had small vegetable gardens in
which they raised foods such as cabbage and potatoes. If they
were fortunate to have a home with a small yard, PolishAmerican families often kept goats or chickens unless prohibited
by city laws. The immigrants diet was simple. In addition to
their homegrown vegetables, Poles ate cheap cuts of pork,
sausage, smoked fish, and dark bread.

The
New Century

40
The
New Century

These children were photographed playing in the streets of a Polish

community in Chicago in 1903. The business behind them, Polska
Stacya, is a Polish saloon.
The frugality of Poles allowed them to save a great deal of
money. Many Poles were able to save enough money to purchase
property. In their traditional culture, owning property was the
basic measure of wealth. By 1901, nearly 30 percent of all Poles
in the United States owned some real estate. In some cities, these
homes became known as Polish flatssmall one-story buildings
that were often remodeled in order to provide living quarters for
friends, relatives, or boarders, who paid the owners to live there.
Many Poles also used their savings to help their relatives
back in Poland. A study in 1907 found that Polish boarders in
Chicago, for example, were sending back almost two-thirds of
their $25-a-month salaries to their families in Poland. In 1910, it
was estimated that Poles in the United States had sent about $40
million back to Austrian and Russian Poland.

41

An Immigrant Family
ne example of the hard lives of Polish immigrants was
recorded in a 1986 interview with 80-year-old Victor
Kobylarz. Kobylarz described the daily life of his mother, Aniela
Nieradtka Kobylarz, who was born in Austrian-controlled Poland
in 1882. She immigrated to the United States with her husband
Franciszek (Frank) Kobylarz in 1901 and settled in Passaic, New
Jersey. Aniela worked in a silk factory for eight cents an hour
and her husband worked as a glassblower. By 1914, the family
had saved enough to buy a farm in Tioga, New York.
While many Polish families were large, averaging about six
children, few families were larger than the Kobylarz family.
There were 18 children, and a 19th child was adopted. Victor
Kobylarz described how his mother kept food on the table:

Every other day she used 25 pounds of flour. She had a great,
big wood stove so she could put 12 loaves of bread in the oven
at one time. And this went on winter and summer, every other
day. Then Saturday, she made what we called paczki (doughnuts). . . . Every Sunday morning, she made six or eight pies.
She never measured anything. When you ask[ed] about a
recipe, How much? Half a cup? she said, Gaszka tego,
gaszka tego. In Polish a handful is a gaszka. So it was a
handful of this . . . a handful of that.
We ate a lot of potatoes and cabbage and raised twenty or more
pigs. All winter long she was canning pork, canning beef. We
had no freezers, no refrigerators. I'd say she put up a thousand
jars of meat every winter.
She had 18 kids before we got electricity and she got a washing
machine. Do you realize how many thousand diapers she
scrubbed on . . . washboards?

The
New Century

42
The
New Century

Aniela Kobylarz did more than cook, clean, take care of the
house, and raise 18 children, according to her son. She kept
boarders as well, a common practice among Polish immigrant
families in the early part of the 20th century. She also did farm
chores in the barn and fields.
Kobylarz said his mothers Roman Catholic faith was
extremely important to her. She didnt have to pray to enter
heaven; she worked her way to heaven without praying, he
added. Aniela Kobylarz died in 1986 at the age of 104.

Polish Jews
n 1880, there were fewer than 250,000 Jews in the United
States. Most of them had immigrated during colonial times
or from German states in the first half of the 19th century.
Between 1881 and 1924, more than 4 million Jews arrived in the
United States. These immigrants came mainly from eastern
Europe, including what is today Poland.
Jews, like other immigrants, were pulled to the United
States by the opportunity to improve their standard of living
and pushed out of their homelands by terrible economic
conditions. But unlike most other immigrants, Jews were often
forced out of their homes. The population of Jews in Polish
areas increased dramatically in the 1800s, from about 1.5
million to 7 million. This growth led to an increase in the
persecution of Jews. Some Poles and other non-Jewish ethnic
groups came to believe that Jews were taking over banks,
lands, and other important resources. By the early 1880s, the
poison of anti-Semitism had made the situation for most
eastern European Jews extremely perilous.
Since immigration records did not record religion, it is
difficult for historians to know exactly how many Jews came

43

from the three controlled areas of Poland. Almost all Jews who
emigrated from Polish areas spoke Polish as well as the
language of their controlling powersGerman, Austrian, or
Russian. The only distinguishing factor in records of the time
is that most Jewish immigrants listed their main language as
Yiddisha language derived from Hebrew, German, and eastern
European languages.

Holiday Traditions

kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

Many traditional Polish holiday traditions are closely connected to the

Roman Catholic faith. Traditions and
faith are especially significant during the
Christmas and Easter holidays.
Polish families begin their
Christmas celebration on Christmas Eve.
One beloved custom is the sharing of
oplatki, a wafer known as the bread of
love. The thin bread is cut into narrow
strips and placed on the dining table as a
centerpiece for the Wigilia, the meal
served on Christmas Eve. With the family
gathered around the table, the oplatki is
passed around and everyone takes a
small strip. They exchange good wishes
and eat the bread. Tradition holds that
all bad thoughts must be replaced by
goodwill at this time.
The Wigilia begins when the first
star can be seen in the sky on Christmas

Eve. An extra place is set for Jesus, for a

stranger who may appear, or for an
absent family member. After the meal,
gifts are exchanged, and Christmas
carols called koleny are sung. At
midnight, everyone attends the
Christmas Mass, called pasterka.
Christmas Day is for sleeping late and
visiting friends.
Easter is also a strong tradition
among Polish Americans. The wellknown custom of decorating and
coloring hard-boiled eggs, called pysanky
in Polish, began centuries ago in Poland.
Easter food is less traditional than
Christmas food and often includes meat.
The meal is eaten after Mass on Easter
morning. Traditionally, the centerpiece of
every table is a baranek, or butter
molded into the shape of a lamb. This
serves as a symbol of Jesus.

The
New Century

44
The
New Century

Once Jewish immigrants

arrived in the United States,
they were free to establish their
own synagogues (Jewish houses
of worship and communal
centers) and communities, just
as other immigrant groups did.
The largest number of them
settled in the Northeast, especially New York City. United
by their common language,
Jews from all parts of eastern
Europe, including Poland,
formed strong, supportive
communities free from the
persecution they had suffered
in their homelands.

A Polish rabbi, or Jewish religious leader, was photographed

in the late 1860s or early 1870s
in Krakow, Poland.

Religion in
Immigrant Life
lthough neighborhood markets and Polish assistance organizations were important elements of immigrant life, the
Roman Catholic faith was the center of the Polish community.
Immigrants were quick to establish churches virtually everywhere
they settled.
As the population of Polish immigrants continued to grow,
the number of churches did as well. In 1870, for example, Poles
had established 17 Roman Catholic churches in the United
States. By 1910, there were more than 500 such Polish Roman
Catholic churches.

45

The rapid growth of Polish Catholic churches led to conflict

between Poles and other Catholic immigrant groups, primarily
the Irish. By the early 1900s, Irish Americans were beginning to
move into the middle class of American society. As a result, they
had greater influence in the selection of religious leaders for all
American Catholics, including the Poles.
Poles were fiercely loyal to the idea of Polish clergy (religious leaders) serving Polish communities in the United States.
They resented what many bitterly called The Holy Irish
Church. This attitude was expressed by Father Francis Hodur, a
Polish priest who wrote in the early 1900s, The Polish people
should control all churches built by them. They should choose
their own pastors. If a church community speaks Polish, the
priest must speak Polish too.
In 1904, this conflict led Poles to break away from the
American Catholic Church and form the Polish National
Catholic Church (PNCC). Within several years, the PNCC had
more than 30 churches and more than 30,000 followers. Although
this was only a fraction of the millions of Polish Catholics in the
United States, concern over the break between Catholics of
different ethnic backgrounds reached the highest levels of the
Catholic Church in Rome, Italy. In response, Roman Catholic
leaders appointed a Pole, Father Paul Rhode, as the first PolishAmerican bishop in 1908.

Anti-Immigrant Prejudice
hile many Americans grudgingly accepted immigrants
such as the Poles, others were hostile toward them. By
contrast, some immigrants from northern and western Europe,
especially those who spoke English, felt accepted almost immediately upon their arrival in the United States. Poles and other

The
New Century

46
The
New Century

immigrant groups from southern and eastern Europe, meanwhile, often felt unwelcome.
Beginning in the 1890s, American Protestants, who were
generally the wealthiest and best-educated Americans, were
alarmed at the waves of Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and
Jewish immigrants entering the country. A strong prejudice arose
against immigrants whom many Protestants considered inferior,
especially immigrants from eastern and southern Europe.
In 1894, a group of young men from Harvard University in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, founded the Immigration Restriction
League (IRL). The IRL became very influential with the public as
well as with leaders of the U.S. government. To keep out undesirables, the IRL proposed a law requiring all immigrants to pass
a literacy test, proving that they could read and write their native
language. The test was created specifically to discriminate against
Poles and other immigrants, who had never gone to school and
usually did not know how to read or write.
Although the IRL literacy test was approved by Congress
several times, three different presidents vetoed, or refused to
sign, the act because it was unfair.

The Pan-American
Assassination
y 1900, the city of Buffalo, New York, had a Polish population of about 70,000 people. Polish Americans made up
nearly 20 percent of the population of the entire city. Because of
its location near Canada, Buffalo was selected as the site of the
1901 Pan-American Exposition, a special gathering, like a fair, at
which countries in North and South America could highlight
their cultures. Years of planning went into the huge event.

47
The
New Century

An artist at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition made this illustration of Leon Czolgoszs shooting of President William McKinley on
September 6, 1901. The president died of his wounds on September 14.
At that time, most of Buffalos Poles were manual laborers.
In fact, Poles did much of the work in the construction of the
exposition buildings and the railroads that would bring visitors
to the grounds. But what should have been a proud example of
the work done by Polish immigrants in the United States was
marred by tragedy, for Polish Americans and the United States
as a whole.

48
The
New Century

On September 6, 1901, President William McKinley

appeared at the fair and was shaking hands with local citizens.
Suddenly, 28-year-old Leon Czolgosz, a son of Polish immigrants, pulled out a pistol and shot McKinley twice. Czolgosz
was an anarchist, a person who is against any form of government and anyone in a position of authority, such as the president of the United States. The president died from his wounds
eight days later.
The fact that Czolgosz was a Polish American created feelings of shame and anger among Buffalos Polonia. A planned
parade and celebration of Polish Heritage Day at the exposition
was canceled by community leaders. Buffalos Polish-language
newspaper had a headline that read DISGRACE TO THE
NAME. The article began:
Poles of Buffalo are deeply incensed [angered] against the . . .
assassin of the President, as they feel he has dragged the Polish
fair name in the mire. . . . Czolgosz should not call himself a
Pole, and the Buffalo colony fears his [name] may bring unjust
[accusations] on its members.
Czolgosz was found guilty of murder and executed on
October 29, 1901. Despite the fact that he was an American
citizen by birth, his actions and his un-American last name
fueled the anti-immigration movement in the United States. The
assassination of the president was a key argument used by antiimmigration organizations for closing the doors of the United
States to immigrants. l
Opposite: Members of a working-class Polish-American family are
pictured on their porch in Mauch Chunk (later renamed Jim Thorpe),
Pennsylvania. Many Polish immigrants who lived in coal mining
towns in Pennsylvania suffered from poor economic conditions created
by the Great Depression.

Chapter Four

War and
Depression
19141941

50
War and
Depression

A Dream of Independence

ccording to the U.S. Census, in 1900 there were about

2 million people of Polish descent living in the United
States. From 1901 until 1914, about 100,000 Poles immigrated
to the United States per year.
No matter what area of foreign-dominated Poland these
immigrants came from, most shared the same dream of an independent nation of Poland. By the first decade of the 20th century,
the drive for a free Poland was once again a key unifying factor
among the many Polish-American organizations that arose in
immigrant communities. During that time, a number of Polish
immigrants returned to Russian and Austrian Poland to organize
support for Polish independence.

World War I
n June 1914, the assassination of the heir to the throne of
Austria set in motion a series of events that led to war and,
eventually, to a free Poland. The Austrian heir, Archduke Franz
Ferdinand, was shot by Gavrilo Princip, a native of the eastern
European country of Serbia. Like Poland, Serbia had long been
under Austrian control. Princip believed that the assassination
would help bring about independence for Serbia.
Instead, the assassination led to the invasion of Serbia by
Austrian troops and, very quickly, to a war involving most of
the nations of Europe and eventually the United States. The
three nations that controlled Poland were deeply involved in
the war. Both Russia and Austria, who were fighting against
each other, offered the Polish people their independence in
exchange for Polish military support. Later, American president

51

Woodrow Wilson called for the

establishment of an independent
Polish State once the Central
Powers, including Austria and
Germany, were defeated.
Meanwhile, Polands location
between Russia and its main foe,
Germany, meant that a great deal
of fighting took place there. When
the war ended in the autumn of
President Woodrow
1918 with the defeat of Austria and
Wilson supported the
Germany, much of Europe was in
establishment of an
ruins. In all, more than 10 million
independent Poland.
soldiers as well as 10 million civilians had died over four years. The toll was also high in Poland.
A total of 2 million Polish troops had fought with the armies of
the three occupying powers, and 450,000 lost their lives.
Despite the terrible toll, an independent Poland rose from the
ashes of war in November 1918. For the first time in 123 years,
Poland appeared on maps of Europe.
Polish Immigration to America
1,500,000
1,350,000
1,200,000
1,050,000
900,000
750,000
600,000
450,000
300,000

Note: Immigration gures from 1901 to 1920 are estimates.

00
20

90
19

80
19

70

60

19

50

19

19

40
19

30
19

20
19

10

00

19

90

19

18

80
18

70
18

60
18

18

50

150,000

War and
Depression

52

The United States

Closes Its Doors

War and
Depression

uring World War I, Polish Americans had fought bravely in

the American armed forces. They also supported the
United States on the home front.
Despite the patriotic efforts of Poles and other immigrant
groups, however, American politicians were strongly against
immigration after the war. In Europe the war had left an enormous population of refugees who sought entrance into the
United States. In addition, political turmoil in Russia had
created fear that immigrants would bring political upheaval with
them to the United States. These factors led to the widespread
public approval of anti-immigrant laws in the 1920s. The leaders
in support of these laws were the men who had organized the
Immigration Restriction League.
The rise in influence of the IRL came after years of pressure. As World War I came to an end, the IRL was finally able to
force through the immigration law it had long sought. Passed
over the veto of President Woodrow Wilson in 1917 by a vote in
Congress, the literacy law required all adult immigrants to be
literate in their native language. In families, only the husband
was required to be literate.
In reality, the law did little to keep out immigrants. By the
time it was passed, most European countries had higher literacy
rates than they had in 1895, when the IRL was founded and
started pushing for the law. Of the 800,000 immigrants who
came to the United States between 1920 and 1921, only 1,450
were barred because they failed the test. For Poles, whose literacy
rate was nearly 70 percent (meaning that 70 percent of them
could read and write), the law had little effect.

53
War and
Depression

This is the passport of an immigrant who came to the United States

from Poland via Buenos Aries, with his wife in 1921.

Nevertheless, the IRLs relentless pressure had caused strong

anti-immigrant sentiment to arise in the United States. In
response, Congress passed a quota plan in 1921 to limit the
number of immigrants entering the United States. Under the
quota, only a certain number of immigrants from each country
or ethnic group were allowed into the United States each year.
This quota virtually closed the door to Poles as it did to other
immigrant groups.
Yet even these quotas were not strict enough for many
Americans at the time. These nativists, as they were known,
including the IRL, wanted to reduce even further the numbers
of immigrants allowed into the United States.

54
War and
Depression

The Immigration Act of 1924 was the result. It lowered the

percentage of immigrants allowed into the United States from
Europe to 2 percent of the European population already in the
United States. But instead of using the population figures from
the most recent census in 1920, Congress based the quota on the
1890 census. In 1890, there were far fewer immigrants from
eastern and southern Europe, including Poles, than there were in
1920. Basing the new quota on the population in 1890 meant that
only a very small number of immigrants from these areas would
be allowed into the United States each year. Under the 1924 act,
only about 5,000 Poles were allowed to immigrate to the United
States each year.

Industrious . . . Frugal . . . Loyal

wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

On April 8, 1924, Robert H. Clancy, a

congressional representative from
Detroit whose district served a large
number of immigrants, attacked the
new immigration bill in Congress, calling
it un-American. The Immigration Act
was particularly unfair to Poles and
other eastern European immigrants. In
his speech, Clancy singled out the Poles
in his district for special praise:

The Polish-Americans are as industrious

and as frugal and as loyal to our
institutions as any class of people who
have come to the shores of this country
in the past 300 years. They are essentially home builders, and they have come
to this country to stay. They learn the
English language as quickly as possible,
and take pride in the rapidity with which
they become assimilated and adopt
our institutions.

With the entry of new immigrants virtually prohibited, the

1920s saw Polish Americans develop in two directions. In one
way, the Polish-American communities in the United States

55

became more closely knit, with the establishment of community

self-help organizations and influential Catholic parishes. On the
other hand, many Poles attempted to become more assimilated,
or blended, into American life.
Whether they sought to hold onto their culture or become
more Americanized, Poles were alike in one way: They were
joiners. By 1920, there were more than 7,000 Polish organizations in the United States. More than two-thirds of all Polish
Americans belonged to one or more of these societies, clubs, or
foundations. The two largest such groups were the Polish
National Alliance (PNA) and the Polish Roman Catholic Union
(PRCU). For a long time, the primary debate between the two
groups centered on what sort of independent Poland each
favored. The PNA favored a democracy modeled on the United
States. The PRCU wanted a democracy under a religious leader
from the Catholic Church.
During the 1920s, however, few American Poles chose to
return to the new homeland. Only about 10,000 out of a population of 2.5 million Polish Americans left the United States for
Poland. Even so, Polish Americans supported their homeland. The
PNA and PRCU were joined during the decade by other Polish
societies in efforts to collect money for the struggling nation.
Although the PNA and PRCU were national Polish organizations, one of the hallmarks of Polish communities in the United
States was their focus on local issues. Religious societies within
church parishes often developed into nonreligious groups that
organized everything from cultural events to local sports teams.
The most widely supported neighborhood organizations,
however, were building-and-loan services. Most of these services
operated like community-run banks. Members of the buildingand-loan societies contributed small amounts of cash from time
to time. When members wished to purchase a home or property,
they had the right to take out loans from the community bank.

War and
Depression

56

Unlike regular banks, which often denied credit and loans to

immigrants, these organizations guaranteed to their members
that money would generally be available to borrow. This type of
community organization was not unique to Poles, but the
Polish-run building-and-loan organizations were widely considered the most successful.
Like many other immigrant groups during a period when
immigration was limited, Poles in the United States began to
disagree about what it meant to be Polish American. Reflecting
the opposing ideals of the PNA and the PRCU, Polish
Americans debated whether they should speak English or Polish
at home and whether they should marry non-Poles and nonCatholics. As with many questions concerning Polish identity,
the church played a large role in these disagreements.
The devotion of Poles to their
churches gave rise to parochial
(church-run) schools in Polish
neighborhoods. In 1921, there
Polish Americans gave so much
were 521 parochial schools in the
money to their churches during the
762 parishes in Polish-American
1920s that estimates place the total
communities throughout the
wealth of these churches at about
United States. In all, these schools
$100 million at that time.
taught more than two-thirds of all
Remarkably, in todays money, this
Polish-American children. While
equals just over $1 billion.
regular classes were taught in
English, religious instruction was
conducted in Polish. For the supporters of the PRCU, these
schools were an ideal setting to pass on traditional Catholic
Polish beliefs. For those who supported the PNA point of view,
however, parochial schools became a barrier to assimilation. In
fact, many parochial schools encouraged the assimilation of
Polish immigrants. Catholic leaders knew that assimilation
would make Americans of other ethnicities more likely to accept

War and
Depression

Its a Fact!

both Polish Americans and the

Catholic Church as well.
Assimilation did progress
throughout the 1920s. For the
first time, Polish newspapers,
which numbered more than
150, began to publish sections
in English. The papers were
delivered not only to homes but
to community centers, called
Dom Polski (Polish Home).
These halls, found in the largest
Polish-American communities,
were built by PNA supporters.
They had auditoriums for
speakers and cultural events as
well as libraries where even
nonreaders could have sections
of the newspaper read to them
in either Polish or English.
While the 1920s saw the
spread of English into Polish
communities, the expanding
American economy played an
even greater role in helping
some Poles assimilate. People
with money could spend it on
modern inventions such as
radios, motion pictures, and
automobiles, which came into
widespread use at the time. Not
only could Polish Americans
hear and see the world outside

The Vital Amines

Casimir Funk was born in Warsaw,
Poland, in 1884. After earning a
degree in chemistry, Funk came to
the United States in 1915.
In his research, Funk found that
a chemical known as an amine cured
the tropical disease beriberi. He
suggested that certain diseases could
be prevented by eating foods that
contain "vital amines." In 1922, he
combined "vital amines" into one
word and used it as the title of an
important book about his research,
The Vitamines. Today, "vital amines"
are known as vitamins. Funks work
blazed the trail toward the creation of
the vitamin supplements that many
people take today.

58
War and
Depression

of their communities, they could travel to other areas as well. A

study of Poles in Buffalo, New York, in the 1920s found that
those who bought modern consumer goods almost always abandoned their ethnic traditions and sought to move from workingclass neighborhoods to the suburbs.

The Depression
hen the Immigration Act of 1924 was passed, it ended an
era of more than 40 years of heavy immigration to the
United States. The flood of newcomers to America was reduced
to a trickle. But the Great Depression, a period during which the
U.S. economy collapsed, brought even more changes to the
pattern of immigration to the United States. The depression
began in 1929. By early 1930, businesses and banks across the
country had failed. By 1932, one of every four American workers
was jobless. This was one of the darkest eras in American history.
For the first five years of the 1930s, the number of people
leaving the United States was greater than the number of people
entering the country. For the entire 10-year period from 1930 to
1940, a total of 69,000 immigrants came to the United States, an
average of 6,900 per year. This was a dramatic decrease. In 1914,
more people than that had entered the country every two days.
All Americans suffered during the depression, and immigrants were among those who suffered most. Industrial workers,
whose ranks included large numbers of Polish Americans, were
particularly hard hit by the economic disaster. Because of it,
their assimilation into mainstream society was suddenly
blocked. Only a few years before, Polish Americans had been
moving out of working-class neighborhoods and buying larger
pieces of property. Now they were mostly jobless and their
options were limited.

59

Competition for what few jobs there were created ill will
among various ethnic groups. Bad feelings arose as employers
played one group off another for sought-after work. This led to a
rise in the use of ethnic slurscruel, insulting names based on a
groups ethnicityamong immigrants that grew worse as the
depression wore on.

One Clergymans Contribution

qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq

One of the most popular figures who

helped to balance the traditional Polish
culture with modern American society
was a Catholic clergyman from New
Britain, Connecticut, named Father Lucian
Bojnowski. Bojnowski was born in Poland
and emigrated to the United States in
1888. After he became a priest in 1895, he
was assigned to the Sacred Heart Parish in
New Britain, Connecticut. For the next 65
years, Bojnowski built Sacred Heart into
one of the largest and most influential
Polish congregations in the United States.
Bojnowski understood from the
beginning of his service that his parishioners would be caught between two

cultures. His goal was to keep them

proud of their Polish culture even as
they entered American society. The
parochial school under his direction
taught classes in both Polish and English.
All students had to take a course in
Polish history. He founded the most
successful Polish language newspaper in
Connecticut and helped recruit soldiers
during World War I.
Bojnowskis role in the community
earned him national and international
fame. This brought thousands of immigrants to the industrial city of New Britain,
which today still has one of the largest
Polish communities in the United States.

In Chicago, which then had the largest Polish population in

the world outside of Warsaw, Polish Americans lived in crowded
apartments in the north end of the city. One Polish neighborhood was known as Pullman, named for the Pullman Railroad

War and
Depression

60
War and
Depression

car factory, at which most of the neighborhoods residents

worked. Jeffrey Dybek, whose grandfather had immigrated from
Poland in 1913, recalls growing up in the Pullman neighborhood
during the depression. At that time, the Pullman plant was
laying off workers and unemployment was part of daily life.
Dybek describes his grandfather, Jacob, as a [grouchy] old
man, who could speak Russian, Italian, German, and Polish
fluently. Jacobs ability with languages helped him find a job
working in the post office in the Pullman neighborhood after
losing his factory job. Jeffrey Dybek also remembers the apartment
in which he grew up, one floor above his grandparents. It was
too small for five brothers and my mother and father, he says.
There was no bathtub or hot water. We had to use a wash bucket
for bathing and laundry. Gas was the source of heat and light in
the three rooms. The only plumbing was one sink and a toilet.
The five of us children shared one bedroom which was really
one half of the kitchen divided off by curtains, Dybek recalls.
Like many immigrant groups, Polish Americans depended
on aid programs of the federal government to help them
through the difficult days of the depression. Because they were
primarily industrial workers, many immigrants, including Polish
Americans, were unemployed for much of the decade. By the
end of the 1930s, however, events in their faraway homeland
would result in a massive reemployment of industrial workers in
the United States. World War II, which would cause death and
destruction in Europe, also created new opportunities for Polish
Americans and other immigrants. l

Opposite: Taken in 1946, the year after World War II ended, this
photograph shows the devastation suffered by Warsaw, Polands
capital city, as a result of the war. Polands population was devastated
along with its cities.

Chapter Five

War and
Communism
Poland in Tur moil

62

Hitler and Stalin

War and
Communism

hroughout the 1930s, while the United States and much

of the industrialized world suffered through the Great
Depression, war once again threatened Europe. And as it had
been throughout its long history, Poland was trapped between
two powerful militaristic nations. To the west was Nazi Germany
under the control of Adolf Hitler. To the east lay the Soviet
Union, a nation born in the Russian Revolution of 1917, which
was controlled by Joseph Stalin.
Hitler and Stalin are regarded
as two of the most brutal tyrants
in history. Both men had risen to
The actions of Germany and the
power by focusing attention on
Soviet Union during World War II
their nations so-called enemies.
forced Poles to endure some of the
For Stalin, enemies were people
worst wartime conditions in
who did not support his style of
modern European history. The
communism, the system of
Nazis forced about 2 million Poles
government that had been set up
into slave labor camps. The Soviets
in 1917. For Hitler, the enemies
forcibly sent nearly 1.7 million Poles
were mostly Jews.
to work camps in the Arctic
During the last half of the
province of Siberia.
1930s, Hitlers armies invaded
countries beyond Germanys
borders, such as Czechoslovakia and Austria. Stalin felt that he
could do the same and gain some territory in Poland. This would
be an initial step in spreading his Communist government around
the world. Thus, while Poland struggled to achieve a democratic
government, two of the worst mass murderers in history made
secret deals to conquer and divide the country yet again.
In August 1939, Stalin and Hitler signed a secret agreement
that would divide Poland between their two countries. Stalin,

Its a Fact!

63

however, planned to wait until Hitlers forces were far away, then
march across Poland and attack Germany. Hitler also had no
intention of honoring the agreement with Stalin. Once his own
forces invaded Poland, he intended to send them all the way to
Moscow, the Soviet Unions capital city.

World War II Begins

n August 22, 1939, as Nazi armed forces were gathering at
the Polish border, Hitler authorized his commanders to kill
without pity or mercy, all men, women, and children of Polish
descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living
space we need. On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded
Poland and conquered the western half of the nation within
several weeks. This invasion marked the beginning of World War
II, the most devastating period in the history of Poland.
Across Poland, as the Germans invaded from the west and
the Soviets took over from the east, innocent men, women, and
children were forced from their homes with no warning. They
were loaded into railway cars normally used for cattle and transported either to German camps or Soviet camps. Regardless of
where they were being sent, many Poles died in the filthy,
freezing cars.
Until the spring of 1941, Nazi Germany and the Soviet
Union maintained peaceful relations while both powers brutalized the Poles. But that June, Germany pushed through eastern
Poland and invaded the Soviet Union. The effect of this was that
the Poles suffered at the hands of both the retreating Soviet
army and the invading German forces. By summer, all of Poland
was under Nazi control.
Hitler considered Poland an important part of his German
empire because of its fertile farmlands and extensive system of

War and
Communism

64
War and
Communism

railway lines. The first step in controlling Poland, according to

Hitler and his Nazi supporters, was to eliminate not only rebellious Poles, but all Jews in the country. Because Poland had been
a relatively tolerant kingdom early in its history, the country had
become the home of the largest population of Jews in Europe.
Thus Poland became the starting point for Hitlers intended
Final Solution, which was the total extermination of all Jews.
Today this is known as the Holocaust.
Death camps such as Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka, and
Sobibor operated on Polish soil. In these camps, Nazis gassed
and cremated nearly all of Polands 3 million Jews.

Children prisoners at the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, Poland, were

photographed in January 1945 when Soviet troops liberated the camp.

65

The first death camps began operation in late 1941, at the

War and
Communism
same time that other key events occurred in the war. On
December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched a surprise attack
against the United States at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. On December
8, the United States declared war on Japan, which had formed
an alliance with Hitlers Germany
and the nation of Italy. On
December 11, these countries,
known as the Axis powers,
Thousands of Polish-American men
declared war on the United States.
of military age volunteered for the
At first the Axis powers had
U.S. armed services to fight in World
the upper hand. But as the year
War II. Other Polish Americans,
wore on, the Allied powers, which
including men who were above
included the United States and
military age as well as women,
the Soviet Union, began to
worked in manufacturing jobs to
achieve military success.
turn out the weapons and other
By mid-1943, Soviet forces
supplies needed to fight the war.
were pushing the Nazis back across
Poland. But as the war turned in
favor of the Allies, the Soviet shadow over Poland and eastern
Europe began to loom larger. In 1945, Soviet forces entered
Warsaw and took control. A new, unelected Polish Communist
government supported by the Soviet Union was put in power.

Its a Fact!

Polish Americans Organize

s it became clear to Polish Americans that the Soviet Union
intended to take over Poland, they expressed the hope that
Allied leaders, including U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt, would
insist that the Soviets withdraw from Polish territory. To advance
their cause, more than 2,500 representatives of Polish-American
organizations across the United States met in Buffalo, New York,

66
War and
Communism

in late 1944. There, they founded the Polish American Council

(PAC), which becameand still remainsthe largest PolishAmerican political interest group in the United States. Charles
Rozmarek, the first president of the PAC, described the two major
goals of the new organization. First, the PAC wanted to cooperate
to the fullest extent with our government in order to hasten . . .
the victory for . . . America and her Allies. Second and, in some
ways, more important, the PAC warned the Allies that the Soviet
Union must be prevented from absorbing Poland into its empire.

The Cold War

dddddddddddddddddddddd

At the end of World War II, the Soviet

Union, an Allied power, controlled most
of eastern Europe, including Poland. In a
speech in 1946, Soviet leader Joseph
Stalin declared that democratic nations
could never live side by side with nations
such as his that were ruled by communisma political system in which there
is no private property. Around the same
time, a U.S. official in Moscow wrote a
memo in which he called communism a
danger to the free world. It was now
clear that the communism of the Soviet

Union and the democracy of the United

States, two vastly different systems of
government, were in conflict. This
conflict became known as the cold war.
The term cold war referred to a conflict
between large, powerful nations that
involved political tension but not all-out
war. The cold war would last for decades
until the 1980s, when a small group of
workers in a Polish shipyard began a
movement that eventually brought
about the fall of communism in Europe
and the Soviet Union.

But the Allied powers did nothing to protect Poland from

the Soviet Union. Although Poland remained on the map of
Europe, it was little more than a colony of the Soviet Union.
Under Stalins iron-fisted rule, Poland and other Soviet-occupied

67

countries in eastern Europe were tied to the Soviet Union. If any

group of Poles or those from any of the other satellite nations
threatened the Communists by attempting to regain control of
their homelands, the Soviet-picked governments in those countries called on their own armies or secret police to stamp out
dissent. If that did not work, those governments could call on
the Soviet army itself
Poles in Poland and the United States were infuriated.
Polish citizens were forced to watch as Soviets marched in
triumph through Warsaw, celebrating not only their victory over
the Nazis, which came in the spring of 1945, but also their
possession of the fertile lands of Poland.
The Soviet occupation of Poland began an entirely new
stage in Polish history. With a Communist-dominated government, Poland became a country modeled on the Soviet Union.
In 1948, as Stalins move to spread communism across
Europe presented a crisis to democratic nations, U.S. president
Harry Truman requested that Congress pass the Displaced
Persons Act. This law would allow some European refugees,
including Poles, to immigrate to the United States despite the
quota restrictions passed in 1924. Many of the new immigrants
who came as a result of the Displaced Persons Act were orphans
whose parents had been killed in the war. Others were refugees
left homeless by the war who had relatives in the United States.
The Polish American Congress was very active in bringing
Polish refugees to the United States. In 1948, PAC support for
the Displaced Persons Act played a key role in its passage. At the
same time, PAC struggled for recognition as a serious force on
the American political scene. Its main goal was to change the
U.S. immigration laws. While the Displaced Persons Act allowed
several thousand Poles to immigrate to the United States, the
quotas for Polish immigrants remained the same as they had
been in 1924slightly more than 5,000 Poles per year.

War and
Communism

To make matters worse, in

1952 Congress passed the
McCarren-Walter Act, which kept
People born in Poland who
the same quotas but made immiemigrated to the United States are
gration from eastern and central
called first-generation Polish
Europe even more difficult. At this
Americans. Their children born in
period, many Americans feared that
the United States are known as
Communists were working to take
second-generation Polish Americans.
over the U.S. government. In
The children of the second-generaaddition, many Americans and
tion group are called third-generalawmakers feared that some immition Polish Americans, and so on.
grants attempting to enter the
These terms apply to all immigrant
United States might be Communist
groups in the United States.
spies. Restricting immigration from
Communist-controlled countries
therefore seemed to make sense. As a result, the McCarren-Walter
Act was passed by Congress over President Trumans veto.

Its a Fact!

Change for
Polish Americans
he combination of the McCarren-Walter Act and strict
Soviet laws that prevented Poles from traveling outside of
Communist nations greatly diminished Polish immigration.
From 1946 until 1960, only about 17,000 Poles immigrated to
the United States, slightly more than 1,000 immigrants per year.
While Polish ethnic communities remained close-knit, the lack
of newcomers meant that fewer and fewer Polish Americans spoke
their native language. Studies showed that more than 6 million
Polish Americans were living in the United States in the late
1940s. Of that number, fewer than 900,000 were fluent in Polish.

69
War and
Communism

Young Polish Americans, many dressed in traditional costumes, took

part in a parade in April 1948 in New York City to raise money for
starving children in postwar Europe.

An example of the changes that occurred in PolishAmerican communities after World War II can be found in the
story of Hamtramck, Michigan, an industrial city east of Detroit.
The rise of the automobile industry in the early 1900s drew
enormous numbers of workers of all ethnic groups to the city,
but by 1924, Hamtramcks population was almost 50 percent
Polish. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, public schools in
Hamtramck, reflecting the immigrant population, were named
after famous Poles, such as American Revolutionary War heroes

70
War and
Communism

Tadeusz Kosciuszko and Kazimierz Pulaski and astronomer

Nicolaus Copernicus. School libraries and the Hamtramck
Public Library offered many Polish publications. Cultural presentations in the schools always included Polish traditions.
Hamtramck parochial schools taught classes in Polish history,
language, and literature. There were also bilingual classes (taught
in both Polish and English) in subjects such as math and social
studies. Report cards were written in Polish.

Polish Falcons of America

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In addition to mutual aid societies, Polish

immigrants organized clubs that emphasized sports and fitness. One such club
was the Polish Falcons of America. This
group encouraged its members to
become physically fit through exercise
and military drills. They established clubs

in Polish communities throughout the

East and Midwest where they helped
maintain parks and other sports facilities.
Many Polish Americans who fought in
World War I and World War II were
Falcons who entered military service in
prime physical shape.

But by the late 1940s, change was coming to Hamtramck, as it

was elsewhere in American Polonia. Second- and third-generation
Polish Americans, whose parents and grandparents had immigrated
from Europe, were not teaching their children the Polish language
or using it at home. Between 1940 and 1965, about 20 percent
of Polish-American children spoke Polish. By 1969, less than
10 percent of all Polish Americans could speak the language. l

Opposite: These Polish Americans, named queen and king of a

Minnesota polka festival in 1990, show pride in their Polish heritage.

Chapter Six

Postwar Polish
Americans
Assimilation Continues

72

After the War

Postwar
Polish
Americans

lthough Polish Americans found greater economic

opportunity in the decades following World War II,
most remained at a level of society considered lower middleclass. Before World War II, the need for all members of Polish
families to work to support the family often meant that education for young Polish Americans ended in high school. Fewer
than 15 percent attended college during the two decades after
World War II. More than 30 percent of Polish Americans were
classified as unskilled laborers and fewer than 25 percent had
so-called white-collar jobs in business, banking, or other fields
that required a college education.
Nevertheless, for Polish Americans, the years from 1950 to
1970 were a time of continued assimilation into mainstream
American society. Polish Americans entered fields such as professional sports, entertainment, and politics.

Sports and Entertainment

n sports, the 1950s were the glory years of Stan Musial, a
Major League Baseball outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals.
Polish American Stan the Man, as Musial was known, is widely
considered one the top 10 players in baseball history. The 1950s
also saw the growth of professional football. National Football
League (NFL) teams were first formed in northern industrial
cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. Those teams,
the Bears, Browns, and Steelers, had many Polish-American
players. The Pro Football Hall of Fame, in fact, includes many
Polish-American players, such as Frank Gatski, Ray Nitschke,
Chuck Bednarik, Alex Wojciechowicz, and Bronco Nagurski.

73

Each of these Polish-American players helped to make professional football the enormously popular sport it has become.
The world of entertainment also drew Polish Americans.
In the 1950s one of the most popular entertainers of all was
Wladislaw Liberace, known to most people simply as Liberace.
The son of an Italian father and a Polish mother, Liberace was a
classically trained pianist who played concerts before thousands
of music fans in the 1950s.

Wladislaw Liberace is pictured as a young man. Born in 1919,

Liberace, a pianist, had become one of the most popular entertainers in
the United States by the 1950s. He died in 1987.

Postwar
Polish
Americans

74
Postwar
Polish
Americans

Despite successes in sports and entertainment, a negative

stereotype, or commonly held perception, that Polish
Americans were uneducated, violent, and less intelligent than
other people was reinforced by some aspects of American
culture. In 1950, for example, the award-winning playwright
Tennessee Williams received wide acclaim for his play A
Streetcar Named Desire. The work first became a Broadway hit
and then one of the most popular movies of the period, mostly
due to the acting of a young star named Marlon Brando.
Brando played the main character of the drama, a brutal PolishAmerican alcoholic named Stanley Kowalski. In the play
Kowalski constantly argues with his sister-in-law, Blanche
DuBois, who uses ethnic slurs to refer to Kowalskis Polish background. Williamss creation of Kowalski, coupled with the facts
that most Polish Americans were employed in manufacturing
jobs and not college educated, added to the unfair stereotypes
of Polish Americans.

Polka Music
ne of the most significant ways in which the PolishAmerican community reached out to American society at
large during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s was through polka
music. This style of music, clearly identified with Polish
Americans and associated with traditional polka dancing,
provided more than simply popular entertainment. It was also a
method of communication.
The most famous polka artists came from Chicago and
included Gene Wisniewski and Frank Wojnarowski. Later the
Chicago tradition of polka was carried on by musicians Marion
Lush and Eddie Blazonczyk. These artists used their music to

75

demonstrate the patriotism of Polish Americans during the

1950s and 1960s. As was the case with many ethnic groups for
much of the 20th century, nativists questioned whether Polish
Americans were more Polish than American. Polka music
helped to bridge the divide. Many polka shows closed with
patriotic tunes such as God Bless America and The StarSpangled Banner. This symbolized for Poles and others who
enjoyed the music the loyalty of Polish Americans to their
adopted homeland.
Polka performers also played songs that touched on issues
important to the Polish-American community. For example,
Marion Lushs Ill Build You a Home spoke to the Polish
Americans strong belief in property ownership. Other polkas,
such as The Coal-Miners Oberek (waltz) and Iron Foundry
Polka, honored the lives of working-class Polish Americans.

Speaking Polish

number of words commonly used in English originated in

Poland or are taken directly from the Polish language.

x babka: a type of coffee cake

x horde: a teeming crowd of people
x kielbasa: a spicy sausage
x pierogi: small dumplings or pies stuffed with cabbage, cheese,
or potato
x polka: Polish folk dance and music

Postwar
Polish
Americans

76
Postwar
Polish
Americans

Polkas also asserted ethnic pride. Love and Peace, a polka

by Happy Louis, was sung in English. The songs lyrics tell
listeners, Lets cut out those Polish jokes / Were as good as
other folks. The chorus repeats, Stop those Polish jokes / And
love those Polish folks. The lyrics also name Polish heroes of
the past, such as Tadeusz Kosciuszko and Kazimierz Pulaski. Just
as American music in generalincluding rock and roll, folk, and
countrygave voice to social change in the middle decades of
the 20th century, polka music communicated Polish feelings to
non-Polish Americans and gained positive recognition for the
Polish-American community.

Politics, Education,
and Business
olish Americans also achieved notable success in American
politics, education, and business in the 1950s, 1960s, and
1970s. In addition, political successes were achieved by Polish
Americans in the decades after World War II mainly through
organizations and efforts in Polish-American communities in the
United States. Polish Americans were also instrumental in
promoting anti-Soviet efforts in their homeland.
Throughout their history as an immigrant group, Poles had
been strongly supportive of local organizations. These groups were
partly social clubs, but they also worked to improve local neighborhoods and help new immigrants adjust to American society.
Although many other immigrant groups also had community
organizations, they began to decline in membership as the immigrants assimilated into mainstream society. This was not the case
for Polish Americans. In 1950, more than three-fourths of all
Polish-American adults belonged to a Polish society. In Chicago

77

alone, there were more than 4,000 Polish societies that sponsored
cultural events, lectures, and festivals. They also supported Polish
causes of all kinds.
The primary focus of many Polish societies in the 1950s
was to encourage efforts by those still in their homeland to
oppose the Communist rule of Poland. After several years of
Soviet control, the Polish Communist leadership had become
almost an exact copy of the so-called Stalinist Soviets. Poland
was a nation of strictly controlled news, secret police, failing
industries, and harassment of Catholics, since the Soviets were
against religion of any kind.
While many of the political efforts of Polish Americans were
directed toward their homeland, some Polish Americans did enter
the American political mainstream. In 1955, Polish American
Edmund Muskie became the governor of Maine. In 1958, Muskie
became the first Polish American
elected to the U.S. Senate.
Muskie went on to win reelection for three terms. In 1968,
Muskie was the Democratic vice
presidential candidate, and he
completed his career in government service as the secretary of
state under President Jimmy
Carter, who was in office from
1977 to 1981.
During the 1950s, one of
the strongest anti-Communist
voices on the American educational scene was Harvard
Zbigniew Brzezinski,
University professor Zbigniew
shown here in 1979, was
Brzezinski. Brzezinski was born
national security advisor
in Warsaw and came to the
under President Jimmy Carter.

Postwar
Polish
Americans

78
Postwar
Polish
Americans

United States in 1950. During the 1960s he served as an adviser

to Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. His leadership
was important in the move to get the U.S. government to
balance an aggressive policy against the leaders of the Soviet
Union with an effort to open relations with eastern European
nations such as Poland, whose citizens wanted democracy. In
1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Brzezinski to the position of national security adviser.
The growing U.S. economy after World War II presented
opportunities for Polish Americans that had not been available to
them before the 1940s. For decades, jobs in manufacturing, primarily in northern industrial cities, had offered steady employment
to Polish Americans. But now the common American dream of
becoming a self-made business owner was also within reach of
many Polish Americans. One of the most successful examples was
Polish-American business owner Edward Piszek. In 1946, with an
investment of $350, Piszek founded a company called Mrs. Pauls
that produced frozen fish sticks, which became one of the most
popular foods in American homes over the following decades. By
the end of the 1950s, Piszek was worth more than $100 million.
Once he became financially successful, Piszek devoted most
of his time to helping Poles in Poland and standing up against the
Polish stereotypes that had become common by that time. In the
1960s, Piszek bought and shipped equipment to Poland to fight
the disease tuberculosis (TB), which devastated the country during
the 1960s. Through those efforts, he met and became close friends
with a Polish Catholic cardinal, Karol Wojtyla, who would later
become known to the world as Pope John Paul II. When Poland
suffered food shortages in the 1970s and 1980s, Piszek donated
more than 10 million pounds of food. He also funded a corps of
young people that traveled to Poland to teach English.
Throughout his life, Piszek spoke out strongly against the
Polish stereotypes that appeared in the American media. In 1971,

79

in an effort to show the rich contributions that Poles had made

throughout history, he founded the Copernican Society in
Chicago. Named after the Pole Nicolaus Copernicus, the father
of modern astronomy, the society has become one the most
successful Polish-American organizations in the country, sponsoring cultural events, festivals, English classes, citizenship
classes, and many other public services.

Immigration and the

Fall of Communism
n 1965, after years of pressure from Polish Americans and
other immigrant groups, Congress passed the Immigration Act
of 1965, which was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson.
Under the act, 120,000 immigrants were allowed into the United
States each year from nations in the Western Hemisphere (North
America, South America, and Central America). Another 170,000
were allowed from all other nations, but not more than 20,000 of
these immigrants could come from any single country. Immigrants
with family members already in the United States, educated
workers, and refugees were given highest priority.
In effect, the 1965 law ended the quota system begun in
1921. It also allowed a greater number of Poles to come to the
United States. Between 1965 and 1970, about 53,500 Poles immigrated to the United States. This was three times the number of
immigrants that had come in the previous 20 years. As this new
wave of Poles came to the United States, Poland itself began a
long and painful decade of change.
In 1970, Polish workers organized huge strikes to protest
price increases on basic government-supplied goods such as bread
and soap. The Polish government declared the peaceful protests

Postwar
Polish
Americans

80
Postwar
Polish
Americans

unlawful and ordered the military to use deadly force against the
workers. Troops killed hundreds of protesters and permanently
embittered millions of Poles.

Greenpoint, Brooklyn

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

The Greenpoint section of Brooklyn,

New York, is known for its many
churches, row houses, and small shops.
This neighborhood also has one of the
largest concentrations of Polish immigrants in the United States. Polish
immigrants first settled in Greenpoint
in the early 1900s because it was close
to the factories of New York City. As
more Polish immigrants arrived, the

neighborhood became a haven for

Poles who wanted to live near others
from the old country. Even today, you
can hear Polish spoken on the streets of
Greenpoint. Many of the shops and
restaurants sell traditional Polish foods
and other Polish goods. Polish community centers in Greenpoint still help
new arrivals from Poland find their way
in their new country.

The anti-Communist feelings increased enormously in 1978

when the archbishop of Krakw, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, was
selected to lead the worlds Catholics as Pope John Paul II.
Wojtyla was the first non-Italian pope in 400 years, and his election as pope united Poles in the United States and Poland as no
other event had. In his role as pope, John Paul immediately
spoke out forcefully against communism. He visited Poland as
pope in 1979, a visit that is largely acknowledged as the beginning of the end for Polish communism. l
Opposite: Polish immigrant Evita Ciezarek was crowned Miss Polonia
California 2003 in Los Angeles. Women with at least one parent born in
Poland may enter the contest which celebrates Polish heritage.

Chapter Seven

Modern Polonia
1980Today

82
Modern
Polonia

Mic
h

n
iga

Wisconsin

Massachusetts

New York
Pennsylvania

Connecticut
New Jersey

Illinois

Most Polish immigrants have settled

in these states.

Solidarity

eginning in 1980, enormous political and economic

upheaval in Poland created a new wave of immigration to
the United States. While Poland was under tight Communist
control in the 1970s, only about 37,000 immigrants came to the
United States. In the 1980s, however, as Poland made the often
painful change to democracy and faced economic difficulties,
more than 97,000 Poles came to the United States.
By 1980, workers protests and the anti-Communist
speeches of Pope John Paul II and other Polish Catholic leaders

83

had created a rebellious atmosphere in Poland. At the same

time, the failing policies of the Communist government were
creating an economic depression across eastern Europe. In
Gdansk, a group known as Solidarity demanded a greater voice
for workers in government and insisted on the right to form a
labor union free from government control. With growing
popular support, the Solidarity workers went on strike until the
government agreed to allow a nationwide union.
The Solidarity movement soon had more than 10 million
members, which was more than one of every four Poles. In the
United States, Polish-American organizations contributed large
amounts of food, clothing, and money to the anti-Communist
movement. Leading the efforts in the United States was the
Polish American Congress (PAC). The PAC supported the
Solidarity union and publicly criticized the Polish Communist
government. At the same time, the PAC Charitable Foundation
was formed. In 1981, the foundation sent more than $80,000 in
medical supplies and other equipment to Poland.
Solidarity soon became a threat not only to the Communist
leaders of Poland, but to the entire Soviet system. In December
1981, the military dictator of Poland ordered the army and
special police units to seize control of the country, arrest
Solidaritys leaders, and prevent all further union activity. In
addition, the government imposed severe limits on personal and
religious freedoms. Throughout 1982, as the Polish-American
communityand the worldwatched with alarm, the Polish
Communists undid much of Solidaritys work and eventually
disbanded the union.
Communist leaders soon found out, however, that they had
not destroyed Solidarity. Supported in part by donations from
Polish Americans, Solidarity members operated in secret or from
their jail cells. In the summer of 1983, the situation worsened
for the Communist government. Catholic Church leaders

Modern
Polonia

84
Modern
Polonia

discovered that secret police had kidnapped and murdered

Father Jerzy Popieluszko, a priest who was well known as the
spiritual adviser of Solidarity. As a result of this murder more
people began to sympathize with the Solidarity movement.
Meanwhile, the economic failure of communism had begun to
spread across eastern Europe.
With the country on the verge of revolution, the government began talks with opposition groups. After several months,
an agreement was reached that allowed Solidarity to offer candidates for governmental elections. In June 1989, a national election swept the Communists from Polands government. By the
end of 1989, following Polands lead, all countries under Soviet
control had renounced communism. Suddenly, Poland and all
of eastern Europe had entered a new era.

During a 1981 rally supporting Solidarity, several thousand demonstrators from Chicagos Polish community carried signs in English and
Polish protesting the declaration of martial law in Poland.

Coach K

gggggggggggggggggg

There is a prominent Polish-American

name in American sports that many
people find difficult to pronounce. It
belongs to the coach of the Duke
University mens basketball team: Mike
Krzyzewski, sometimes called Coach K.
Mike Krzyzewski (pronounced Shashef-ski) was born in Chicago in 1947. His
father was an elevator operator and his
mother a cleaning woman. In high school,
Krzyzewski was recruited to play basketball for the U.S. Military Academy at West

Point, New York. He became captain of

the team, and after serving in the army, he
decided to become a basketball coach.
In 1980, Krzyzewski became head
coach at Duke University, where he has
remained ever since, building what is
widely considered one of the best mens
college basketball programs in the
United States. Now a member of the
Basketball Hall of Fame, Krzyzewski
coached Duke to national championships in 1991, 1992, and 2001.

The New Wave

he turmoil in Poland and its struggle to recover economic
health took a great toll on the Polish people. As a result,
beginning in the early 1980s, a new wave of Polish immigration
began. More than 10,000 Poles a year came to the United States
in the last decades of the 20th century. In 1993 alone, more than
27,000 Poles entered the United States. This was the high point
in the new wave of Polish immigration.
Many Poles in this new wave, which continues more than 20
years later, have come to the United States for the same reasons as
earlier generationsfor work and personal freedom. Like the first
large wave of immigrants, these new arrivals from Poland have
settled largely in the Chicago area and in the industrial cities of
Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut.

86
Modern
Polonia

Some of these arrivals brought their families and became

permanent residents of the United States. This group typically
consists of well-educated business professionals. Others came
on temporary six-month working passes or as students, leaving
their families in Poland.

Holding onto Polish Heritage

ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd

The Bellingham, Massachusetts, public

library is a meeting place for a group of
elderly Polish Americans who live in the
region. The group began in 1993 as the
Polish Conversation Group with 10
members. By 2004, up to 50 people were
attending the meetings. The original
purpose of the group was to give Polish
Americans a chance to brush up on their
Polish language skills, but it has grown
into a more wide-ranging meeting of
people who share memories and
mementos of their Polish heritage.
Membership is made up primarily
of Polish Americans whose parents
immigrated to the United States in the
early 20th century. All share a common
memory of the struggles their families
faced living in a country whose population did not always appreciate or
understand Polish culture. We are all
children of immigrants, says group
founder Jane Alen. Life wasnt easy.

Children could be mean. If they found

out you had Polish parents, you were
ridiculed. Even today, say members,
they sometimes face difficulties
because of their ethnic background.
When they go to the doctor or government offices, they say, few people can
pronounce their names. I've had
trouble with that for 86 years, quips
John Waszkiewicz, whose last name is
pronounced Vah-SKEV-itch.
For Bertha Kogut, the meetings
help her remember stories her parents
told her as a child. It is also interesting,
she says, to keep informed about PolishAmerican issues. Kogut says that participating in the group reminds her that
although she sometimes felt isolated and
different as a child, other PolishAmericans shared similar experiences.
We were a minority group, Kogut says,
but we come to these meetings, and we
find out we were not the only ones.

Beginning with the new wave

and continuing today are approximately 2,000 Polish college
A Polish-American immigrant was
students who come to the United
chosen to design the memorial and
States to study each year. Many of
other buildings on the site where the
these students belong to groups
World Trade Center twin towers
such as the Polish Student
once stood. Daniel Libeskind came to
Organization (PSO) in New York
America following World War II and
City. The PSO was founded in
studied architecture in New York. He
1991 to help Polish students from
and his architectural firm will create
sixteen colleges in the New York
a building 1,776 feet tall to symbolize
City. This organization sponsors
the year of U.S. independence and to
events such as dances, picnics, and
remember the nearly 3,000 people
other outings to help Polish
who died at the World Trade Center
students get to know one another
on September 11, 2001.
and members of the Polish
communities near their schools. In
addition, it is dedicated to helping the Polish-American community learn more about opportunities for higher education for
their children.
Some of those who come to the United States under temporary arrangements remain in the country illegally. In the tightly
knit Polish-American communities, it is relatively easy for illegal
immigrants to move about and find work without being discovered. These temporary immigrants frequently live in low-income
housing, sharing rooms with other immigrants, and working at
low-wage jobs in order to send money to their families in Poland.
They often take jobs as laborers and housekeepers.
In the large Polish-American community of New Britain,
Connecticut, many recent Polish immigrants find work through a
group called the Polish Connection. Those who work for this
group may come to the United States on a temporary basis, or
they may have relatives in the city whom they can visit for

Its a Fact!

88
Modern
Polonia

extended periods of time. Polish Connection workers are hired to

provide live-in care for elderly people in the area.
For Poles such as Frank Sierpensky, the arrangement with
the Polish Connection works well. Sierpensky was unable to find
even part-time work as a security guard in Poland. He came to
the United States and took jobs for the Polish Connection.
Because he speaks fluent English, Sierpensky can be assigned to
a variety of clients. Through this arrangement, he is able to send
money home while keeping his living expenses low.

A Continuing Story
he decades that separate the various waves of Polish immigrants have raised some barriers between long-time Polish
Americans and new arrivals. As Polish Americans assimilated
throughout the 20th century, they often married non-Poles and
moved away from Polish communities, blending into American
society at large. Although they identify themselves as Polish
Americans, they have little or no connection with Poland or the
new Polish immigrants. Despite their assimilation, many Polish
Americans feel a strong attachment to their ethnic heritage. This
gives them something in common with recent Polish immigrants.
In 2004, Congresswoman Nancy L. Johnson, introduced a
resolution in Congress that would affect many Polish immigrants
and their families. Johnson represents the fifth Congressional
district in Connecticut, which includes one of the largest populations of Polish Americans in the country. Her resolution urged
the Department of Homeland Security to allow Polish citizens to
visit relatives and friends in the United States without having to
obtain a visa. They would only have to show a valid passport to
enter and leave the United States. This measure would make it
much easier for people to travel to and from Poland to see family

89

members and friends who have immigrated to America. Johnson

proposed the resolution in recognition of the close ties between
the United States and Poland and the contribution of Polish
Americans to the history of the United States.

Martha Stewart

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

Another widely known Polish American

was born Martha Kostyra in Nutley, New
Jersey, in 1941 into a large family of
Polish descent. Marthas mother taught
her to cook, and her father taught her to
garden. She moved to New York City in
the 1960s, where she married and
worked in the stock market. However,
cooking and entertaining were the first
loves of Martha Stewart, as she was
called after her marriage.

In the 1970s, Stewart moved to

Connecticut, where she began to cater
weddings and parties. Soon she became
so popular as a caterer that she was asked
to write a book about home decorating
and cooking. The book, Entertaining, was
published in 1982 and was followed by
two popular cookbooks. This marked the
start of a business empire that made
Martha Stewart one of the most famous
and wealthy women in the United States.

The relationship between Poles and America is older than

the United States itself. Yet, unlike the stories of many other
groups that have not continued to immigrate in large numbers
after the first waves of immigration in the late 19th and early
20th centuries, the story of Polish immigration to the United
States does not appear to be finished.
Whether their ties to Poland are recent or in the distant past,
the pride felt by Polish Americans is powerful. Now, while Polish
Americans look back with admiration at the courage and accomplishments of early Polish Americans, they look forward to
passing on these traditions to the next generation of Polonia. l

Modern
Polonia

90

Time Line of
Polish Immigration

Time Line

1608

First Poles arrive in North

America at Jamestown,
Virginia.

1609

Poland fights the first of

several wars against invading
armies from Sweden, Turkey,
and Russia.

1777

General Tadeusz Kosciuszko

designs fortifications to protect
American troops from British
artillery in the important American victory
at Saratoga, New York.

1778

Kosciuszko designs fort overlooking the

Hudson River at West Point, which becomes
the U.S. Military Academy.

1779

General Kazimierz Pulaski is fatally

wounded in battle at Savannah, Georgia.

1795

Russia, Prussia, and Austria

partition Poland.

1854

Panna Maria, the first Polish-American community, is founded near

San Antonio, Texas.

1870

U.S. Census lists 40,000 German immigrants of Polish descent in

Chicago, Illinois, making it the U.S. city with the largest Polish
immigrant community.

1900

Poles are listed for the first

time as a separate group in the
U.S. Census.

1918

World War I ends and an independent Poland is founded for

the first time in 123 years.

1924

Congress passes the

Immigration Act of 1924.

1939

Nazi Germany invades Poland

on September 1, beginning
World War II.

91
1941

Polands death camps become

the center of the Nazi
Holocaust.

1945

Poland falls under the control

of the Soviet Union and
becomes a Communist state.

1948

U.S. Congress passes the

Displaced Persons Act,
which allows some European
refugees, including Poles, to
immigrate to the United States
despite quotas.

1965

U.S. Congress passes the Immigration Act, which has the effect of
allowing more immigrants from Poland to
enter the United States each year.

1978

The archbishop of Krakw, Poland, Cardinal

Karol Wojtyla, is selected to lead the
Catholic Church as Pope John Paul II.

1980

Polish American Czeslaw Milosz wins the

Nobel Prize for literature.

1989

National election in Poland removes

Communist government and replaces it with
democratic government.

2000

U.S. Census lists the population of people of Polish descent at about

9 million, ranking Poles seventh-largest among ethnic groups in the
United States.

2001

Duke University mens basketball wins its third national championship

under coach Mike Krzyzewski. He is inducted into the Basketball Hall
of Fame.

2002

Polish Americans win a

number of elections. They are
Senator Chuck Hagel (NE) and
Representatives Paul Kanjorski
(PA), Bill Lipinski (IL), Gerald
Kleczka (WI), John Dingell
(MI), and Marcy Kaptur (OH).
In addition, two Polish
Americans become governor:
Frank Murkowski (AK) and
Ted Kulongoski (OR).

2004

Congresswoman Nancy
Johnson of Connecticut introduces a resolution in Congress that would
allow Polish citizens visiting family and friends in the United States to
enter the country more easily.

Time Line

92

Glossary

Glossary

anarchist Person who is against any form of government and anyone in

a position of authority.
anti-Semitism Hatred of and discrimination against Jews.
assimilate To absorb or blend into the way of life of a society.
culture The language, arts, traditions, and beliefs of a society.
democracy Government by the majority rule of the people.
emigrate To leave ones homeland to live in another country.
ethnic Having certain racial, national, tribal, religious, or cultural origins.
immigrate To come to a foreign country to live.
nativism Prejudice in favor of people born in a nation and against immigrants who settle in that nation.
parochial Having to do with a church parish, or neighborhood, such as a
parochial school.
polka Polish folk dance and the music that accompanies it.
Polonia The name used by Polish Americans to refer to their ethnic
group.
prejudice Negative opinion formed without just cause.
refugee Someone who flees a place for safety reasons, especially to
another country.
Solidarity Group formed in Poland in the 1980s that demanded rights
for workers and eventually came to power in the Polish government.
steerage Least expensive traveling class on a steamship.
stereotype Simplified and sometimes insulting opinion or image of a
person or group.

93

Further Reading
BOOKS
Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. A Coal Miners Bride: The Diary of Annetka
Kaminski. New York: Scholastic, 2002.
Greene, Meg. The Polish Americans. San Diego: Gale Group, 2003.
Lock, Donna. Polish Americans. Broomall, Pa.: Mason Crest, 2002.
Moscinski, Sharon. Tracing Our Polish Roots. Emeryville, Calif.: Avalon
Travel Publishing, 1994.
Nowakowski, Jacek. Polish Touches: Recipes and Traditions. Iowa City, Iowa:
Penfield Press, 1996.
Wallner, Rosemary. Polish Immigrants, 18901920. Mankato, Minn.:
Capstone Press, 2002.

WEB SITES
History of Poland. URL: http://www.countryreports.org/history/
polahist.htm. Downloaded on August 6, 2004.
The Immigrant Experience and the Pan-American Exposition. The Polish
Community of Buffalo and the Pan-American Exposition. URL:
http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/exhibits/panam/immigrants/poles.
html. Downloaded on August 6, 2004.
Polish American Journal. Preserving Polonias Plymouth Rock: Panna
Maria, Texas. URL: http://www.polamjournal.com/Library/
APHistory/panna/panna.html. Downloaded on August 4, 2004.
PolishRoots: The Polish Genealogy Source. PolishRoots Surnames:
Origins & Meanings. URL: http://www.polishroots.org/surnames/
surnames_endings.htm. Downloaded on August 4, 2004.

Further
Reading

94

Index

Index

Page numbers in italics indicate

photographs. Page numbers
followed by m indicate maps.
Page numbers followed by g
indicate glossary entries. Page
numbers in boldface indicate
box features.
A
Alen, Jane 86
Allies 6566
America 68. See also United
States
American Catholic Church 45
American Civil War 23
American Revolution 20,
2021, 21
anarchist 48, 92g
anti-immigrant laws 5254
anti-immigration movement 48
anti-Semitism 2930, 4243, 92g
assimilate 92g
assimilation 5558, 58, 72
Association of Poles in America
2223
Auschwitz death camp,
Poland 64, 64
Austria
division of Poland 22
Poland and 13, 18, 19
Polish immigrants from
3132
Polish revolts 28
World War I and 5051
Axis Powers 65
B
babka 75
Bednarik, Chuck 72
Bismarck, Otto von (Prussian
prime minister) 2830, 29
Blazonczyk, Eddie 74
Bojnowski, Lucian
(Catholic priest) 59
Brando, Marlon 74
Brzezinski, Zbigniew
(U.S. national security
advisor) 77, 7778
Buffalo, New York 4648,
47, 58
building-and-loan services
5556
business 7879
C
Carter, Jimmy
(U.S. president) 77, 78
Catherine the Great (empress of
Russia) 1819, 19
Catholic Church. See Roman
Catholic Church
chain migration 7

Chicago, Illinois
Great Depression and
5960
Koscielski family from
36, 37
mutual aid societies in 31
Polish community in 4, 5,
26, 40, 40
Polish immigrants in 85
Polish societies in 7677
polka music from 7475
Solidarity rally in 84, 84
children 56, 64, 64, 69, 6970
Christmas 43
Ciezarek, Evita 80, 81
Citizenship and Immigration
Service (CIS) 9
citizenship, U.S. 10
Civil War, American 23
Clancy, Robert H. 54
cold war 14, 66
college 72, 87
communism
anti-Communist feelings
7778, 80
cold war and 66
Joseph Stalin and 62
McCarren-Walter Act and
68
in Poland 65, 80
Solidarity movement and
8284
Soviet Unions occupation
of Poland 67, 77
communities. See Polish
communities
community centers 57
community markets 30
concentration camps 64, 6465
Connecticut 59, 8788
Copernican Society 79
Copernicus, Nicolaus 70, 79
culture 92g
culture war 2829
Czolgosz, Leon 47, 47, 48
D
dancing 35, 74
death camps 64, 6465
democracy 66, 82, 92g
Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) 9, 88
Displaced Persons Act 67
Duke University 85
Dybek, Jeffrey 60
E
Easter 43
education. See schools
Ellis Island 10, 11, 34, 34, 36
emigrate 92g
emigration 56
entertainment 73, 7374
ethnic 59, 92g

European immigrants 67
F
factories 39
farming 25, 32, 3839
Ferdinand, Franz
(archduke of Austria) 50
food 30, 43
Forrest, Nathan Bedford
(Confederate general) 23
Franklin, Benjamin 20
Funk, Casimir 57, 57
G
Galicia 32
Galician misery 23, 32
Gatski, Frank 72
Germany
culture war in Prussia
2830
German-Polish immigrants
from 3031
Poland and 13, 6263
World War I and 51
World War II and 6365
Great Britain 2021
Great Depression 5860
green card 910
Greenpoint, Brooklyn 80
H
Hamtramck, Michigan 6970
heritage 86, 88
Hitler, Adolf (dictator of Nazi
Germany) 14, 6265
Hodur, Francis (Polish priest) 45
holidays, Polish 43
Holocaust 64, 6465
horde 75
I
illegal immigrants 10, 87
Illinois. See Chicago, Illinois
immigrants 510, 4546. See
also Polish immigrants
immigrate 92g
immigration. See also Polish
immigration
anti-immigrant laws 5254
anti-immigration
movement 48
Great Depression and 58
historical overview 510
Immigration Act of 1924 54,
54, 58
Immigration Act of 1965 79
Immigration and Naturalization
Act (INA) 89
Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) 9
immigration laws
Immigration Act of 1924
54, 54, 58
Immigration Act of 1965 79
immigration quota 53,
6768

95
literacy law 52
McCarren-Walter Act 68
of United States 810
Immigration Restriction League
(IRL) 46, 52, 53
indentured servants 6
Iraq War 14
Irish Americans 45
J
Jamestown, Virginia 12, 14, 15,
1618, 17
Japan 65
Jews
Adolf Hitler and 62
in German Poland 2930
Holocaust 64, 6465
immigration of Polish Jews
4244
jobs
Great Depression and
5860
immigrants and 7
of Polish Americans 72,
7879
of Polish immigrants
3839, 8788
in sports/entertainment
7273, 73
John Paul II (pope) 78, 80,
8283
Johnson, Lyndon
(U.S. president) 78, 79
Johnson, Nancy L.
(U.S. congresswoman) 8889
K
Karge, Joseph 23
Kennedy, John F.
(U.S. president) 78
kielbasa 75
Kobylarz, Aniela Nieradtka
4142
Kobylarz, Franciszek
(Frank) 41
Kobylarz, Victor 4142
Kogut, Bertha 86
Koscielski family 36, 37
Kosciuszko, Tadeusz (Polish
general) 20, 20, 22, 70, 76
Kostyra, Martha
(Martha Stewart) 89
Krzyzanowski, Wlodzimierz 23
Krzyzewski, Mike 85
L
labor union 83
League for Anti-Semitism 29
legal immigrant 810
Liberace, Wladislaw 73, 73
Libeskind, Daniel 87
Lincoln, Abraham
(U.S. president) 23
literacy test 46, 52
Louis, Happy 76
Lush, Marion 74, 75
M
Marr, William 29
McCarren-Walter Act 68
McKinley, William
(U.S. president) 47, 47, 48

Michigan 6970
Moczygemba, Leopold (Roman
Catholic priest) 24, 25
Mrs. Pauls company 78
Musial, Stan 72
music 73, 73, 7476
Muskie, Edmund
(U.S. secretary of state) 77
mutual aid societies 3031
N
Nagurski, Bronco 72
names, Polish 25
National Football League
(NFL) 72
Native Americans 16
nativism 92g
nativists 53, 75
Nazis 1314, 62, 6265
New Britain, Connecticut 59,
8788
newspapers 57
New York 20, 26, 4648, 47, 58
New York City 22, 24, 44, 80
Nitschke, Ray 72
O
Ohio 26
organizations. See PolishAmerican organizations
P
PAC (Polish American
Congress) 67, 83
PAC (Polish American
Council) 66
Pan-American Exposition
4648, 47
Panna Maria community 13,
2426
parochial 92g
parochial schools 56, 59, 70
Pennsylvania 12, 26, 48, 49
Penn, William
(Quaker leader) 12
permanent resident visa 910
pierogi 75
Piszek, Edward 7879
PNA (Polish National Alliance)
55, 56
PNCC (Polish National
Catholic Church) 45
Poland
after World War II 60, 61
culture war in Prussia
2830
described 12
division of 22
Edward Piszek and 78
Hitler and Stalins plan for
6263
independence of 50
location of 16m
Polish-American
organizations and 55
Polish Americans ties to
8889
revolts in 28
Russian control of 1819
Solidarity movement in
8284, 84

Soviet Unions occupation

of 6567, 76, 77
strikes in 7980
20th-century history 1314
World War I and 5051
World War II and 6365
Poles
in American Revolution
20, 2021, 21
in World War II 62, 6365
Polish American Congress
(PAC) 67, 83
Polish American Council
(PAC) 66
Polish-American organizations
anti-Communist movement
support 83
Association of Poles in
America 2223
Copernican Society 79
help for Polish
immigrants 36
Polish American
Congress 67
Polish American Council 66
Polish Student
Organization 87
support of 5557, 7677
Polish Americans
after World War II 6870,
69, 72
heritage of 86
Koscielski family 36, 37
Martha Stewart 89
occupation of Poland and
6566, 67
in politics/education/
business 7679, 77
polka music 7476
pride in heritage 70, 71
Solidarity movement and
8384, 84
in sports/entertainment
7273, 73, 85
stereotypes 74
terms for generations 68
ties to Poland 8889
in World War II 65
Polish communities
changes after World War II
6870
in Chicago 4, 5
close-knit 55
community centers 57
early settlements 1213
formation of 26
help for new immigrants 36
markets 30
mutual aid societies in 31
new wave of immigrants 85
in New York City 22, 24
Panna Maria community
2426
Polish Jews 44
Polish Connection 8788
Polish Conversation Group 86
Polish Falcons of America 70
Polish immigrants
in American Civil War 23

Index

96
Index

anti-immigrant laws
5254, 54
anti-immigrant prejudice
4546
assimilation of 5558
in Chicago 40, 40
earliest arrivals 1213
early settlements 2224
at Ellis Island 10, 11
German Poles 3031
in Great Depression 5860
Immigration Act of 1965
and 79
in Jamestown, Virginia 14,
15, 1618, 17
jobs of 3839
journey to America 33,
3336, 34, 36
money saved by 40
new wave of 8588
number of 11
opportunities for 38
Pan-American assassination
4648, 47
Panna Maria community
2426
passport 53
in Pennsylvania 48, 49
Polands independence
and 50
Polish history and 13, 14
Polish Jews 4244, 44
refugees from
World War II 67
religion of 4445
Russian/Austrian Poles
3132
settlement areas 82m
Victor Kobylarz 4142
Polish immigration
in 1980s 82
to America 51
diminishment of 68
Immigration Act of 1965 79
new wave of 8588
time line 9091
Polish Jews. See Jews
Polish language 70, 75
Polish names 25
Polish National Alliance (PNA)
55, 56
Polish National Catholic
Church (PNCC) 45
Polish Roman Catholic Union
(PRCU) 55, 5657
Polish Student Organization
(PSO) 87
politics 77, 7778
polka 35, 75, 92g
polka music 7476
Polonia 36, 89, 92g
Poniatowski, Stanislaw 18
Popieluszko, Jerzy
(Catholic priest) 84
PRCU (Polish Roman Catholic
Union) 55, 5657
prejudice 4546, 92g. See also
anti-Semitism
Princip, Gavrilo 50

Prussia
culture war 2830
division of Poland 22
Poland and 18, 19
Polish revolts 28
Silesia of 24
PSO (Polish Student
Organization) 87
Pulaski, Kazimierz (Polish
general) 20, 21, 21, 70, 76
pull factors 5
push factors 5
Q
Quakers 12
quota, immigration 5354,
6768
R
rabbi 44, 44
refugee 56, 67, 92g
religion 26, 27, 4445. See also
Roman Catholic Church
Rhode, Paul (bishop) 45
Roman Catholic Church
culture war in Prussia 29
Lucian Bojnowski 59
Panna Maria community
and 24, 25
Polish-American assimilation and 5657
Polish holidays 43
Polish immigrants and 42,
4445
Pope John Paul II 80
Solidarity movement and
8284
Roosevelt, Franklin
(U.S. president) 65
Rozmarek, Charles 66
Russia
control of Poland 1819
division of Poland 22
Polish immigrants from
3132
Polish revolts 28
World War I and 5051
Russian Revolution 62
S
St. Stanizlaus Society 31
San Antonio, Texas 13, 24
Schermann, Anton 31
schools 56, 6970, 72, 87
Serbia 50
Sierpensky, Frank 88
Silesia 24
slave labor camps 62
slaves 7
Solidarity 8384, 84, 92g
Soviet Union. See Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics
sponsor 9
sports 7273, 85
Stalin, Joseph
(dictator of Soviet Union)
14, 6263, 66, 6667
steerage 3435, 92g
Steiner, Edward 35
stereotype 74, 7879, 92g
Stewart, Martha
(Martha Kostyra) 89

A Streetcar Named Desire

(Williams) 74
strikes 14, 7980, 83
students 87
sweatshops 39
Sweden 18
T
Texas 13, 2426
time line, Polish immigration
9091
Truman, Harry
(U.S. president) 67, 68
Turkey 18
U
Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics (USSR)
anti-Communist voices
7778
cold war 66
occupation of Poland
6567, 76, 77
Poland and 14, 6263
Solidarity movement and
8384
treatment of Poles 62
World War II and 63, 65
United States
allies with Poland 14
immigrants to 68
Polish immigration to 11, 51
Polish settlement areas 82m
U.S. Congress 8, 9, 52, 53
V
vincinanki 21
Virginia. See Jamestown,
Virginia
Virginia Company of
London 17
visa 910, 88
vitamins 57
vote, right to 1718
W
Warsaw, Poland 60, 61
Washington, George
(U.S. president) 21
Waszkiewicz, John 86
West Point military
academy 20
Williams, Tennessee 74
Wilson, Woodrow
(U.S. president) 51, 51, 52
Wisniewski, Gene 74
Wojciechowicz, Alex 72
Wojnarowski, Frank 74
Wojtyla, Karol.
See John Paul II (pope)
World Trade Center 87
World War I 13, 5051
World War II
death camp 64
devastation after 61
events of 6367
jobs from 60
Poland and 14
Poles in 62
Polish Americans and 65, 72
Y
Yiddish 43