Questions for Curatorial: A look at forced emigration from Ireland

Curatorial Director Dave answers your a Museum educator's question.

A visitor told me that many of the Irish arrived on the coffin ships because the economy was switching from planting to grazing, and landowners wanted to get rid of the farmers. They would buy them ships passages to attempt to get rid of the farmers’ kids. The landlords didn't want to spend much money, so they bought the tickets on the worst ships. Is this true?

What this visitor has suggested is partly true. Many famine-era Irish immigrants arrived on what were called “coffin ships,” overcrowded and infested with disease. During the worst year of the Great Famine, 1847, 9% of all Irish emigrants bound for the United States died during the voyage.

The British government and many Irish landowners did view the Famine as an opportunity to remake Ireland in an image that conformed to their vision for the island society. This regeneration would be carried out through the transformation of Irish agrarian society using eviction and emigration to consolidate land holdings in the hands of a small number of strong land owners.

As the historian of Irish America, Kevin Kenny, has written: “Given the scale of the catastrophe, remarkably little assistance was offered to potential emigrants. Evictions were frequent, but only rarely were they accompanied by financial assistance to leave the country… The chief form of assistance available to them came not from landlords or the state, but from their own relatives in America.”

Indeed, very few Irish who were forcibly evicted received aid from landowners – approximately 50,000 out of a total 1.5 million that set sail for the United States.

It is possible that this particular visitor is thinking of two specific examples that appear to not have been indicative of the norm. During the Famine, Lord Palmerston forcibly evicted and assisted two thousand tenants from his Sligo estate to emigrate, and the Marquis of Lansdowne did the same for the 3,500 tenants of his estate in County Kerry.

Tenement Talks: Displaced Persons

Courtesy of HarperCollins.com

Join us tonight at Tenement Talks for a discussion of Ghita Schwarz’s book Displaced Persons, a tale of people displaced by World War II and how they rebuilt their lives. Joining her is Sara Ivry, a writer and editor who primarily covers Jewish issues and conducts a weekly podcast.

You’ll be intrigued by the stories of the main characters Pavel, Fela, and Chaim, strangers who band together in the wake of World War II. Years after living as refugees, they fulfill their dreams of coming to the U.S. and settle in Queens. Pavel and Fela are married with two young children, and Chaim and his wife Sima acclimate to America. Even though life goes on, they struggle with painful memories.

In the trailer for the book, Schwarz discusses the difficulties displaced persons (DPs) faced, especially after the war when they tried to return to a state of normalcy in a foreign land. “They’re no longer heroes in a war-time drama of escape,” commented Schwarz. “They’re just trying to get through the ordinary tasks of life. But their history really does follow them, and emerges in sort of surprising ways for them.”



Schwarz also acknowledges the similarities of the situations the protagonists in her novel and immigrants today face. “What they want for their sons and daughters is a total break with the terrible experiences they’ve gone through. But at the same time there’s a lot of anxiety about their children losing a sense of contact with their heritage and their past and their parents’ culture.”


Jewish refugees in Poland, circa 1939
Courtesy of NYPl Digital GalleryThe DPs in this novel were only a few of nearly two million who could not return to their home countries in Europe due to fear of persecution and many other reasons. The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 (amended 1950) was “an act to authorize for a limited period of time the admission into the United States of certain European displaced persons for permanent residence, and for other purposes,” according to U.S. immigration legislation online. Read our previous blog post about the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 for more information.

Tenement Talks are free and open to the public. Please join us at 108 Orchard at Delancey for this event! You can RSVP to events(at)tenement.org.

-posted by Devin

Czech and Slovak Emigration to the United States

In response to the Tenement Museum's 400 Years of Immigration History Twitter campaign in July, guest blogger Rosie Johnston of the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library shares stories of twentieth-century Czech and Slovak immigration history.

Slovak Immigrant at Ellis Island, 1905Czechs and Slovaks had emigrated to the United States long before Czechoslovakia even came into existence in 1918. But two events in the country’s more recent history sparked mass emigration to America: the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948 and the Soviet-led invasion of the country in 1968. The National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library has been recording the stories of those who left during the Communist era, asking them why and how they came to settle in America.

When Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia in 1948, approximately 25,000 of the country’s citizens fled in that year alone. The most frequent routes out of the country were over the Czech border with Bavaria in the west and the Slovak border with Austria in the south. The borders were guarded and closed, but especially in these early days, people found a way across if they knew what they were doing. John Palka escaped with his family in 1948, escorted by a paid guide:

At this time, leaving Czechoslovakia was regarded as a criminal offense and, indeed, if you fled, your closest relatives could well end up in prison. Click here for the story of Ludvik Barta, whose mother-in-law spent four years in prison because her husband left in 1948.

A number of escapes during this early period of Communism in Czechoslovakia read like something out of a spy novel or Hollywood film. Perhaps the most famous escape of this era was that of the Masin brothers, who spent one month on the run in East Germany in 1953, trying to make their way to West Berlin. They had tried to leave in 1951, but this plan had been foiled and oldest brother Ctirad Masin spent two years in labor camps as punishment. The brothers were pursued at one point by as many as 25,000 East German police and they killed at least three people on their journey to the West. Ctirad Masin remembers the very last leg of his group’s journey:



In other stories, people allegedly used scuba gear to swim down the Danube River into Austria (the Danube was later mined to prevent such escapes). In 1951, a group of resistance fighters actually hijacked a train and forced it over the border into Western Germany. A number of those on board the so-called ‘Freedom Train’ later settled in the United States, including Karel Ruml, whose profile will soon appear on our website.

The next big spike in Czech and Slovak immigration to America came in 1968, the year that Warsaw-Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia and put an end to a period of liberalization and reform (including an easing of travel restrictions) often referred to as the Prague Spring. It is thought that even more Czechs and Slovaks fled in 1968 than had 20 years previously.

Immediately following the Soviet-led invasion on August 21, Czechs and Slovaks continued to apply for tourist visas abroad; they received them without problems and then left the country, with no plans to return. There are also stories of border guards ‘turning a blind eye’ in the days after the Warsaw Pact invasion. However, in 1969, so many Czechs and Slovaks left the country that the government nullified all existing passports in a bid to stem the exodus.

The most common forms of escape during the years that ensued were, on the whole, much less dramatic than those of the early Cold War era. A common way of leaving the country was through organized coach tour. Joe Gazdik’s story is quite typical. He took a bus tour to Denmark in August 1969, obtained his passport from the group leader and then declared his intention to remain abroad. He says it was important not to talk too early:



Another way that Czechs and Slovaks made it to America during this period was through marriage (though understandably, many of those in question would insist that emigration was not their prime concern when tying the knot). Those who did marry an American citizen and emigrate legally to the United States (such as Stan Pechan) talk about the large amount of paperwork and multiple bureaucratic barriers to navigate, particularly on the Czechoslovak side. In Stan Pechan’s case, it took one and a half years before he could join his wife in the United States. Some were not even granted visas to get married in person – the ceremonies instead took place by proxy at the Czechoslovak Embassy in Washington and Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague.

By the time Communism fell in Czechoslovakia in 1989, it is believed that between 180,000 and 600,000 Czechs and Slovaks had fled their homeland. Thousands of these individuals live in the United States today.

-posted by Rosie Johnston

The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 (Amended 1950)

When my colleagues at the Tenement Museum asked if I would be willing to provide a perspective on the American Displaced Persons Act of 1948, I jumped at the chance. This act, which granted admission and permanent residency to European displaced persons, was a notable shift from the restrictive quotas adopted in 1924 under the National Origins Act. It was passed in the context of destruction in postwar Europe, the Holocaust, and the Soviet occupation of Eastern and Central Europe.

In 1945, when Allied troops entered the concentration camps, they discovered piles of corpses, bones, and human ashes, as well as thousands of survivors -- Jews and non-Jews -- suffering from starvation and disease.

Within months of Germany's surrender in May 1945, more than six million displaced persons (DPs) had returned to their home countries. However, between 1.5 million and two million DPs, mostly from countries under Soviet occupation, refused repatriation. Among them were more than 250,000 Jews.

Sinaida Grussman holds a name card to help any of her surviving family members locate her at the Kloster Indersdorf DP camp.

Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Museum of Jewish Heritage/Center For Holocaust Studies, courtesy of Lilo Plaschkes Robert Marx

Most Jewish survivors were unable or unwilling to return home because of persistent anti-Semitism and the destruction of their communities during the Holocaust. Many of those who did return feared for their lives. In postwar Poland, for example, there were a number of pogroms (violent riots) that claimed scores of Jewish lives.

In December of that year, President Truman issued a directive that loosened quota restrictions on persons displaced by the Nazi regime, giving preference to DPs, especially widows and orphans. Under this directive, more than 41,000 displaced persons immigrated to the United States from Europe; approximately 28,000 of these were Jews. Still, opportunities for legal immigration to the United States remained extremely limited.

Great Britain continued to strictly limit the number of Jews allowed in Palestine. Jews already living in British-controlled Palestine organized "illegal" immigration by ship (also known as Aliyah Bet). In 1947 the British forced the ship Exodus 1947, which was carrying 4,500 Holocaust survivors headed for Palestine, to return to Germany where the passengers were again imprisoned in camps. The Exodus 1947 attracted worldwide publicity and strengthened support for the DPs' struggle to emigrate from war-devastated Europe. It was not until the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948 that Jewish DPs began freely immigrating to the new sovereign state.

In this context, Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 authorizing 200,000 DPs to enter the United States. On June 25, 1948, President Truman signed the law with “great reluctance,” protesting that the bill used date restrictions designed to limit the number of Jewish refugees eligible for entry. Truman chose to sign what he saw as a deeply flawed bill, rather than further postpone action on the DP crisis. Congress later passed amendments that extended the total allotment of U.S. immigration visas for DPs to approximately 400,000 persons. By 1952, over 80,000 Jewish DPs had immigrated to the United States under the terms of the two Displaced Persons Acts and with the aid of American Jewish charitable groups.

With the majority of Jewish DPs eventually finding refuge in the United States and Israel, as well as other nations, the DP emigration crisis slowly came to an end. Almost all of the European DP camps were closed by 1952, as Jewish survivors of the Holocaust began life anew in their adopted homelands.

-Special thanks to David Klevan, the Education Manager for Technology and Distance Learning at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, for writing this post.

The 1919 Palmer Raids

One of many strikes in 1919
Courtesy of NYPL Digital Gallery 

As part of our 400 Years of Immigration History campaign on Twitter, we're sharing a time-line of American immigration from the very beginning to today. Tomorrow's tweet is about the1919 Palmer raids. This historical event is named after Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer, who orchestrated the arrests.

During World War I, immigrants living in the United States often had conflicted loyalties. Most newcomers were thankful to be here, but many still had ties to their homelands, some of which were now enemies of the United States. Simultaneously, the threat of violence against the U.S. government was hitting close to home. In the summer of 1919, a series of bombings occurred in cities all over the country, including Washington DC, with one bomb hitting Palmer’s home. Although it was never determined exactly who was behind the bombings, Communist radicals became the primary suspect. The Palmer raids were on the cusp of what would later be termed the “Red Scare.”

On November 7, 1919 (the date specifically picked because it was the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution), the raids and arrests began. The homes and headquarters of suspected radicals were invaded, with over 10,000 arrests made. Of that incredible number, 245 were deported, including Lower East Side resident Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, editor of the anarchist journal Blast. The couple was sent back to Russia. [Read more.]

So what exactly were the criteria for being arrested and possibly deported? One source (PDF) wrote that “everything from parliamentary socialism to Bolshevism, encompassing ‘radical feminism,’ anarchism, and labor militancy as well” was enough cause for investigation.

Throughout American history there have times of great anxiety around immigrants similar to the Palmer

A 1919 depiction of the "Red Army"
Courtesy of the NYPL Digitalraids and the Red Scare era. For example, about 120,000 Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast during World War II were forced to live in internment camps. It was never proven that any of those incarcerated had in fact committed any kind of espionage or sabotage against the United States (about half were, in fact, children). So what was the reason for this forced segregation? According to the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, the interment camps “were motivated largely by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.”

Even as recently as the past decade, some of the nation's immigrants have experienced racial prejudice. After the terrorists attacks of September 11, 2001 many Muslim-Americans feared both federal censure and random acts of violence. Some worry that racial profiling has become too common, with stricter airline rules and the Patriot Act allowing the wiretapping of suspects and the detainment of aliens deemed as “threats to national security.” It's interesting that, in fact, this same sort of profiling and surveillance took place almost 100 years ago.

I wonder how people feel about the treatment of immigrants in such tumultuous times. Do you think it's wrong to detain someone without access to a fair trial by their peers? Do you think immigrants still have strong, nationalistic ties to their homelands? How do you think that affects their allegiance to the United States? If you're interested in these questions, in addition to discussing them with friends, family, and here on the blog, pick up a copy of David Laskin's The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War, which chronicles 12 young men, all immigrants, who fought for the US in World War I. It's an eye-opening look at these very issues of nationhood and allegiance during war time.

- Post by Devin.

1882 Chinese Exclusion Act

The first major wave of Chinese immigrants came to the United States following the 1849 California gold rush. The vast majority of the incoming Chinese were men who worked in labor-intensive industries like railroads, mines, and canneries. Because Chinese laborers were willing to work for lower wages than their European counterparts, companies often used the Chinese as strikebreakers. Labor competition led to resentment of the Chinese and political agitation to limit the number coming into the country.


Courtesy New York Public Library, Mid-Manhattan Picture Collection.

This animosity toward the Chinese culminated in the passage of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese laborers from entering the United States. Under the provisions of this act, the burden of proof for entry lay on the Chinese. The law also separated “desirable” and “undesirable” immigrants by including exceptions for merchants, students, teachers, and diplomats.


Courtesy New York Public Library, Mid-Manhattan Picture Collection. This Thomas Nast illustration was published in 1870. The anti-immigrant Know Nothing Party's flag is raised on the barricade.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first time that the United States passed a law to bar a specific race or ethnicity from entering the country. The immigration restrictions had important consequences for the character and experience of Chinese communities in America. During the period of exclusion, women and children were a rare sight in Chinatown “bachelor societies.”


Courtesy New York Public Library, Mid-Manhattan Picture Collection. This 1882 illustration appeared in Puck magazine.

Initially, the act called for a ten-year period of exclusion, but exclusion lasted until after WWII when the 1943 Magnuson Act formally replaced exclusion with national quotas. The quota system still limited Chinese immigration to about 100 people per year so restrictions lasted in effect until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

Between 1881 and 1896, Chinese immigrants fought back by filing several lawsuits that went up to the Supreme Court. Many of these cases established precedents still used in human rights cases today.

- Special thanks to Beatrice Chen, Director of Education and Programs at the Museum of the Chinese in America, for writing this post. Visit MOCA to learn more about the Chinese immigrant experience.

Castle Garden Immigration Center

Immigrants arrive at Castle Garden, Courtesy of NYPL Digital Gallery

As part of our 400 Years of Immigration History campaign on Twitter, today’s tweet is about the opening of Castle Garden in 1855. As most of us know, Ellis Island was the major point of entry for immigrants coming to the East Coast of the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Before Ellis Island was opened in 1892, Castle Garden was the place where immigrants stepped on American soil for the first time.

A July 24, 1855 New York Times article titled “Castle Garden Emigration Depot” commended the new facility. According to the writer, the conditions that an immigrant faced before Castle Garden was established were horrendous. New immigrants were often taken advantage of when they arrived, as they were unfamiliar with the area and often didn’t speak English. They were regularly overcharged for boarding and tickets to other destinations, and their clothes were sometimes too thin for the cold seasons in New York.

New York Times article, July 24, 1855

What surprised me were the accommodations the new immigrants had at Castle Garden. According to the article, “When the passengers leave the vessel they can procure refreshments which will be there prepared for them. If they wish to remain overnight and not proceed at once on their journey, they will be also accommodated with sleeping places; but if they choose to press forward immediately their extra baggage is weighed, tickets handed them for the entire route, every information afforded, and thus they are rescued from the sharpers and sent to their destination with security and dispatch. If they wish to remain in the City for a few days, their property is stowed away in the baggage room, and they are directed to proper boarding houses over which the Commissioners will keep a watchful eye; so that no extortion, over charge or imposition of any kind will be allowed to take place.” [Click here to read the full article.]

Click here to read more about Castle Garden and how immigrants came to New York City before 1855.

And if you are on Twitter, follow our campaign this month at twitter.com/tenementmuseum.

-posted by Devin

Preserving a Heritage. Connecting Us All.

As part of our series "400 Years of Immigration History" this month on Twitter, we've invited the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum to illuminate the history of the first Norwegian immigrants to come to America, aboard the Restauration in 1825. Follow the Twitter campaign at twitter.com/tenementmuseum.

The American immigrant experience in all its diversity can be dramatically and effectively viewed through the lens of Norwegian immigration.

The first Norwegian immigrants came to American for some of the same reasons that the English colonists did, and during the largest wave of Norwegian immigration, later in the 19th century, immigrants came for the same reasons that were typical of other immigrant groups at the time.

In October 1825 the sailing ship Restauration docked in New York Harbor. The small 54-foot vessel had set sail approximately 14 weeks before, probably on July 4, from Stavanger, Norway, with 50 passengers. They arrived with 51, for a baby was born during the crowded and challenging passage.

Like many early settlers, these were religious "dissenters," members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) and 'Haugeans,' a pietistic sect, seeking greater freedom of religious and political expression than they could find in Norway under the state-sanctioned Lutheran Church.

The flood of immigrants who followed from Norway later in the century — over 800,000 of them! — came for the worldlier reasons of land and opportunity. In this they were no different than many of those who came from other countries and, like some others, theirs was an exodus fueled in part by the rise and demise of the potato.

Norway is a rugged, rocky country riven with mountains and fjords. The introduction of the potato was a great relief to Norwegian farmers. The crop could grow almost anywhere, in different soils and conditions. With limited arable land, it was the custom for the eldest son to take over the family farm, leaving any other male siblings to find work elsewhere. Aided by years of peace and potatoes, the population of Norway grew in the decades preceding immigration, eventually leaving many men without employment and increasing the allure of building a new life in the New World.

Then, after helping to build the population up, the potato let the people of Norway down. The great potato famine was not isolated to Ireland. It affected much of Europe and hit Norway hard in 1859 and 1860. In 1861 a late frost killed the harvest. Food was scarce again and children grew sick and died. With little land, opportunity or food, restless, discontented eyes turned westward.

Norwegian immigrants made America their vesterheim, their western home. It was a home they shared with immigrants from many other countries, and together they helped build a nation. Each group wrote its own integral chapter in the American story. Today, we all still share that vesterheim and, at Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa, you can discover how our very uniqueness is what connects us all.

Early on in the immigration period, Norwegian-American leaders recognized the need to preserve cultural diversity if the nation was to thrive. O. E. Rølvaag made this an underlying theme of his novels and essays and, in 1895, the faculty and administrators of Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, resolved that its museum would concentrate on collecting artifacts related to Norwegian immigration. Because of this extraordinary foresight, countless artifacts and documents have been preserved that together bring to life the Norwegian-American experience and in doing so help tell the amazing story of building one nation out of many.

That core collection begun at Luther College today has grown into an independent world-class museum and cultural center that is fully accredited by the American Association of Museums.

With over 24,000 artifacts and 16 historic buildings, this national treasure was called one of “ten great places in the nation to admire American folk art.” The lives of the people who settled America were truly as colorful as their folk art, and their stories speak through the objects they left behind. Come and see what they have to say to you -- and about you.

Vesterheim also preserves living traditions through events, tours to Norway, educational programs for children and adults, and classes in Norwegian culture and folk art, including rosemaling (decorative painting), woodcarving and woodworking, knifemaking, and textile arts.

Vesterheim's mission statement declares that the museum "embodies the living heritage of Norwegian immigrants to America. Sharing this cultural legacy can inspire people of all backgrounds to celebrate tradition."

For more information about everything that Vesterheim has to offer, check out our website, vesterheim.org.

- Special thanks to Charlie Langton at Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum for this post. All images courtesy Vesterheim.

400 Years of Immigration History

If you're on Twitter, be sure to follow us this July as we tackle 400 years of American immigration history via 140 character tweets. Drawing on a timeline of immigration from JFK's A Nation of Immigrants, we'll share several tweets every day, starting from the beginning of the nation's history in the 17th century. In conjunction, we'll be posting longer explorations of this history on the blog, hopefully a few times a week. It'll be a great chance for our followers to learn more about America's immigrants, past and present, and hopefully engage each other on a variety of different topics.

You don't even need to have a Twitter account to read along - just find us at Twitter.com/tenementmuseum.

Have an Immigration Story? We'd Like to Hear It!

Here at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, we know there are tons of stories out there, just waiting to be told. We often hear from Museum visitors about their own fascinating immigration, Lower East Side, and tenement stories, but unfortunately there's usually not enough time to discuss them at length during the tours.

If you are one of these people, we want to hear from you! We are looking to interview people about their stories, which will be posted here on our blog.

If you are interested and want to learn more, please contact Devin at prmintern@tenement.org.

-posted by Devin

Questions for Curatorial: Come and Go

Curatorial Director Dave answers your questions. To submit a question, write in the comments or on our Facebook wall.

In what percentages did immigrants return to their home lands? Are there differences if looked at by time period and ethnicities?

Many immigrants came to America with the ultimate intention of returning to their home countries after earning enough money to buy land or houses. Between 1900 and 1920, 36 percent of immigrants arriving in the United States returned home.

In turn-of-the-century New York, the degree to which Russian Jews became permanent settlers was remarkable. Escaping virulent anti-Semitism and political oppression, many emigrated with no intention of returning. Nevertheless, many more went back than is ordinarily assumed. Between 1880 and 1900, 15 to 20 percent returned to their homes. After 1900, however, return migration dropped off as political upheaval and religious oppression intensified.

In contrast to Russian Jews, the return rate among Italians reached 50 percent in some years -— of every 10 Italians who left for the U.S. between 1880 and World War I, five returned home. Sometimes called “birds of passage,” many of the first Italian immigrants were young men who came to America with the intention of earning enough money to return to Italy, buy land, and raise a family.

According to Nancy Foner, author of From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration, “Italians called the United States ‘the workshop’; many arrived in March, April, and May and returned in October, November, and December, when layoffs were most numerous… For many Italian men, navigating freely between their villages and America became a way of life.”

Nevertheless, many returnees or ritornati chose to re-migrate to the United States.

Another Poem of New York

In honor of National Poetry Month, here is another poem from the collection I Speak of the City: Poems of New York. This classic, written by Emma Lazarus in 1883, was inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty in 1903. The poem was written in support of a fund-raising campaign to build a pedestal for the now-famous statue.

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her milk eyes command
The air-bridged barbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!' cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

Immigration and the Fourth of July

1918 Fourth of July parade passing the midtown Public Library, courtesy of the library's online records

For American citizens and residents, July 4th is the day to celebrate our nation's independence and freedom with fireworks, barbecues, and parades. But throughout history, Independence Day has raised questions of national identity for immigrants.

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, well-off, native-born Americans were concerned about the assimilation and loyalty of immigrants. Millions of newcomers were concentrated in particular neighborhoods, like New York City’s Lower East Side, where their cultural differences in dress, language, and food were highly visible. Independence Day displays of revelry and “liquid patriotism” by immigrants, as one newspaper claimed, did not meet the expectations of some native-born Americans. Immigrants also continued to celebrate the national holidays of their home countries, even as they began the process of assimilation.

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 exacerbated fears about the dangers of nationalism. Could immigrants from Russia and Germany, two nations at war with one another across the Atlantic, maintain civil relations in America? Would German immigrants subvert the American war effort after the United States declared war on Germany in 1917?

Such concerns must have plagued the New York City Mayor’s Committee on National Defense when it planned the pageant parade for July 4, 1918. According to a New York Times article from 1918, the parade was organized so that Americans of foreign birth could demonstrate their loyalty to the United States. A reporter wrote: “…in this long, kaleidoscopic pageant, now bright with splendid costumes, now drab with long columns of civilians…there was slowly woven a picture of fighting America of today, a land of many bloods but of one ideal.”

In the parade, many immigrants wore their native clothing but carried American flags, in a symbolic reconciliation of their dual identities as foreigners and Americans. Today, questions remain about what defines an American - is it the length of residence in the United States, the right to vote, or the country of birth? We no longer have such choreographed displays of patriotism as the 1918 pageant parade, but you can be sure that people of manifold nationalities will be watching the fireworks across the United States this Saturday, July 4.

Share your memories of past Independence Day holidays and tell us how you plan to celebrate July 4, 2009!

-posted by Penny King

Chicago's Public Housing Museum

A series on historic residential buildings around the world that have been turned into museums.

Most historic housing projects on the Lower East Side, like Knickerbocker Village near the Manhattan Bridge, home to mobsters for part of the 20th century, and East River Housing, which replaced 13 acres of slums in the 1950s, are still occupied today.

Not so for one of Chicago's early public housing developments. Founded by social reformer Jane Addams during the Great Depression, it provided affordable one and two bedroom apartments for struggling Mexican, Italian, Jewish, and African-American families until the early part of this century, when the buildings were abandoned.

A group of social historians and preservationists are now converting this building into a museum modelled after "the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York City, the District Six Museum in Cape Town, South Africa, and other social history museums throughout the world." [Public Housing Museum]

Check their website to learn more, as they work to "create a place for social reflection, public dialogue, and education for the future."

Affordable housing projects, here and in Chicago:

Left: The East River Housing Project near the Williamsburg Bridge. Right: The only remaining building of the Jane Addams Houses complex, abandoned in 2002, and now a museum.

Historic Houses Series - Glasgow Tenement House

Time for another weekly series. This one's on historic residential buildings around the world that have been transformed into museums, such as 97 Orchard's nearly identical twin in Glasgow, Scotland: a 117 year old tenement building that housed workers -mainly native Scots, it seems, rather than immigrants - during the Industrial Revolution. One of the apartments preserved by the museum was owned for over 50 years by a shorthand typist named Agnes Toward, whose pack-rat habits (she held onto bills, recipes, pamphlets, her grandparents' Victorian furniture, and even homemade jam) offer a snapshot of ordinary life in the early 20th century. The lesson here: leave clutter lying around in your apartment, and it may go on display for all to see in a museum one day.




Built of red and white sandstone, Glasgow tenement houses were typically subdivided into small one or two room "flats," as well as slightly larger ones for the more well-off. For more photos of the Tenement House interior, check out the museum's website.

-posted by Liana Grey

Questions for Curatorial - Staying... and Leaving

Over the last few years, stricter immigration laws, the recession, and improved living conditions in countries like India, China, and Mexico have led to an exodus of both skilled workers and undocumented immigrants. Curatorial Director Dave describes migration patterns at the turn of the last century and what conditions were like for those that chose to remain in New York.

In what percentages did immigrants return to their homelands? Are there differences if looked at by time period and ethnicities?

Many immigrants came to America with the ultimate intention of returning to their home countries after earning enough money to buy land or houses. Between 1900 and 1920, 36 percent of immigrants arriving in the United States returned home. In turn-of-the-century New York, the degree to which Russian Jews became permanent settlers was remarkable. Escaping virulent anti-Semitism and political oppression, many emigrated with no intention of returning.

Nevertheless, many more went back than is ordinarily assumed. Between 1880 and 1900, 15 to 20 percent returned to their homes. After 1900, however, return migration dropped off as political upheaval and religious oppression intensified. In contrast to Russian Jews, the return rate among Italians reached 50 percent in some years—of every 10 Italians who left for the U.S. between 1880 and World War I, 5 returned home.

Sometimes called “birds of passage,” many of the first Italian immigrants were young men who came to America with the intention of earning enough money to return to Italy, buy land, and raise a family.

According to Nancy Foner, author of From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration, “Italians called the United States ‘the workshop’; many arrived in March, April, and May and returned in October, November, and December, when layoffs were most numerous… For many Italian men, navigating freely between their villages and America became a way of life.” Nevertheless, many returnees or ritornati chose to re-migrate to the United States.

What is the source for the claim that the Lower East Side was the most densely populated place on earth at the turn of the last century?



Crowds on Hester Street

The source for the claim that the Lower East Side was the most densely populated place on earth at the turn of the last century comes from a housing survey conducted by the newly created Tenement House Department of New York City in 1903, charged with insuring the implementation of the Tenement House Act of 1901. The detailed survey found the Lower East Side’s 10th ward the most densely populated in the city and, indeed, the world.

In 1903, the ward had a total population of 69, 944 or approximately 665 people per acre. The most densely populated block in the ward, bounded by Orchard, Allen, Delancey, and Broome Streets, encompassed 2.04 acres and had a population density of 2,233 people per acre.

The extraordinary population density in the Tenth Ward and neighboring Lower East Side wards was caused by several factors. The major cause was the increasing population as incredible numbers of immigrants - largely Eastern European Jews and Italians - arrived in New York.

Immigrants initially settled on the Lower East Side because this was an area with affordable housing where immigrants were welcome by building owners. Members of particular ethnic or religious groups tended to cluster where their compatriots had already settled, leading to larger communities. Here people spoke their language and shared their customs. The religious and social institutions, and the commercial establishments that eased the transition to life in America, were already in existence.

Other Museums - Wing Luke Asian Museum

This week, we're taking a look at immigration museums off the beaten path.



The Wing Luke Asian Museum sits in the heart of Seattle's Chinatown, but its exhibits cover all corners of the world's largest continent. Check out this photo essay on the Pacific Northwest's Sikh community, which hails originally from the Punjab region of India. Despite intense discrimination and a series of prohibitory laws, Sikhs have been settling in Oregon and Washington since the late 19th century, first as railroad and lumber mill workers and later as white collar professionals.

Other Museums - 19 Princelet Street

This week, we're taking a look at immigration museums off the beaten path. Today, our membership coordinator and resident museum expert Pamela Mattera guest blogs.




Waves of immigrants passed through 97 Orchard Street and the Lower East Side before moving on to destinations like Brooklyn, Queens and the Upper East Side. 19 Princelet Street, a Georgian home in the Spitalfields section of East London, served as a similar gateway for immigrants to the Big Smoke (aka London). Built in 1719, 19 Princelet Street was home to the Ogiers, a Huguenot family escaping religious persecution in France. The Ogier family entered the silk weaving industry, which became a major industry in East London. Most Huguenot immigrants moved on and were followed by the arrival of Irish immigrants and later, Eastern European Jews. By the late nineteenth century, 19 Princelet Street housed a synagogue and served as a community center (where strategies to combat intolerance and fascism would be discussed years later). Today, the neighborhood is home to a vibrant Bangladeshi community. 19 Princelet Street, however, is now in great disrepair, and is thus only open to the public a handful of times each year. A local charity and volunteers manage the site’s preservation and plan to create a London immigration museum.

Other Museums - German Emigration Museum

This week, we're taking a look at immigration museums off the beaten path.



Bremerhaven, a small port city in northern Germany, is the exact inverse of New York: it's where millions (7.2 to be exact) set sail for Ellis Island over a century ago, when a population boom and rocky transition from agriculture to industry rendered jobs and land scarce. So rather than documenting immigrant life, the Emigration Musem recreates conditions on a departing steamship and in the waiting areas where family members said their goodbyes. The museum has some quirky touches: lifesize mannequins dressed in 19th century garb are stationed in the main building, which fittingly evokes a boat, and in addition to learning about the lives of millions of emigrants and their descendants (chances are, some of them wound up near 97 Orchard), visitors can trace their own family history using an extensive database. Click here for a more detailed overview.



Few historic buildings remain in one of Germany's most important port cities

Other Museums - Angel Island Immigration Station

This week, we're taking a look at immigration museums off the beaten path.

Recently re-opened to the public after three years of renovation, San Francisco's Angel Island Immigration Station was once known as the "Ellis Island of the West" by locals, and the somewhat grander "Guardian of the Western Gate" by Immigration Services. Unlike the Ellis Island of the East, Angel Island was used to enforce the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and detain hundreds of thousands of Asian immigrants, who were held on the island for anywhere from two weeks to two years. Also unlike its cousin in New York, the Angel Island museum doesn't doesn't give access to immigration records. Instead, it recreates the experience of living in the complex's barracks, and preserves fascinating details like poems carved on the walls by Chinese detainees. If you happen to be going to San Francisco soon, the museum can be visited by guided tour.

Angel Island barracks, then and now