Immigration and Ethnic Studies

The history of immigration in America has been given a great deal of attention by professional historians over the past two generations. There are many good general histories, and publication of the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, edited by Stephen Thernstrom (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981) makes available what looks like a handy-dandy $60 reference work.

For Connecticut the best approach is to consult comprehensive histories of the state. There is one monograph that deals with all immigrant groups. Samuel Koenig's pamphlet Immigrant Settlements in Connecticut: Their Growth and Characteristics (Hartford: State Department of Education, 1938) was written just after the number of foreign-born people in Connecticut peaked. A very useful aid for the pre-World War era, it tells a lot about its time, as well as earlier times.

"The Poles," writes Koenig in a typical paragraph, "show a strong tendency to form colonies, which in some cases become practically self-sufficient societies within which language and old world folkways are maintained to an astonishing degree. An excellent example of this type of community is the one in New Britain. In this Polonia, as the Poles are wont to call their settlement, group life in its manifold phases is distinctly Polish. The priest wields a tremendous power over every aspect of life, particularly organized life, so that hardly a move can be made by an individual or organization belonging to the group without his previous approval." (p. 32)

One can't blame Koenig for being a child of his times; all of us are. The distinguished historian Carl Bridenbaugh called Koenig's work "one of the best and most useful of its kind" (New England Quarterly, 12 December, 1939, p. 578). Koenig worked largely with transcripts of interviews conducted under the auspices of the W.P.A., and his materials are still available to researchers at the Connecticut State Library. Of course, his work and those materials are now over forty years behind us. The best way to update Connecticut ethnic data is to turn to the volume of the United States Census called Detailed Characteristics: Connecticut, published by the United States Department of Commerce. That is exactly what Thomas E. Steahr did. His Ethnic Atlas of Connecticut, 1970 (Hartford: The American Revolution Bicentennial Commission of Connecticut, 1976--but not a Bicentennial pamphlet) contains a series of maps showing the percentage in every town of each of the nationalities according to the 1970 census.

In one way, "Ethnic Studies" is ahead of the rest of the topics treated in this bibliography: it is the focus of a major project aimed at helping teachers teach the subject. The World Education Project of the School of Education at Storrs works in bilingual, multicultural, international, and global education. It has an extensive publications program, and it keeps a large collection of documents and recorded oral histories. In particular, the Project (Box U-32, School of Education, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06268) publishes a series of pamphlets called "The Peoples of Connecticut." So far, pamphlets on Connecticut Armenians, Irish, Italians, Jews, Puerto Ricans, Scots and Scotch Irish, and Poles are available. These books are a rather mixed bag. They all aim at secondary-school reading level and they include some sort of aids to teachers, but they do not present their materials as well-developed units. Each has a bibliography of sorts, in which items range from Favorite Cookies from Other Lands to Glazer and Moynihan's Beyond the Melting Pot. Nevertheless, they represent a real effort by educational professionals to fill a pressing school need. The titles are listed in relevant places below.

One genre of work of great utility to the serious student of immigrant groups is the foreign-language press in Connecticut. There have been hundreds of foreign-language journals. In Bridgeport alone, for instance, between 1900 and 1917 there were seven different Italian language newspapers, three Hungarian, and one each of German, Slovak, and Yiddish. For this bibliography we have treated them as primary sources and have omitted them, but see "A Note on Newspaper Research in Connecticut History" below. Don't overlook articles in newspapers and journals published during the era of the so-called "New Immigration," 1880-1920. Here are a couple such articles we found.

Holman, Mabel Cassine. "American Citizens in Embryo: The Great Problem of Assimilating the Vast Foreign Elements Into Our National Life As It Is Being Practically Solved by the Goodwill Club at Hartford, Connecticut." Connecticut Magazine 10(1906)2. Sixty-five percent of the state's population was of foreign parentage. (Who was assimilating whom?) Priceless photographs of immigrant boys learning manual arts, close order drill, gymnastics, and even reading.

Ives, Joel S. "The Foreigner in New England." Connecticut Magazine 9(1905)2. This article, with its photographs, is not to be missed. "These people of Italy, Austria and Russia are poor, superstitious, ignorant and indifferent, if not hostile, to all forms of both church and state. The oppressions of church and state have driven them forth. Of those over fourteen years of age, in last year's [1904] immigration, 2817 are illiterate. It is an enormous burden upon the body politic. It is the unsolved problem of our free institutions." (p. 246) The author was secretary of the Missionary Society of Connecticut.

The following articles deal with immigrants and ethnicity in Connecticut generally:

Abramson, Harold J. Ethnic Pluralism in the Central City. Storrs: Institute of Urban Research, 1970. The author is a sociologist at UConn. His data is from Bridgeport, Hartford, and New Haven.

Johnston, William Michael. "On the Outside Looking In: Irish, Italian and Black Ethnic Politics in an American City." Doctoral dissertation, Yale, 1977. "The development of ethnic political response is analyzed through the study of organizations. If social mobilization (experiences such as immigration) weakens or shatters old patterns of action and affiliation, organizations can bring people into new ones. The study of organizational incentive systems can yield an understanding of the concerns and appeals around which responses are built. The goal is an understanding of ethnic political processes, and how ethnicity becomes a basis for political action." (from the abstract) But see Kernstock, below.

Kennedy, Ruby Jo Reeves. "Single or Triple Melting Pot: Intermarriage in New Haven, 1870-1950." American Journal of Sociology 58(July, 1952). This is the abstract of a 1938 dissertation in sociology at Yale (under the name of Reeves). It is highly technical, but some of it is comprehensible to the layman. "The large nationality groups in New Haven represent a triple division on religious grounds: Jewish, Protestant (British-American, German, and Scandanavian) and Catholic (Irish, Italian, and Polish)." Kennedy sees religious, not ethnic cleavages, and provides ample statistical support. She predicted in 1938 that this cleavage would last a long time. See also Milton L. Barren.

Koenig, Samuel. "Ethnic Factors in the Economic Life of Urban Connecticut" American Sociological Review 8(April, 1943)2. A five-page piece with charts, with analysis based on surnames. The author concludes that "although actually a small minority in a predominantly 'foreign' state, British-Americans control the economic life, especially industry and commerce. 'Old' immigrant groups, particularly Irish, share in economic leadership, while 'new' immigrants, on the whole, show little participation in it." (p. 193) That was in 1943. What a difference a generation makes!

--"Ethnic Groups in Business, the Professions and Civil Service in New Haven, Connecticut." Jewish Review 3(1945).

--"Ethnic Groups in Connecticut Industry." Social Forces 20(1941).

Sutherland, John F. "'Cheney Brothers was the World': Migration Settlement in Manchester, Connecticut, at the Turn of the Century." Proceedings of the New England-St. Lawrence Valley Geographical Society 10(0ctober, 1980). Settlement in New England: The Last 100 Years, ed. by Timothy J. Richard, pp. 7-9.