The Economic And Cultural Impacts Of Polish Immigration Into Chicago From 1860-1920

10 Pages 2536 Words

the peasants were young, unmarried males who were not members of an organized community immigrating as a group. As immigrants entered the United States, they remained at Ellis Island for about two to three hours. Medical examiners marked all the immigrants with chalk and then sent them to another doctor. If an immigrant appeared to be mentally ill, an X was made on his right shoulder (Pacyga 37). If there were definite evidence of mental illness, the doctor would then circle the X (Pacyga 37). The immigrants that passed the examination of the first medical examiner then went to a second examiner known as the “eye man” (Pacyga 37). The “eye man” checked the immigrants’ eyes and then sent them off to the final inspector from the Immigrant Service. This inspector asked the immigrants questions to determine whether he was an anarchist, criminal, paper, etc (Pacyga 37).
Ellis Island was only the first stop on the immigrants’ trip. After the examinations at Ellis Island, the immigrants then made the trips to the final destinations of their choice. The largest number of Poles entered Chicago from 1880-1932. Poles avoided semi-southern cities such as Baltimore and St. Louis because the black population took up most of all the unskilled jobs in the area. They poured into raw, new cities such as Buffalo and Chicago (Holli 175). The arrival to Chicago was a perplexing experience for the immigrants. The vast crowds of people made it hard for the immigrants to find their
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loved ones and friends (Pacyga 38). The first year in Chicago was the most crucial factor in determining the success of the immigrant’s ability to deal with the new environment. In 1850, 15,682 polish immigrants came to the city of Chicago (Parot 14). By the year 1890, five large Polish communities had been established in Chicago: Polish Downtown on the Northwest Side, the Lower West Side, Bridgeport, Back of the yards, and lastly South Chicago (Holli ...