Swedes

• Swedes came began coming to Chicago between 1840 and 1870.
• After 1870, the population of Swedes in Chicago rose to 20,000 and kept doubling, tripling and quadrupling till 1920.
• The Swedes were different than other ethnic groups because they, as Swedish Pioneers, established before 1880, and they had founded 13 ethnic churches.
• The largest Swedish neighborhood was Swede Town which was located on the Near North Side, half of the Swedish community came from there.
• Two smaller communities which were located on the Near West Side and the Near South Side, Swedes had accumulated cash reserves.
• They spoke English and knew the city very well.
• They eventually moved out of the loop into better quality homes.
• Immigrants of the 1880s to 1900s move up the community-building process because they benefited from the earlier Swedish immigrants.
• A man from the second generation Swedes stated that "The people down there began to be nothing but foreigners who cared nothing for making the neighborhood attractive."
• While Poles, Italians and Greeks built their ethnic enclaves, Swedes were vacating theirs.

Czech Immagration to Chicago

• Czech immigrants were first known as Bohemians in the 1850s



• By 1910 there were about 110,000 Czechs in Chicago, it was the second largest Czech center in the world



• Czech immigrants were much different than other immigrants because most of them were literate, they were not as poor, and could speak more English, they also came to Chicago to stay



• Many Czechs were interested in owning property, this led to buildings and loan associations that were lending institutions for Czechs wanting to buy a home



• Pilson was the original home for most Czechs, but they eventually moved to an area that became known as Czech California, its name coming from the area being on California Ave.



• 80% of the buildings in Czech California were owned by Czechs



• Popular buildings Czechs have build include: the Sokol Havlicek-Tyrs, the Pilsen Brewery, Pilsen Park, St. Ludmila Church, and the John Hus Church



• Two pubic schools in the area also started teaching the Czech language since they become so dominant in that area
  
  
• They didn't just stick to their own ethnic groups, they associated themselves with other ethnic groups as well



• Anton Cermak was Czech who became mayor of Chicago in 1931

• The Czechs had insufficient numbers to get electoral votes by voting as a monolithic bloc, unlike the Polish

Other Immigrants

• In between 1880 and 1920 other immigrants made Chicago their home.

• By 1900, Chicago had more Poles, Swedes, Czechs, Dutch, Danes, Norwegians, Croatians, Slovaks, Lithuanians, and Greeks than any other city in the United States.

• Chicago proclaimed itself at one time or another the largest Lithuanian city in the world, the second largest Czech city in the world,l and the third largest Irish, Swedish, Polish, and Jewish city in the world.

• They worked together in the workplace and also did business with one another, via either the ubiquitous peddler or the multi ethnic open-air market.


• Jane Addams Hull-House paid little attention to ethnic boundaries.

• The legal system and local politics threw immigrants together into a world in which ethnicity meant little.

• Chicago immigrants shared common experiences such as insights into immigration, assimilation, and Chicago itself.


• Immigrants succeeded only because they worked hard.

• They worked longer long hours and at low wages.

• They still found a way to save up part of their income

• Immigrants sacrificed immediate gratification for long-term success.

• they bequeathed inheritance to their children

• most new immigrants did not want to lose their ethnic distinctiveness.

• Sustained ethnic churches

• almost every immigrant group established schools which served as transmitters and preservers of their heritage.

• Immigrant parents labored long hours for a low and poor wages

• Most saw themselves as a citizen of two nations.

• Immigrants of all ethnic backgrounds assimilated rapidly despite the desires of foreign-born immigrants to preserve their ethnic heritage.

• It is evident how Chicago's public schools helped to assimilate European immigrants.

• Immigrants loved their foreign-born relatives but found that they had less and less in common with them.

• They received virtually no government assistance

• There was no such thing as food stamps, unemployment insurance,etc.

• When needed they turned to the hundreds of mutual aid societies that the ethnic communities had created themselves.

• Churches usually established upon ethnic and not a multi ethnic.

• The saloon was also important to the immigrants.

• Saloons functioned as community centers for new immigrants.

• Saloon's owner frequently served as an ethnic bank, and they lend money to new immigrants

• Saloon provided a big room for parties

• On hot nights immigrants payed the saloon's owners a nickle to sleep on their cold floor

• "The streets are inexpressibly dirty, the number of schools inadequate,

• sanitary legislation unenforced, the street lighting bad, the paving miserable and altogether lacking in alleys and smaller streets, and the stables foul beyond description. Hundreds of houses are unconnected with the street sewer...Many houses have no water supply save for a faucet in the backyard, there are no fire escapes."This is how conditions were in their homes.

• people agreed to not see immigrants as passive subjects who did not shape their own experiences.

• life is more difficult back in their homeland

• they viewed Chicago as a place where hope is abounded

• they knew they had reasonable chance of improving their lot.

http://hungarianmuseum.com
http://www.uic.edu/depts/uichistory/hullhouse.html

Eastern European Jews In Chicago

• By 1900, Chicago has the 3rd largest Jewish population next to Warsaw, Poland and NYC, New York.




• Most of the eastern Jew's came from Russia, Poland, and Austria-Hungary




• They settled near the southwest side of the city surrounded by Canal Street, Damen Avenue, Polk Street, and 16th street




• Maxwell and Halsted Streets is where the heart of all the Jewish activities took place. Since they hardly spoke much English and started off penniless, they mostly became sales people. To sell their goods all they needed was an inventory and the ability to be able to sell their products




• Usually the first generation of Jewish immigrants were able to only crape by, they were often very poor but the next generations were the ones who did well.




• For example, Joseph Golderburg was a Jewish immigrant who sold his products on Maxwell Street and his son Arthur, was in president JFK's cabinet and became a justice for the Supreme Court
  



• Barnet Balabin was president of Paramount Pictures and his father owned a grocery store near Maxwell Street




• Before all the flood of Eastern European Jews came, there was already an established German Jewish community who thought the new Jews were an embarrassment




• The new Jewish immigrants were set in there old customs and did want to assimilate into the American society




• The same went for clothing styles, new Jewish immigrant men usually had long beards and coats and the women wore wigs and "peasant dresses"




• There were a lot of nativist Jews that were already successful businessmen



• The Chicago Hebrew Institute was founded in 1908 and it had classrooms, club rooms, a library, gyms, and a synagogue. It was meant to be a place for all Jews to come together and to help the new Jewish immigrants assimilate faster



• The new Jewish immigrants received more economic success than other immigrants coming to America because they wanted America to be there permanent home, not just a temporary place to keep money and leave



• They were also more focused on long term success rather than short term success



• Families moved west, because of the factories and railroad tracks being built, and more African Americans moved into the Maxwell Street area

Greeks

The picture above is the First Annual Lincoln Dinner of the Greek Republican Club in Dayton Ohio.

• The greeks first took up a small section in Chicago, and gradually got bigger and nearly 15,000 greeks lived in the city.

• They mostly lived on the North Side, by Clark, Kinzie, and South Water Streets.

• Newer Greek immigraznts settled Near West Side, which ended up displacing the Italians.

• Near West Side is known as Greek Town, or the Delta.

• The Greeks took the Italians housing and their jobs. They mostly owned their own businesses and were very much into fruit-peddling trade.


• The Greeks are running the Italians out of the fruit business for the big wholesale fruit houses on South Water Street, they are nearly all owned by men from the isles of burning Sappho.

• In 1919, About 10,000 out of 18,000 Greeks from Chicao owned their own establishments.