Where Is Poland? | Economic migration

Chapter 4

Economic migration

The last three decades of the century in Eastern Europe were a time of vast economic emigration. Fleeing from poverty, Poles were emigrating from all three partitions, but their road to the promised land was fraught with difficulties. Once at their destination, emigrants found bread and work but life was certainly not easy.

Ferry carrying immigrants near Ellis Island, New York, 1915. Source: Library of Congress

Emigration Fever

The nineteenth century was a period of great emigration from Europe to America. It is estimated that between 1815 and 1914, 55-60 million people left Europe. Initially, the emigrants were mostly citizens of the United Kingdom, Germany and Scandinavia. Somewhat later, they were joined by Italians and residents hailing from the Slavic part of Europe – including many Poles.

In the case of the Polish lands, the main reasons for emigration were overpopulation in the countryside (the result of the demographic explosion) and land shortages, but also poverty, which often took the form of famine. For rural inhabitants, emigration was a way to break out of poverty, pay off debts, try to climb up the social ladder.

The first emigrants from the former Polish lands were the inhabitants of the Prussian Partition. In the second half of the 19th century they started travelling to Bremen and Hannover, and from there across the ocean to America.

In the early 1880s, a great wave of emigration from Galicia begins. Most of the emigrants are peasants – nearly all of them (85%) head to the United States. Jews and Ukrainians also left Galicia – the latter heading mainly to Canada. 'Polacos' and 'Rutenos' settled in Argentina as well.

At the same time, an exodus of the rural population of the rump Kingdom of Poland continued, despite obstacles posed by the Russian administration. These peasants mainly chose the United States and Brazil (in a so-called 'Brazilian fever').

However, not all emigrants chose to go overseas. Germany was among the less distant, European destinations chosen by the Poles. Before World War I there were 475,000 Poles living in the Ruhr area.

All told, a total of about 3.5-3.7 million people left the three partitions before World War I – among these there were about 1.9-2.3 million Poles.

Immigrants carrying luggage, Ellis Island, New York, 1900. Source: Library of Congress

From Szczebrzeszyn to New York

Bolesław Prus wrote in his ‘Weekly Chronicle’:

From the moment they cross the border posts, from the moment they take a seat in a Prussian train, our poor Polish emigrants experience exploitation, deception, all forms of abuse. And yet, despite these terrible conditions, amidst misery and humiliation, still they earn more than in their homeland.

Emigration became a whole industry of its own: with agents, carriers and middlemen, as well as common swindlers who – according to a story popular at that time – would pretend to 'use an alarm clock to call up the Emperor of America and ask if he would accept a new subject, for which they obviously charged a hefty fee'. Emigrants also fell prey to human traffickers.

As a rule, the Polish emigrants began their journey by heading to one of the great European ports – Hamburg or Bremen, or from 1904 on to Trieste on the Adriatic coast. They usually travelled third class: there were about 60 passengers in one cabin, and the only amenity was (paid) access to drinking water. Each of them was allowed to take up to a hundred kilograms of baggage, so people took everything they considered necessary for living in the New World: eiderdowns, pots, pans, working tools, and of course food for the journey.

Overcrowded home of Polish workers in cotton mill, Rhode Island, 1912. Source: Library of Congress

The emigrant’s fate

Arrival at their destination by no means meant the end of the emigrants' problems. Although most of them had been peasants, in America they settled in large industrial centres: Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago. The latter quickly became the centre of Polish emigration (in 1910, 210,000 Poles were living there). Migrants overwhelmingly did the toughest jobs for the lowest salaries: working in mines, quarries, factories, steel mills, and slaughterhouses.

At the same time, the first generation of Polish emigrants faced difficulties adapting to American society. They formed their own neighbourhood communities and struggled to learn the language – real integration would only begin with the next generation. Over time, they contributed elements of Polish identity to the multicultural US society.

Emigrating Poles tried their luck not only in the United States. In the 1890s, Brazil became a popular destination. In order to attract settlers, the Brazilian government offered free travel and land to emigrants. With stories about bread growing on trees and diamonds just lying on the ground, a 'Brazilian fever' seized hold of many émigrés.

Although the immigrants did receive Brazilian land for free, first they had to wrest it away from the wild tropical forests. European agricultural techniques did not work in such a different climate, and people suffered from heat and tropical diseases. In 1890-1914, over 100,000 Poles came to Brazil – soon Polish-style houses and churches began to spring up in the exotic landscape of Curitiba, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul.