And most prominent in the early years was St. Kantowicz, a prolific chronicler of Chicago's Polish community.įor most Chicago Poles, the Roman Catholic church was the chief social forum in the New World. Polish village, with its familiar customs and habits, on this side of the Atlantic," wrote Edward R. "The only way they could survive in this strange environment was by trying to recreate the government study,Ĩ1.5 percent had been farmers or farm workers in Poland in their new country, the majority were unskilled urban laborers. Most of them had worked the soil as serfs in Poland and had little experience with politics or with property rights. As a transportation mecca, Chicago had an additional economic advantage in the late nineteenth century as the entry point to the expanding West.īut the change was jarring for Polish immigrants. The stockyards or in steel mills and other booming industries. Just as they settled in other Northern cities on the Great Lakes, such as Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee, Poles were drawn to Chicago by the promise of blue-collar jobs in They came to America's heartland toĮscape German chancellor Otto von Bismarck's threats to exterminate the Poles in Prussia, hostile edicts from Russian tsars, and economic misery following the exploitation of their homeland by powerful rulers who hemmed restrictions slowed the gushing immigration to a trickle. These Poles grew to 250,000 by 1903 and to more than 400,000 by the end of the 1920s, when U.S. But it did not gain significant size until about 1890, when it counted 40,000 local residents among Chicago'sĢ50,000 total population.
Polonia, as the Polish-American community termed its new nation, was first settled in the 1850s. Their status as the largest ethnic group in the Chicago polyglot, they failed to secure their share of power in the city at large. Influence in the wider non-Polish community." Most of the first generations of Poles were poor, and their separate language made it difficult for them to blend into the larger urban population. But their "greater sense of wholeness than most ethnic groups" came at the price of "diminished The Poles were "one of the most culturallyīonded, in-group peoples to be found anywhere," according to a study of Chicago's diverse ethnic groups. The Rostenkowskis served a local community that was more deeply conscious of its immigrant ancestry and religion than its political affiliation or influence. That system and lamented the loss of old-fashioned community values and organization. For the remainder of his public life, he staunchly defended Young Dan learnedįirsthand how one of the last great urban machines used trusty lieutenants in a tightly structured hierarchy to deliver patronage and entrench itself in power. "He is not aggressive, but has the wholesome respect of his colleagues in all council matters," the Chicago Sun-Times wrote in endorsing his reelection in 1947. Like Dan in the early years of his own career, Joe tended to the minutiae of constituent needs and became a cog in the intricate network of service and favors at city hall during three decades as a That clout proved vital in giving his son an advantage in climbing As his career began, though, Dan quickly reaped rewards from the family's decision to move beyond its ancestry and join the American melting pot.Īlderman Joe Rostenkowski, from whom Dan inherited politics as the family business, was a city alderman in Chicago and a Democratic ward boss. Eventually local tensions caused a momentous setback for hisįather. But he was even more loyal to his party and to the organization built by his father Joe and fellow Democrats of many nationalities. He was proud of his heritage, which endured at the end of the twentieth century in the Polish-speaking shops and markets along Chicago's Of mostly first- and second-generation Polish immigrants shaped his background and values. MOST OF THE WHITE MEN who dominated American politics until the 1970s came from neighborhoods whose features, such as ethnic composition or historical landmarks, meant something, both locally and to a national assembly. The Pursuit of Power and the End of the Old Politics
0 kommentar(er)
