History of Poles in the United States

The History of Poles in the United States is a portion of American history that dates to the American Colonial era beginning with the first Polish colonists in 1609. Polish Americans have lived as a largely indistinguishable minority group in the United States, although bouts of anti-polonism have defined their experience historically. Polish Americans have always constituted the largest group of Slavic origin in the United States.

Immigration from Poland to the United States has been divided into three distinct stages or "waves". The first and largest wave was from 1870 to 1914 when over 2 million ethnic Poles fled Polish districts of Germany, Russia, and Austria. A second wave occurred during and after World War II, and a third wave followed the liberation of communist-ruled Poland in 1989. Immigration was pushed by political, social, and religious oppression, and pulled by economic and societal freedoms unknown in the Old World. Immigrants were attracted by the relatively high wages and ample job opportunities for unskilled manual labor, and were well represented in American mining, meatpacking, construction, steelwork, and heavy industry—in many cases dominating these fields until the mid 20th Century. Over 90% of Poles arrived and settled in established immigrant communities, called Polonia. The largest such community historically was in Chicago, Illinois.

The Polish today are well assimilated into American society. Average incomes have increased from well below average to above average today, and Poles continue to expand into white-collar professional and managerial roles. Poles are still well represented in blue collar construction and industrial trades, and many live in or near urban cities. They are well dispersed throughout the United States, and since the 1960s have moved on to live in the suburbs and become more conservative.

Colonies

Early settlers

Main article: Jamestown Polish craftsmen

American Revolution

Kościuszko statue, Detroit

Later Polish immigrants included Jakub Sadowski, who in 1770, settled in New York with his sons—the first Europeans to penetrate as far as Kentucky. It is said that Sandusky, Ohio, was named after him. At the time, the Polish state was failing and being gradually stripped of its independence due to military partitions by foreign powers, a number of Polish patriots, among them Kazimierz Pułaski and Tadeusz Kościuszko, left for America to fight for American Independence.

Kazimierz Pułaski, having led the losing side of a civil war, escaped a death sentence by leaving for America. There, he served as Brigadier-general in the Continental Army and commanded its cavalry. He saved General George Washington's army at the Battle of Brandywine and died leading a cavalry charge at the Battle of Savannah, aged 31. Pułaski later become known as the "father of American cavalry". He is also commemorated in Casimir Pulaski Day and the Pulaski Day Parade.

Kościuszko was a professional military officer who served in the Continental Army in 1776 and was instrumental in the victories at the Battle of Saratoga and West Point. After returning to Poland, he led the failed Polish insurrection against Russia which ended with the Partition of Poland in 1795. Pułaski and Kościuszko both have statues in Washington, D.C.

After the Revolution Americans who commented generally held positive views of the Polish people. Polish music such as mazurkas and krakowiaks were popular in the U.S. during the antebellum period. However, after the Civil War (1861–65) the image turned negative and Poles appeared as crude and uneducated people who were not good fits for America socially or culturally.

19th Century

See also: Great Emigration

Though generally not considered a "wave" of immigration, many Poles emigrated to America following numerous national uprisings against the three partitioners of Poland: Prussia, Russia, and Austria. These emigrants often had ties to the political life of Poland and were often nobility, intellectuals, and political exiles escaping occupation. One of them was a doctor of medicine and a soldier, Felix Wierzbicki, a veteran of the November Uprising. He published the first English-language book printed in California, "California As It Is and As It May Be", printed 1849. The book is an "unvarnished" description of the culture, peoples, and climate of the area at that time. Wierzbicki described prospective settlers and included a survey of agriculture and hints on gold mining. Polish political exiles founded organizations in America, and the first association of Poles in America, Towarzystwo Polakow w Ameryce (Association of Poles in America) was founded March 20, 1842. The association's catchphrase was "To die for Poland". The sense of Polish nationalism was so strong among certain Polish intellectuals, that they warned repeatedly against assimilation into American culture. It was the duty of the Pole to someday return to liberate the homeland, they argued to newly arrived Poles in America. The newspaper of the Polish National Alliance Zgoda warned in 1900, "The Pole is not free to Americanize" because Poland's religion, language and nationality had been quote partially torn away by the enemies. In other words, "The Pole is not free to American eyes because wherever he is – he has a mission to fulfill." The poet Teofila Samolinska, known as the "mother of the Polish National Alliance," tried to bridge the gap between the political exiles of the 1860s and the waves of peasants arriving late in the century. She wrote:

Here one is free to fight for the Fatherland;

Here the cruelty of tyrants will not reach us,

Here the scars inflicted on us will fade.

Nevertheless, the ordinary people did assimilate – they adopted American clothing, holidays, work habits, housing, sports and the English language, while clinging to their religion and their cuisine.

The first-ever monuments to Kosciuszko and Pulaski were unveiled in Washington, D.C. in 1910. The political moment was highly sought after by Polish American activists, who held the first ever Polish American Congress the next day.

Early settlements

Panna Maria, Texas

File:The John Gawlik House.jpg

The first building in the Panna Maria community, The John Gawlik house, built 1858. The steep roof is a unique Eastern European influence, originally designed for heavy snowfall climates.

The first emigrants from Poland were Silesians from the Prussian partition of Poland. They emigrated to Texas in 1854 and created an agricultural community that carried native traditions, customs, and language. The land they settled was a bare, unpopulated countryside, and they erected the homes, churches, and municipal accommodations independent of the Texans. Panna Maria remains an unincorporated town in Texas. Resurrectionist priests led church services and religious education for children. Letters sent back to Poland demonstrate a feeling of profound new experience in America. Hunting and fishing were favorite pastimes among the settlers, who were thrilled by the freedoms of shooting wild game in the countryside. The farmers used labor-intensive agricultural techniques that maximized crop yields of corn and cotton; they sold excess cotton to nearby communities and created profitable businesses selling crops and livestock. The area was somewhat geographically isolated and continues to carry on a heritage and lineal descendants from the original settlers still live in Texas, although the population mostly moved to nearby Karnes City and Falls City. Polish leaders and Polish historical figures settled in the community, including Matthew Pilarcyk, a Polish soldier sent to Mexico in the 1860s to fight for the Austrian Emperor Maximilian. Some records recall that he fled the Army in 1867 during the fall of the empire, escaped a firing squad and traversed the Rio Grande to enter Panna Maria, where he had heard Poles were living. When he arrived, he married a local woman and joined the community as a political leader. The community was nearly massacred following the Civil War, where the government of Texas was dismantled and gangs of cowboys and former Confederate nativists harassed and shot at Poles in Panna Maria. The Poles in Panna Maria had Union sympathies and were the subject of discrimination by the local Southerners. In 1867, a showdown between a troupe of armed cowboys and the Polish community neared a deadly confrontation; Polish priests requested the Union Army to protect them, and a stationed Army helped keep them safe, registered to vote in elections, and free from religious intolerance. The language used by these settlers was carried down to their descendants over 150 years, and the Texas Silesian dialect still exists. Cemeteries contain inscriptions written in Polish or Polish and English. The Silesians held a millennial celebration for the introduction of Christianity to Poland in 1966, and were presented an honorary mosaic of Our Lady of Czestochowa by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Parisville, Michigan

Poles settled a farming community in Parisville, Michigan in 1857. Historians debate whether the community was established earlier, and claims that the community originated in 1848 still exist. The community was started by five or six Polish families who came from Poland by ship in the 1850s, and lived in Detroit, Michigan in 1855 before deciding to initiate a farming community in Parisville, where they created prosperous farms, and raised cattle and horses. The lands were originally dark black swamps, and the settlers succeeded in draining the land for use as fruit orchards. As per the Swamplands Act of 1850, the lands were legally conferred to pioneering settlers who could make use of these territories. Individual Polish farmers and their families took advantage of this new law, and other immigrants settled disparate areas in interior Michigan independently. The Parisville community was surrounded by Native American Indians who continued to live in tepees during this time. The Poles and the Indians enjoyed good relations and historical anecdotes of gift-giving and resource sharing are documented. Polish farmers were dispersed throughout Michigan, and by 1903 roughly 50,000 Poles were said to live in Detroit, Michigan.

Winona, Minnesota

The first Poles in Minnesota, and among the earliest settlements in the United States was created in Winona in 1855. Kaszubian immigrants from Poland worked in the lumber industry in Winona and grew a sizable local community. The city's history only dates back to 1851, when a peaceful transfer of land ownership from the Sioux Indians occurred. Poles were not the only ethnic group in the city, but they were cohesive and created an enclave built on their religion and linguistic differences. Hieronim Derdowski was a prominent leader in the local Polish American community, and he started a weekly Polish language newspaper, Wiarus, that influenced Winonan politics. Engineer and businessman Dan Przybylski founded a major industrial plant in the city and invented a hydraulically powered extension crane. A Polish Museum of Winona was established in 1977, residing in the building of a late-19th Century lumber company.

American Civil War

Polish Americans fought in the American Civil War for both the Union and Confederate Armies. The majority were Union soldiers, owing to geography and ideological sympathies with the abolitionists. An estimated 5,000 Polish Americans served in the Union, and 1,000 for the Confederacy. By sheer coincidence, the first soldiers killed in the American Civil War were both Polish. Captain Constantin Blandowski, who was in command of the Union battalion in Missouri died in the Camp Jackson Affair, and Thaddeus Strawinski was an 18-year-old Confederate who was accidentally shot at Fort Moultrie. Reportedly, Strawinski was enamored with the war and told his comrades before going to the hospital, "Friends, O how sorry I am you are to attack Fort Sumter without me!" Two Polish immigrants achieved leadership positions in the Union Army, Joseph Karge and Włodzimierz Krzyżanowski. Karge led the 2nd New Jersey Volunteer Cavalry that once defeated Confederate Nathan Bedford Forrest in a cavalry battle. A Congressional Record from 1894 noted he suffered a gunshot would that ended his career in the military. Lincoln awarded Karge the title of brigadier general on March 13, 1865 "for gallant and meritorious services during the war" at the recommendation of Benjamin Grierson. Under the leadership of Włodzimierz Krzyżanowski, the all-Polish 58th New York Volunteer regiment saw action fighting back and defeating the Louisiana Tigers in 1863.

American Poles and Prohibition

Polish Americans were represented in the American temperance movement, and the first wave of immigrants was affected by prohibition. A leading Pole in the American Temperance movement was Colonel John Sobieski, a lineal descendant of Polish King John III Sobieski, who served as a Union general in the American Civil War. In 1879, he married a prominent abolitionist and prohibitionist Lydia Gertrude Lemen, an American from Salem, Illinois. Through his wife's affiliation, he became a leading member of the Polish branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and preached against alcohol in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Illinois to prohibition-camps. He was active as a sought-after public speaker from the 1880s until his death. Sobieski was also a leader in the organization of the International Organisation of Good Templars, and near the end of his life, claimed to have "organized two thousand and eighty-six lodges of Good Templars, and taken into the order ninety thousand members" Sobieski and the predominantly Protestant Christian Temperance groups never made great in-roads into the Polish community. Polish Catholics immigrants frequently heard lectures and received literature from the Catholic Church against alcohol. Polish immigrants were distrustful of the Irish-dominated American Catholic Church, and did not resonate with the temperance movement in great numbers. An appearance by archbishop John Ireland to the Polish National Alliance in St. Paul in 1887 was ineffective in drawing them to the CTAU. The Polish language press covered the topic of abstinence occasionally in the U.S. It was not until 1900 that the Polish National Alliance introduced sanctions for alcoholics among its membership, and abstinence generally was unpopular among American Poles. In New Britain, Connecticut, Father Bojnowski set up an abstinence association and offended a local Polish club, receiving a death threat in response. In 1911, Father Walter Kwiatkowski founded a newspaper called Abystynent (The Abstainer) promoting local abstinence societies. The newspaper did not last long, and the Polish abstinence groups never united. The Polish National Catholic Church never created official policies towards abstinence from alcohol, nor took it as a priority that differed from the Catholic Church.

Polish immigrants were attracted to saloons and drinking was a popular social activity. Saloons allowed Poles to relieve their stresses from difficult physical labor, the selling of steamship tickets, and meeting grounds for mutual aid societies and political groups. Among Polish immigrants, a saloon-keeper was a favorite entrepreneurship opportunity, second only to a grocery store owner. By 1920, when alcohol was prohibited in the United States, American Poles continued to drink and run bootlegging operations. Although small in both numbers and scope, Poles joined organized crime and mafia-related distribution networks of alcohol in the U.S.

First wave of immigration (1870–1914)

The largest wave of Polish immigration to America occurred in the years after the American Civil War until World War I. This wave of immigrants are referred to as Za Chlebem (For Bread) immigrants because they were primarily peasants facing starvation and poverty in occupied Poland. A study by the U.S. Immigration Commission found that in 1911, 98.8% of Polish immigrants to the United States said that they would be joining relatives or friends, leading to conclusions that letters sent back home played a major role in promoting immigration. They arrived first from the German Polish partition, and then from the Russian partition and Austrian partition. U.S. restrictions on European immigration during the 1920s and the general chaos of World War I cut off immigration significantly until World War II. Officially, more than 1.5 million Polish immigrants were processed at Ellis Island, between 1899 and 1931. In addition, many Polish immigrants arrived at the port of Baltimore. The actual numbers of ethnically Polish arrivals at that time would be difficult to estimate due to prolonged occupation of Poland by neighboring states, with total loss of its international status. Similar circumstances developed in the following decades: during the Nazi German occupation of Poland in World War II; and further, in the communist period, under the Soviet military and political dominance with re-drawn national borders. During the Partitions of Poland (1795–1918), the Polish nation was forced to define itself as a disjointed and oppressed minority within three neighboring empires: Russian, Prussian and Austrian. The Polonia community in the United States, however, was founded on a unified national culture and society. Consequently, it assumed the place and moral role of the fourth province.

Background

A field planted with crimson clover to enrich farm soil. The use of clover tripled Polish farm output and increased productivity of cattle in the late 19th Century.

See also: Organic agriculture

Poland was largely an agrarian society throughout the Middle Ages and into the 19th Century. Polish farmers were mostly peasants, ruled by Polish nobility that owned their land and restricted their political and economic freedoms. Peasants were disallowed from trading, and typically would have to sell their livestock to the nobility, who in turn would function as middlemen in economic life. Commercial farming did not exist, and frequent uprisings by the peasants were suppressed harshly, both by the nobility and the foreign powers occupying Poland. A number of agricultural reforms were introduced in the mid 19th Century to Poland, first in German Poland, and later eastern parts of the country. The agricultural technologies originated in Britain and were carried eastward by conversing traders and merchants; Poland gained these secrets in the most developed regions first, and through successful implementation, areas that adopted them boomed. The introduction of a four-crop rotation system tripled the output of Poland's farmlands and created a surplus of agricultural labor in Poland. Prior to this, polish peasants continued Medieval Era tradition of three field rotation, losing one year of productive growing time to replenish soil nutrients. Instead of leaving a field fallow, or without any plants for a season, the introduction of turnips and especially red clover allowed Polish fields to maximize nutrients by green manure. Red clover was especially popular because it fed cattle as grazing land, giving the extra benefit of more robust livestock raising in Poland.

Between 1870 and 1914, more than 3.6 million people departed from Polish territories (of whom 2.6 arrived in the U.S.) Serfdom was abolished in Prussia in 1808, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1848 and in Czarist Russia, in 1861. In the late 19th century, the beginnings of industrialization, commercial agriculture and a population boom, that exhausted available land, transformed Polish peasant-farmers into migrant-laborers. Racial discrimination and unemployment drove them to emigrate.

Partitions

German

The first group of Poles to emigrate to the United States were those in German-occupied Poland. The German territories advanced their agricultural technologies in 1849, creating a surplus of agricultural labor, first in Silesia, then in eastern Prussian territories. The rise in agricultural yields created the unintended effect of boosting the Polish population, as infant mortality and starvation decreased, increasing the Polish birth rate. In 1886, Bismarck gave a speech to the Lower House of the Prussian Parliament defending his policies of anti-polonism, and warning of the ominous position Silesia was in with over 1 million Poles who could fight Germany "within twenty four hour notice". Citing the November Uprising of 1830–31, Bismarck introduced measures to limit freedoms of press and political representation that Poles enjoyed within the Empire. Bismarck forced the deportation of an estimated 30,000–40,000 Poles out of German territory in 1885, with a five-year ban on any Polish immigration back into Germany. Many Poles did return in 1890, when the ban was lifted, but others left for the United States during this time. Bismarck's anti-Catholic Kulturkampf policies aimed at Polish Catholics increased political unrest and interrupted Polish life, also causing emigration. Around 152,000 Poles left for United States during the period of Kulturkampf.

Russian

The Poznanski Factory, Łódź (1895), was a spinning factory key to the Polish textile industry. Thousands of Poles worked and resided in living quarters at the location.

See also: Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland (1905–1907)

The Russian partition of Poland experienced considerable industrialization, particularly the textile capital of Łódź, then the Manchester of Imperial Russia. Russia's policies were pro-foreign immigration, whereas German Poland was unambiguously anti-immigrant. Polish laborers were encouraged to migrate for work in the iron-foundries of Piotrków Trybunalski and migrants were highly desired in Siberian towns. Russia also established a Peasant Bank to promote land ownership for its peasant population, and many Poles were given employment opportunities pulling them from rural areas into industrial Russian cities. Of the three partitions, the Russian one contained the most middle-class Polish workers, and the number of industrial workers overall between 1864 and 1890 increased from 80,000 to 150,000. Łódź experienced a booming economy, as the Russian Empire consumed about 70% of its textile production.

Russian-occupied Poles experienced increasingly abusive Russification in the mid-19th Century. From 1864 onward, all education was mandated to be in Russian, and private education in Polish was illegal. Polish newspapers, periodicals, books, and theater plays were permitted, but were frequently censored by the authorities. All high school students were required to pass national exams in Russian; young men who failed these exams were forced into the Russian Army. In 1890, Russia introduced tariffs to protect the Russian textile industry, which began a period of economic decline and neglect towards Poland. The decline of Russia's economy after the Russo-Japanese War and the 1905 Russian Revolution further pushed Polish emigration. Polish nationalists at first discouraged emigration. In many respects, the nationalists were succeeding, creating secret Polish language schools so children could learn Polish, and leading insurrectionist activity against the Russian occupiers. However, when emigrants in the United States began sending back money to their poor relatives in Russia and Galicia, attitudes against emigration subsided. Polish National Party leader Roman Dmowski saw emigration in a positive light, as an "improvement of the fortunes of the masses who are leaving Europe." At its peak, in 1912–1913, annual emigration to the U.S., from the Polish provinces of the Russian Empire, exceeded 112,345 (including large numbers of Jews, Lithuanians and Belarusians).

Photograph of Sembrich, who sang at the Metropolitan Opera. She wore traditional Polish dresses at her concerts.

Among the most famous immigrants from partitioned Poland at this time was Marcella Sembrich. She had performed in Poland as an opera singer and moved to the United States. When sharing her experience with the Kansas City Journal, she described the social discrimination affecting her in what was then The Kingdom of Poland, a puppet state of Russia:

"...children who speak Polish on the streets of Vilna are punished and performances of any kind in the Polish language are forbidden. Polish is not allowed anywhere, and the police are still as strict as ever in trying to prevent its use. The first night I sang at Vilna I was wild to sing in Polish. I spoke to the manager about it and he implored me on his knees not to think of such a thing. But I was determined to do it if I could, so at the end of the performance, when the audience kept demanding encores, I prepared for it by singing a song in Russian. Then I sang one of Chopin's songs in Polish.

When I finished there was a moment of absolute stillness. Then came such an outburst as I have never seen in my life. I seized my husband's arm and stood waiting to see...

...I had to sign a paper saying that I would never sing in Polish again in Vilna, and at my second concert I left out the Chopin songs. Every year I have come to Vilna and every time the chief of police comes to me with the same paper to sign, and every time I have to sign the promise that I will not sing in Polish."

— Marcella Sembrich, On Learning to Sing, On Learning to Sing, Kansas City Journal, Oct. 22, 1899.

Austrian

Main article: Poverty in Austrian Galicia

Polish children in Austrian Galicia were largely uneducated; by 1900, 52 percent of all male and 59 percent of all female Galicians over six years of age were illiterates. Austrian Poles started immigrating from the United States beginning in 1880. The Austrian government tightened emigration in the late 1800s, as many young Polish males were eager to leave the mandatory conscription of the Austrian government, and peasants were displeased with the lack of upward opportunities and stability from heavy, labor-intensive agricultural work. The Galician government wanted to tie peasants to contracts and legal obligations to the land they worked on, and tried to enforce legislation to keep them on the lands. Polish peasant revolts in 1902 and 1903 changed the Austrian government's policies, and emigration from Galicia increased tremendously in the early 1900–1910 period.

Galician Poles experienced among the most difficult situations in their homeland. When serfdom was outlawed in 1848, the Austrian government continued to drive a wedge between Polish peasants and their Polish landlords to detract them from a more ambitious Polish uprising. Galicia was isolated from the west geographically by the Vistula river and politically by the foreign powers, leaving Galician Poles restricted from commercial agriculture in the west of Poland. Galician Poles continued to use outdated agricultural techniques such as burning manure for fuel instead of using it for fertilizer, and the antiquated Medieval-era three-year crop rotation system, which had been long-replaced in western Poland by the use of clover as a fodder crop. Galician Poles resented the government for its apathy in handling disease; a typhus epidemic claimed 400,000 lives between 1847 and 1849, and cholera killed over 100,000 in the 1850s. Galicia suffered a potato blight between 1847 and 1849, similar to Ireland's famine at the same time, but relief was never reached because of political and geographical isolation. A railroad system connecting Poland began reaching West Galicia from 1860 to 1900, and railroad tickets cost roughly half a farmhand's salary at the time. Polish peasants were no longer the property of their landlords, but remained tied to their plots of land for subsistence and were financially indebted to the landlords and government taxmen. The plight of the Galician Poles was termed the "Galician misery", as many were deeply frustrated and depressed by their situations.

Austrian Poles experienced an enormous rise in religiosity during the late 20th Century. From 1875 to 1914, the number of Polish nuns increased sixfold in Galicia; at the same time, German Poland had a less marked increase and in Russian Poland it decreased. Historian William Galush noted that many nuns were from the peasant class, and young women choosing marriage were faced with a life working harder on smaller farms as a result of Poland's rapid population growth.

U.S. immigration

Polish mother holding up her baby for the doctor, Ellis Island. 1913

Immigration from Poland was predominantly conducted at Ellis Island, New York, although some people entered via Castle Garden and to a lesser extent, in Baltimore. Ellis Island developed an infamous reputation among Polish immigrants and their children. An American reporter in the 1920s found that Polish immigrants were treated as "third class", and were subject to humiliation, profanity, and brutality at Ellis Island. The Polish language daily Wiadomosci Codzienne printed in Cleveland reported that officers at Ellis Island demanded women to strip from the waist up in public view. The immigration of paupers was forbidden by the U.S. Congress beginning with the Immigration Act of 1882. A newsman at Castle Garden found in a single ship of arriving passengers, 265 were "Poles and Slavonians", and 60 were detained as "destitute and likely to become public charges." Polish Americans were disgusted by the Immigration Act of 1924 which restricted Polish immigration to 1890 levels, when there was no Polish nation. A Polish American newspaper stated, "...If the Americans wish to have more Germans and fewer Slavs, why don't they admit that publicly!?" It further went to examine the recent World War with Germany, which was America's enemy, whereas the Polish had been patriotic and loyal to the U.S. Armed Services. Polish Americans were unconvinced that the immigration decreases of the 1920s were for the "protection" of American workers, and Polish language newspapers reflected their distrust and suspicion of racial undertones behind immigration legislation.

Early 20th century

Early perceptions

Main articles: Psychometrics, Dillingham Commission, and Hunky Culture

The immigrants of the late 19th-early 20th Century wave were very different from those who arrived in the United States earlier. By and large, those who arrived in the early 19th Century were nobility and political exiles; those in the wave of immigration were largely poor, uneducated, and willing to settle for manual labor positions. Pseudo-scientific studies were conducted on Polish immigrants in the early 20th Century, most notably by Carl Brigham. In his book, A Study of Human Intelligence, which relied heavily on English aptitude tests from the U.S. military, he drew conclusions that Poles were of inferior intelligence and their population would dilute the superior "Nordic" American stock. His data was highly damning towards blacks, Italians, Jews, and other Slavs. In the U.S. Congress, a study prepared on Polish Americans cited similar studies and said Poles were undesirable immigrants because of their "inherently unstable personalities". Future U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, in his 1902 historical text, "History of the American People", called Poles, Hungarians, and Italians, "men of the meaner sort" who possessed "neither skill nor energy nor any initiative of quick intelligence." He later called these groups less preferable than the Chinese immigrants. (Wilson later apologized, and met publicly with Polish-American leaders) The 1916 book The Passing of the Great Race similarly drew on intelligence studies of immigrants such as the Poles to argue that American civilization was in decline and society as a whole would suffer from a steady increase in inferior intelligence.

Polish (and Italian) immigrants demonstrated high fecundity in the United States, and in a U.S. Congress report in 1911, Poles were noted as having the single highest birth rate. The 1911 Dillingham Commission had a section devoted to the Fecundity of Immigrant Women, using data from the 1900 Census. Historians debate the accuracy and sample group of this data, as many Polish immigrants arrived young and of child-bearing age, whereas other ethnics had a lengthy and sustained immigration policy with the United States, meaning multiple generations existed. In reports, the birth rate was very high for Poles and by 1910, the number of children born to Polish immigrants was larger than the number of arriving Polish immigrants. In Polish communities such as rural Minnesota, nearly three-fourths of all Polish women had at least 5 children. The Polish American baby boom lasted from 1906 to 1915 and then fell dramatically, as many of the immigrant mothers had passed out of their prime childbearing age. This was the highest birth rate for American Poles documented in the United States. During the 1920s and 1930s, Polish Americans were coming of age, developing ethnic fraternal organizations, baseball leagues, summer camps, scouting groups, and other youth activities. In large parts of Minnesota and Michigan, over half the population was under sixteen years old. Polish youths created nearly 150 street gangs in Chicago in the 1920s, and in Detroit and Chicago, created the single largest group of inmates in juvenile prisons.

Polish men in particular were romanticized as objects of raw sexual energy in the early 20th Century. Many first wave Polish immigrants were single males or married men who left their wives to strike fortune in the United States. Some were "birds of passage" who sought to return to Poland and their families with strong financial savings. They built a reputation in the United States for hard work, physical strength, and vigorous energy. The 1896 novel Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto describes the life of Jake who left his wife and children in Poland behind and began an affair in the United States, when soon his wife meets him in New York. Central to the 1931 romance novel American Beauty is a theme of attractive Polish men. In one instance, main character Temmie Oakes says, "...You saw the sinews rippling beneath the cheap stuff of their sweaty shirts. Far, far too heady a draught for the indigestion of this timorous New England remnant of a dying people. For the remaining native men were stringly of withers, lean shanked, of vinegar blood, and hard wrung." Historian John Radzilowski notes that the theme of vivacious young immigrants replacing dying old white ethnic populations was common in America until the 1960s and 70s.

Founding of the Polish National Church

Main articles: Polish cathedral style and Polish National Catholic Church

Francis Hodur, founder and Prime Bishop of the Polish National Catholic Church in America

Polish Americans established their own Catholic churches and parishes in the United States. Polish immigrants in many instances erected their own churches. Roman Catholic churches built with the Polish cathedral style follow a design that includes high ornamentation, decorative columns and buttresses, and many visual depictions of the Virgin Mary and Jesus.

Many Polish Americans were devout Catholics and placed pressure on the Church to have services in Polish and include them in the priesthood and bishophood. Polish Americans grew deeply frustrated by their lack of representation in the church leadership; many loyal parishioners were offended that they could not participate in church decision-making or finances. Polish parishioners who collectively donated millions of dollars to construct and maintain churches and parishes in the United States were concerned that these church properties were now legally owned by German and Irish clergy. The Polish-German relations in church parishes was tense during the 19th Century. At the St. Boniface parish of Chicago, Rev. James Marshall spoke English and German for years, but when he started conducting mass in Polish, German parishioners started a confrontation with him and forced him into resignation. The greatest confrontation occurred in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where a large Polish population settled to work in coal mines and factories in the 1890s. They saved money from small paychecks to build a new church in the Roman Catholic parish, and were offended when the church sent an Irish bishop, Monsignor O'Hara, to lead services. Polish parishioners requested repeatedly to partake in church affairs; they were turned down and the bishop repudiated their "disobedience". Parishioners had fights in front of the church and several were arrested by the local police for civil disobedience and criminal charges. The mayor of the city was also Irish, and Poles strongly disagreed with his decisions in determining the severity of the arrests. Reportedly, Rev. Francis Hodur, a Catholic priest serving a few miles away heard the stories from Polish parishioners and said, "Let all those who are dissatisfied and feel wronged in this affair set about organizing and building a new church, which shall remain in possession of the people themselves. After that, we shall decide what further steps are necessary." Parishioners followed his advice and purchased land and began building a new church; when they asked Bishop O'Hara to bless the building and appoint a pastor, he refused, asking for a title of the property to be written out in his name. O'Hara invoked the Council of Baltimore saying that laypeople had no right to create and own their own church without ceding to the Roman Catholic diocese. Hodur disagreed and led church services beginning March 14, 1897. Hodur was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church on October 22, 1898 for refusing to cede ownership of the church property and insubordination.

Membership of the PNCC
Year	Members
1904a	15,473
1923a	28,000
1926a	61,874
1936a	186,000
1950b	250,000
1992	350,000
^a ^b Source: The Polish National Church in America and Poland, Theodore Andrews, 1953.

Francis Hodur's Polish church grew as neighboring Polish families defected from the Roman Catholic Church. Polish parishioners were hesitant to leave at first, but the organization of the Polish National Union in America in 1908 created mutual insurance benefits and aided in securing burial space for the deceased. The Polish National Catholic Church expanded from a regional church in Pennsylvania when Poles in Buffalo defected in 1914, expanding the church. Lithuanians in Pennsylvania united to form their own Lithuanian National Catholic Church, and in 1914, joined with the Polish National Church. The Lithuanian and Slovak National churches (1925) have since joined in affiliation with the larger Polish National Catholic Church. The PNCC took no initiative in seeking out other ethnic breakaway Catholic Churches during its history; these churches often sought out the PNCC as a model and asked to be affiliated. In 1922, four Italian parishes in New Jersey defected from the Roman Catholic Church and asked Hodur to support them in fellowship. Hodur blessed one of their buildings, and another Italian congregation in the Bronx, New York united with the PNCC before its closure. The PNCC has been sympathetic of the property rights and self-determination of laypeople in the church; in the PNCC's St. Stanislaus church, a stained glass window of Abraham Lincoln exists and Lincoln's birthday is a church holiday. Lincoln is honored by the PNCC for his role as a lawyer defending Irish Catholics who refused to surrender their church property to the Catholic church. The PNCC grew to a national entity and spread to Polish communities across the United States during the 20th Century, mainly around Chicago and the Northeast. The PNCC developed an active mission in Poland following World War I.

Profiling after McKinley assassination

Leon Czolgosz, a Polish American born in Alpena, Michigan, changed American history in 1901 by assassinating U.S. President William McKinley. Though Czolgosz was a native-born citizen, the American public displayed high anti-Polish and anti-immigrant sentiment after the attack. William McKinley, who survived the shooting for several days, called Czolgosz a "common murderer", and did not make mention of his background. Different Slavic groups debated his ethnic origins in the days and weeks that followed the attack, and Hungarian Americans took effort to also distance themselves from him. Police who arrested him reported that Czolgosz himself identified as a Pole. The Polish American community in Buffalo was deeply ashamed and angry with the negative publicity that Czolgosz created, both for their community and the Pan-American Exposition, and canceled a Polish American parade following the attack. Polish Americans burned effigies of Czolgosz in Chicago and Polish American leaders publicly repudiated him.

The Milwaukee Sentinel posted on Sept. 11, 1901 an editorial noting that Czolgosz was an anarchist acting alone, without any ties to the Polish people:

Polish Americans were outraged at President McKinley's assassin, feeling disgraced and angry

Czolgosz is not a Pole. He is an American citizen, born, bred and educated in this country. His Polish name and extraction have nothing whatever to do with his crime, or with the motives which impelled him to it. The apparent notion, therefore, of Polish-Americans that it is incumbent on them to show in some special and distinctive way their abhorrence of Czolgosz and his deed, while creditable to them as a sentiment, is not founded in reason. Responsibility for Czolgosz’ crime is a question not of race but of doctrine. Anarchism knows no country, no fatherland. It is a cancer eating into the breast of society at large.

— Not a Race Question, Not a Race Question, Milwaukee Sentinel, 11 Sept. 1901

As a result of the assassination, Polish Americans were "racially profiled" and American nativism against Poles grew. Several Polish immigrants were arrested for questioning in the police investigation, but police found that he acted independently. A later anonymous copycat threat sent to the police in Boston was investigated, and neighbors claimed a Polish radical who was a "native of the same town as the assassin" (Żnin) to be the culprit. No actual crime occurred in coincidence with the threatening letter. Theodore Roosevelt took the office of President of the United States in McKinley's place. Radical groups and anarchists were quelled nationally, and federal legislation was taken to stop future assassinations. Federal legislation made an attempted assassination of the President a capital offense and despite the fact that Czolgosz was born in the United States, the Immigration Act of 1903 was passed to stop immigrants with subversive tendencies from entering the country.

Fields of work for first-wave immigrants

A 'Want Ad' dated July 15, 1909 for positions in the U.S. Steel Corporation. It reads To Work in Open Shops. Syrians, Poles, and Romanians Preferred.

Polish immigrants were highly desired by American employers for low-level positions. In steel mills and tin mills, it was observed that foremen, even when given the choice to directly employ workers, frequently chose Poles. Steel work was undesirable for other immigrant groups, as it lasted 12 hours a day and 7 days a week, self-selecting for the most industrious and hardworking people. Polish immigrants chose to chain-market the job positions to their friends and relatives, and it was very common for a Polish friend with good English to negotiate wage rates for newer immigrants. Polish Americans favored steel areas and mining camps, which had a high demand for manual labor; favorite destinations included Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Buffalo, New York, and Pittsburgh, as well as smaller industrial cities and mining towns. Relatively few went to New England or to farming areas; almost none went to the South. Poles came to dominate certain fields of work: in 1920, 33.1% of all U.S. coal-mine operatives and 25.2% of all blast furnace laborers were Polish. Polish immigrants were categorized for low-status positions within U.S. companies, as the same steel companies that recruited Polish immigrants for work in blast furnaces recruited Irish immigrants for work with finished metal.

Mining

A Polish American coal miner in Capels, West Virginia, 1938.

West Virginia experienced an influx of immigrant coal miners during the early 20th Century, increasing the number of Poles in West Virginia to almost 15,000 by 1930. Poles were the third-largest immigrant group in West Virginia, following the Italians and the Hungarians, who also joined the mining industry in large numbers. Poles often worked alongside other Slavic immigrants, and recorded work safety signs from the mines in the 1930s were commonly posted in Polish, Lithuanian, Czech, and Hungarian languages. Poles predominated certain communities, comprising the largest ethnic group in 5 towns by 1908: Raleigh in Raleigh County, Scotts Run in Monongalia County, and Whipple and Carlisle in Fayette County. Pennsylvania attracted the greatest number of Polish miners. Polish immigration to Luzerne County was popular from the end of the Civil War. The miners generally lived with boarders of the same nationality who saved and lived frugally to buy a home of their own. Polish miners boarded to others who they may have been acquainted with from Poland, and some boarded their homes for strictly financial purposes (paying a mortgage). Descendants of the Polish miners still exist in the northern industrial areas of West Virginia, and many have dispersed across the U.S. Polish immigrants were favored for mining, where hundreds died each year, because they "played their part with a devotion, amenability, and steadiness not excelled by men of the old immigrants." A novel set in 1901 written from the perspective of a young Polish American in a coal mining family, Theodore Roosevelt by Jennifer Armstrong, reflects the poor conditions and labor struggles affecting the miners.

Meatpacking

Meatpackers inspecting pork, 1908. Poles were the most numerous ethnic group in Chicago's Union Stockyards during the early 20th Century.

Meatpacking was dominated by Polish immigrants in the Midwestern United States during the late 19th Century until World War II.

Polish immigrants were the lowest paid white ethnic group in the United States. A study of immigrants before World War I found that in Brooklyn, New York, the average annual income was $721. The average for the Norwegians residing there was $1142; for the English, $1015, for the Czechs, $773; but for the Poles, only $595. A study by Richard Jensen at the University of Illinois found that despite the pervasive narrative of anti-Irish discrimination in the U.S., in reality, NINA signage was very rare and first-generation Irish immigrants were about average in job pay rates during the 1880s and certainly above average by the turn of the century. Despite the absence of explicit ethnic discrimination in job advertisements, immigrant Poles were higher on the index of job segregation measures than the Irish in both the 1880s and the 1930s.

However by the 1960s, Polish Americans had an above average annual income, even though relatively few were executives or professionals. Kantowicz (1984) argues that:

"Polish workers appear to have opted for monetary success in unionized jobs and for economic and psychological security in home-owning rather than for more prestigious occupations in business and the professions."

Farming

Polish immigrants working on the farm in Maryland, 1909.

Poles arriving in America frequently had years of experience working in agriculture and gained a reputation as skilled farmers in the United States. After the collapse of the Confederacy, foreign labor was desired to work on Southern farms as replacements for black slaves. In East Texas, the Waverly Emigration Society was founded by several planters who dispatched Meyer Levy, a Polish Jew, to Poland to acquire roughly 150 Poles to pick cotton. He sailed to Poland and brought back farm laborers, who arrived in New Waverly in May 1867. The agreement the Poles had with the plantation owners was that the farmers would be paid $90, $100, and $110 per year for the three years of their farm labor, while the owners provided them with a "comfortable cabin" and food. Poles paid back their owners for the ship tickets to America, often in installments. By 1900, after years working on Southerners' farms, Poles had "bought almost all the farmland" in New Waverly, and were expanding their land ownership to the surrounding areas. New Waverly served as a mother colony for future Polish immigrants to the United States, as many arriving Poles lived and worked there before moving on to other Polonias in the U.S. Polish farmers commonly worked directly with southern blacks in east Texas, and they were commonly in direct competition for agricultural jobs. Blacks frequently picked up a few words of Polish and Poles picked up some of the black English dialect in these areas during the late 19th Century. R.L. Daniels in Lippincott's Magazine wrote a piece on "Polanders" in Texas in 1888, praising their industriousness and hard work ethic. He cited instances where Polish farmers called their landlords "Massa", denoting a subordinate position on level with slavery, and, when asking a woman why she left Poland, she replied 'Mudder haf much childs and 'Nough not to eat all." Daniels found that the Poles were efficient farmers, and planted corn and cotton so close to their homes as not to leave even elbow room to the nearby buildings. American blacks, who referred to Poles as "dem white niggahs" and held them in open "contempt" were apparently stunned by their high literacy rates, according to Daniels.

Ethnic isolation

Anti-Polish sentiment in the early 20th Century relegated Polish immigrants to a very low status in American society. Other white ethnic groups such as the Irish and Germans had assimilated to the American language and gained powerful positions in the Catholic Church and in various government positions by this time, and Poles were seen with disdain. Poles did not share in any political or religious say in the United States until 1908, when the first American bishop of Polish descent was appointed in Chicago, Illinois - Most Rev. Father Rhode. His appointment was the result of growing pressure placed on the Illinois Archdiochese by Polish Americans eager to have a bishop of their own background. The Pope himself finally acquiesced when Chicago Archbishop James Edward Quigley finally lobbied on behalf of his Polish parishioners in Rome. Poles were viewed as powerful workers, suited for their uncommonly good physical health, endurance, and stubborn character, capable of heavy work from dawn to dusk. The majority of Polish immigrants were young men of in superior physical health, feeding well into the stereotype, and the lack of a significant immigration of intelligentsia perpetuated this perception in the United States. Historian Adam Urbanski drew an observation through The Immigrant Press and its Control, which stated, "Loneliness in an unfamiliar environment turns the wanderers' thoughts and affections back upon his native land. The strangeness of his new surroundings emphasizes his kinship with those he has lost." Polish immigrants viewed themselves as common workers and carried an inferiority complex where they saw themselves as outsiders and only wanted peace and security within their own Polish communities; many found comfort in the economic opportunities and religious freedoms that made living in the United States a less strange experience. When Poles moved into non-Polish communities, the natives moved out, forcing immigrants to live in the United States as separate communities, often near other eastern European ethnics.

World War I (1914–1918)

Recruitment poster calling for volunteers for the Polish Army to fight against Germany in 1918

World War I motivated Polish-Americans to contribute to the cause of defeating the Germans, freeing their homeland, and fighting for their new home. Polish Americans vigorously supported the war effort during World War I, with large numbers volunteering for or drafted into the United States Army, working in war-related industries, and buying war bonds. A common theme was to fight for America and for the restoration of Poland as a unified, independent nation.

Polish Victims War Relief Fund posters with appeals for help from the American public, 1915

After the war The Literary Digest magazine estimated that the U.S. army had 220,000 Poles in its ranks and reported that Polish names made up 10 percent of the casualty lists, while the proportion of Poles in the country amounted to 4 percent. Of the first 100,000 volunteers to enlist in the U.S. Armed Services during World War I, over 40% were Polish American.

Ignacy Paderewski mobilizing support for Poland by selling Christmas dolls at the Ritz Carlton in New York

France in 1917 decided to set up a Polish Army, to fight on the Western Front under French command. Canada was given responsibility for recruiting and training. It was known as the Blue Army because of its uniform. France lobbied for the Polish Army idea, pressuring Washington to allow recruiting in Polonia. The U.S. in 1917 finally agreed by sanctioning recruiting of men who were ineligible for the draft. This included recent Polish immigrants who did not pass the five-year residency requirements for citizenship. Also there were Poles born in Germany or Austria who were thus considered enemy aliens ineligible for drafting into the United States Army. The so-called "blue army" reached nearly 22,000 men from the U.S. and over 45,000 from Europe (mostly POW's) out of a planned 100,000. It entered battle in summer 1918. When the war ended the Blue Army under General Józef Haller de Hallenburg was moved to Poland where it helped establish the new state. Most veterans who originated in the U.S. returned to the U.S. in the 1920s, but they never received recognition as veterans by either the U.S. or the Polish government.

Polish pianist Ignacy Paderewski came to the U.S. and asked immigrants for help. He raised awareness of the plight and suffering in Poland before and after World War I.

President Woodrow Wilson designated January 1, 1916 as Polish Relief Day. Contributions to the Red Cross given that day were used to give relief to Poland. Polish Americans frequently pledged a working day's pay to the cause. American Poles purchased over $67 million in Liberty Loans during World War I to help finance the war.

Interwar period (1920s and 1930s)

By 1917 there were over 7000 Polish organizations in the United States, with a membership - often overlapping - of about 800,000 people. The most prominent wire the Polish Roman Catholic Union founded in 1873, the Polish National Alliance (1880) and the gymnastic Polish Falcons (1887). The women opened separate organizations.

The Polish National Alliance (PNA) was formed in 1880 to mobilize support among Polish Americans for the liberation of Poland; it discouraged Americanization before World War I. Down until 1945 it was locked in battle with the rival organization Polish Roman Catholic Union. It then focused more on its fraternal roles such as social activities for its membership. By the 1980s it focused on its insurance program, with 300,000 members and assets of over $176 million.

The first Polish politicians were now seeking major offices. In 1918 a Republican was elected to Congress from Milwaukee, the next one was elected to Congress in 1924 as a Republican from Detroit. In the 1930s, the Polish vote became a significant factor in larger industrial cities, and switched heavily into the Democratic Party. Charles Rozmerek, the PNA president from 1939 to 1969, built a political machine from the Chicago membership, and played a role in Chicago Democratic politics.

Following World War I, the reborn Polish state began the process of economic recovery and some Poles tried to return. Since all the ills of life in Poland could be blamed on foreign occupation, the migrants did not resent the Polish upper classes. Their relation with the mother country was generally more positive than among migrants of other European countries. It is estimated that 30% of the Polish emigrants from lands occupied by the Russian Empire returned home. The return rate for non-Jews was closer to 50–60%. More than two-thirds of emigrants from Polish Galicia (freed from under the Austrian occupation) also returned.

Polish Catholic parish schools

Catholic nun teaching Polish Americans in the polish language, Detroit, Michigan. The phrase "dzieci ida" means "children go".

Polish-speakers in the US
Year	Speakers
1910a	943,781
1920a	1,077,392
1930a	965,899
1940a	801,680
1960a	581,591
1970a	419,006
1980	820,647
1990	723,483
2000	667,414
^a Foreign-born population only

Polish Americans generally joined local Catholic parishes, where they were encouraged to send their children to parochial schools. Polish-born nuns were often used. In 1932 about 300,000 Polish Americans were enrolled in over 600 Polish grade schools in the United States. Very few of the Polish Americans who graduated from grade school pursued high school or college at that time. High School was not required and enrollment across the United States was far lower at the time.

Polish Americans took to the Catholic schools in great numbers. In Chicago, 36,000 students (60 percent of the Polish population) attended Polish parochial schools in 1920. Nearly every Polish parish in the American Catholic Church had a school, whereas in Italian parishes, it was typically one in ten parishes. Even as late as 1960, about 60% of the Polish American students attended Catholic schools.

It is notable that many of the Polish American priests in the early 20th Century were members of the Resurrectionist Congregation, and diverged somewhat from the mainstream American Catholic Church on theology in addition to their language differences. Polish American priests created several of their own seminaries and universities, and founded St. Stanislaus College in 1890.

Milwaukee was one of the most important Polish centers, with 58,000 immigrants by 1902 and 90,000 by 1920. Most came from Germany, and became blue-collar workers in the industrial districts in Milwaukee's south side. They supported numerous civic and cultural organization and 14 newspapers and magazines. The first Polish-oriented Catholic parochial school opened in 1868 in the parish of St. Stanislaus. The children would no longer have to attend Protestant-oriented public schools, or German language Catholic schools. The Germans controlled the Catholic Church in Milwaukee, and encouraged Polish-speaking priests and Polish-oriented schools. Starting in 1896, Michał Kruszka began a campaign to introduce Polish language curricula into Milwaukee public schools. His efforts were panned as anti-religious, and thwarted by Catholic and Polish leaders. By the early 20th century, 19 parishes were operating schools, with the School Sisters of Notre Dame, and to a lesser extent the Sisters of Saint Joseph, providing the teaching force. The Polish community rejected proposals to teach Polish in the city's public schools, fearing it would undermine their parochial schools. The Americanization movement in World War I made English the dominant language. In the 1920s, morning lessons were taught in Polish, covering the Bible, Catechism, Church history, Polish language and the history of Poland; all the other courses were taught in English in the afternoon. Efforts to create a Polish high school were unsuccessful until a small one opened in 1934. Those students who went on attended heavily Polish public high school. By 1940, the teachers students and parents preferred English. Elderly priests still taught religion classes in Polish as late as the 1940s. The last traces of Polish culture came in traditional Christmas carols, which are still sung. Enrollments fell during the Great Depression, as parents and teachers were less interested in the Polish language, and were hard-pressed to pay tuition. With the return of prosperity in World War II, enrollments increased again, peaking about 1960. After 1960, the nuns mostly left the sisterhood and were replaced by lay teachers. Increasingly, the original families have moved to the suburbs, and the schools now served black and Hispanic children. Some schools have been closed, or consolidated with historically German language parochial schools.

The 1920s was the peak year for Polish language in the United States. A record number of respondents to the U.S. Census reported Polish as their native language in 1920, which has since been dropping as a result of assimilation. According to the 2000 United States Census, 667,000 Americans of age 5 years and older, reported Polish as the language spoken at home, which is about 1.4% of people who speak languages other than English or 0.25% of the U.S. population.

Anti-Polish nativism

Polish communities in the United States were targeted by Nativist groups and sympathizers during the 1920s. In White Deer, Texas, where Poles were virtually the only ethnic minority, Polish children had near-daily fights with other schoolchildren, and southerners imitated their parents in calling them "Polocks and damn Catholics". The Ku Klux Klan in particular rose in numbers and political activity during the 1920s, leading parades, protests, and violence in Polish American neighborhoods. The Ku Klux Klan led intimidating rallies and protests in Polish neighborhoods during the 1920s. One of the most visible activities was a Klan parade on May 18, 1921 when about 500 white-robed, torch-bearing members from Houston took a train to Brenham, Texas and marched carrying signs such as "Speak English or quit talking on Brenham's streets". Following the parade, residents would not come to the town or leave their homes to go to church, afraid of violence. Baker identified a meeting of Polish Americans in the district courthouse following the parade as an attempt to diffuse the situation. Out of the meeting, Brenham created laws requiring funeral services, church sermons, and business transactions to be conducted in English only for the next few months. During the time, Brenham was popularly known as the "Capital of Texas Polonia" because of its large Polish population. The KKK led a similar anti foreigner event in Lilly, Pennsylvania in 1924, which had a significant number of Poles. A novel based on the historical experience of Polish Americans in Lilly, Pennsylvania during this affair is The Masked Family by Robert Jeschonek. The Klan infiltrated the local police of southern Illinois during the 1920s, and search warrants were freely given to Klan groups who were deputized as prohibition officers. In one instance in 1924, S. Glenn Young and 15 Klansmen raided a Polish wedding in Pittsburgh, Illinois, violently pushing everyone against the walls, drank their wine, stole their silver dollars, and stomped on the wedding cake. The Polish couple had informed Mayor Arlie Sinks and Police chief Mun Owens beforehand that they were throwing a wedding and wanted to ensure protection; they did not know that Sinks and Owens themselves were Klansmen.

Contribution to the American labor movement

Polish American machinist in Chicago, Illinois. 1942

Polish Americans were active in strikes and trade union organizations during the early 20th Century. Many Polish Americans worked in industrial cities and in organized trades, and contributed to historical labor struggles in large numbers. Many Polish Americans contributed to strikes and labor uprisings, and political leaders emerged from the Polish community. Leo Krzycki, a Socialist leader known as a "torrential orator", was hired by different trade unions to educate and agitate American workers in both English and Polish during the 1910s to the 1930s. Krzycki worked closely with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers to motivate worker strikes in the Chicago-Gary steel strike of 1919 and the packing-house workers of Chicago strike in 1921. Krzycki was often used for his effectiveness in mobilizing Americans of Polish descent, and was heavily inspired by Eugene Debs and the IWW. He was associated with the sit-down strike at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio in 1936, which was the first twenty-four hour sit-down. Krzycki was one of the main speakers during the protest that later became known as the Memorial Day massacre of 1937. Krzycki's involvement in the strike of about 1,500 people against the Republic Steel plant was criticized, especially the "march" forward that the strikers took towards the plant gates. One first-hand account stated that he knew beforehand that the police captain was a "sadist" and stayed on-stage, trying in vain to dissuade the protests from going forward. Krzycki was also a key figure in organizing the 1937 strike against Ford Motor Company, and shares a historic image leading the strikers with labor leaders Richard Frankensteen and Ed Hall. Polish Americans made up 85% of the union of Detroit Cigar Workers in 1937, during the longest sitdown strike in U.S. history.

The Great Depression

The Great Depression in the United States hurt the Polish American communities across the country as heavy industry and mining sharply cut employment. During the prosperous 1920s, the predominantly Polish Hamtramck neighborhood suffered from an economic slowdown in the manufacturing sector of Detroit. The Hamtramck neighborhood was in disrepair, with poor public sanitation, high poverty, rampant tuberculosis, and overcrowding, and at the height of the Depression in 1932, nearly 50% of all Polish Americans were unemployed. Those who continued to work in the nearby Dodge main plant, where a majority of workers were Polish, faced intolerable conditions, poor wages, and were demanded to speed up production beyond reasonable levels. As the industrial trades Polish Americans worked in became less financially stable, an influx of Blacks and poor southern Whites into Detroit and Hamtramck exacerbated the job market and competed directly with Poles for low-paying jobs. Corporations benefited from the interracial strife and routinely hired Blacks as strikebreakers against the predominantly Polish-American trade unions. The Ford Motor Company used Black strikebreakers in 1939 and 1940 to counter strikes by the United Auto Workers, which had a predominantly Polish-American membership. The mainly Polish UAW membership and pro-Ford Black loyalists fought at the gates of the plant, often in violent clashes. Tensions with blacks in Detroit was heightened by the construction of a federally funded housing project, the Sojourner Truth houses, near the Polish community in 1942. Polish Americans lobbied against the houses, but their political sway was ineffective. Racial tensions finally exploded in the race riot of 1943.

World War II

Polish Americans were strong supporters of Roosevelt and the Allies against Nazi Germany. They worked in war factories, tended victory gardens, and purchased large numbers of war bonds. Of a total 5 million, 900,000 to 1,000,000 members (20%) joined the U.S. Armed Services. Americans of Polish descent were common in all the military ranks and divisions, and were among the first to volunteer for the war effort. Unlike World War I, mobilization of a Polish battalion did not occur. The closest attempt at a Polish American-segregated force was an effort by General Władysław Sikorski of the Polish government-in-exile to unite Polish-Americans. Many were second and third-generation Americans and found no reason not to enlist in the U.S. military. Sikorski's tone towards audiences in Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, and New York raised anger towards him and the Polish government; he repeatedly said he did not want their money but wanted their young men in the military, and struck a nerve when he said Polonia was turning its back on Poland by not joining the cause. Nonetheless, a small number of Polish Americans were recruited in a small Kosciuszko Army during World War II, 700 from North America and 900 from South America. The force was far smaller than that of World War I, and joined the Polish Army in France after basic training in Canada. Polish Americans had been enthusiastic enlistees in the U.S. military in 1941. They composed 4% of the American population at the time, but over 8% of the U.S. military during World War II. Matt Urban was among the most decorated war heroes. Francis Gabreski won accolades during World War II for his victories in air fights, later to be named the "greatest living ace."

During the latter part of World War II, Polish Americans developed a strong interest in political activity ongoing in Poland. Generally, Polish American leaders took the position that Polish Prime Minister Władysław Sikorski should make deals and negotiate with the Soviet Union. Maksymilian Węgrzynek, editor of the New York Nowy Swiat, was fiercely anti-Soviet and founded the National Committee of Americans of Polish Descent (KNAPP) in 1942 to oppose Soviet occupation in Poland. His newspaper became an outlet for exiled Polish leaders to voice their distrust and fears of a disintegrating Polish government under Wladyslaw Sikorski. One such leader was Ignacy Matuszewski who opposed any negotiation with the Soviets without safeguards honoring Polish territorial claims. The majority of American Poles were in-line with the anti-Soviet views of Wegrzynek.

Three important pro-Soviet Polish Americans were Leo Krzycki, Rev. Stanislaw Orlemanski, and Oskar R. Lange. They were deeply resented by Polish Americans in New York and Chicago, but found a strong following in Detroit, Michigan. Rev. Stanislaw Orlemanski founded the Kosciusko League in Detroit in 1943 to promote American-Soviet friendship. His organization was entirely of Polish Americans and was created with the goal of expanding throughout Polonia. Oskar R. Lange had great influence among Detroit Poles, arguing that Poland could return to its "democratic" roots by ceding territories on the Curzon line to the Belarussians and Ukrainians, and distributing farmland to the peasants. His viewpoints were well aligned with those of later American and Soviet agreements, whereby Poland gained western territories from Germany. In 1943, Lange, Orlemanski, and U.S. Senator James Tunnell wrote a book outlining their foreign policy aims with respect to Poland, titled, We will Join Hands with Russia. Russian newspapers including Pravda featured supportive articles approving of the work that Detroit Poles were making, and singled Krzycki, Orlemanski, and Lange as heroic leaders. On January 18, 1944, Russian diplomat Vyacheslav Molotov met with American ambassador Harriman, saying Poland needed a regime change and Krzycki, Orlemanski, and Lange would be excellent candidates for leadership in Poland. Stalin promoted the idea and asked that Orlemanski and Lange be given Russian passports quickly and allowed to visit Russia. President Roosevelt agreed to process those passports quickly, and later agreed to many of the political points they made, but advised Stalin that the visit be kept secretive. Lange visited Russia, meeting with Josef Stalin personally, as well as the Polish nationalist government. Lange later returned to the United States where he pushed Polish Americans to accept that Poland would cede the Curzon line, and a communist regime change in Poland was inevitable.

Aftermath in Polonia

American Poles had a reinvigorated interest in Poland during and after World War II. Polish American newspapers, both anti and pro-Soviet in persuasion, wrote articles supporting Poland's acquisition of the Oder-Neisse line from Germany at the close of the war. The borders of Poland were in flux after the war, since Nazi occupying forces were mainly withdrawn, and Poland's claims did not have German recognition. Polish Americans were apprehensive about the U.S. commitment to assuring them the western territories. The Potsdam Treaty specifically stated that Poland's borders would be "provisional" until an agreement with Germany was signed. At the close of the war, America occupied West Germany and relations with the Eastern bloc became increasingly difficult because of Soviet domination. Polish Americans feared that America's occupation of, and close relations with, West Germany would mean a distancing from Poland. West Germany received many German refugees who escaped Communist hostility in Poland, and their stories of persecution and hostility were not helpful to Polish-German relations. The Polish American Congress was established in 1944 to ensure that Polish Americans (6 million at the time) had a political voice to support Poland following World War II. The PAC traveled to Paris in 1946 to stop the United States Secretary of State from making further agreements with Germany. U.S. Secretary Byrnes and Soviet diplomat Vyacheslav Molotov both were making speeches expressing support for an economically and politically unified Germany, and both invoked the "provisional" nature of the Oder-Neisse line in their talks. Polish Americans were outraged when Secretary Byrnes stated in Germany that German public opinion should be accounted for in territorial claims. The Polish newspaper Glos Ludu made a cartoon of Byrnes in front of an American flag with Swatstikas and black heads instead of stars, criticizing his support of Germany as a "sell-out". Even pro-Soviet Polish Americans called those lands "Recovered territories", suggesting wide and popular support among American Poles. The PAC remained distrustful of the United States government during the Truman administration and afterwards. In 1950, after East Germany and Poland signed an agreement on the Oder-Neisse line making it officially Polish territory, the U.S. Commissioner in Germany, John J. McCloy, issued a statement saying that a final resolution on the border would require another peace conference.

Postwar

Second wave of immigration (1939–1989)

A wave of Polish immigrants came to the United States following World War II. They differed from the first wave in that they did not want to, and often could not, return to Poland. They assimilated rather quickly, learned English and moved into the American middle class with less of the discrimination faced by the first wave. This group of immigrants also had a strong Polish identity; Poland created a strong national and cultural identity during the 1920s and 1930s when it gained independence, and immigrants carried much of this cultural influx to the United States. Poles in the second wave were much more likely to seek white-collar and professional positions, took pride in expressing Poland's cultural and historical successes, and did not submit to the low status American Poles had taken in previous generations. The background of these immigrants varied widely. Historically, 5 or 6 million Poles lived in territories annexed by the Soviet Union during World War II. Many were aristocrats, students, university graduates, and middle-class citizens who were systematically categorized by the Soviet police; Polish military officers were killed in Katyn, the civilians were deported to remote territories in Central Asia or Nazi concentration camps. During the War, Poles attempted to seek refuge in the United States, and some were allowed in. Following the War, many Poles escaped Soviet oppression by fleeing to sympathetic Western nations such as the United Kingdom, France, and the United States.

A small steady immigration for Poland has taken place since 1939. Political refugees arrived after the war. In the 1980s about 34,000 refugees arrived fleeing Communism in Poland, along with 29,000 regular immigrants. Most of the newcomers were well-educated professionals, artists of political activists and typically did not settle in the long-established neighborhoods.

Since 1945

In 1945 the Red Army took control and Poland became a Communist-controlled satellite of the Soviet Union. It broke free with American support in 1989. Many Polish Americans viewed Roosevelt's treaties with Stalin as backhanded tactics, and feelings of betrayal were high in the Polish community. After the war, however, some higher status Poles were outraged with Roosevelt's acceptance of Stalin's control over Poland; they shifted their vote in the 1946 congressional elections to conservative Republicans who opposed the Yalta agreement and foreign policy in Eastern Europe. However, working-class Polish Americans remained loyal to the Democratic party in the face of a Republican landslide that year. Into the 1960s Polonia as a whole continued to vote solidly for the liberal New Deal Coalition and for local Democratic party organization candidates.

The first candidate on a national ticket was Senator Edmund S Muskie, nominated by the Democrats for vice president in 1968. He was a prominent, but unsuccessful, candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 1972; he later served as Secretary of State. The first appointee to the Cabinet was John Gronouski, chosen by John F. Kennedy as postmaster general 1963–65.

Rep. Dingell, right, with President Kennedy

By 1967, there were nine Polish Americans in Congress including four from the Chicago area. The three best known were Democrats who specialized in foreign policy, taxes and environmentalism. Clement J. Zablocki of Milwaukee served 1949–83, and became chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee from 1977 until his death in 1983; although liberal on domestic issues, he was a hawk regarding the Vietnam War. Dan Rostenkowski served 1959–95, and became chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which writes the tax laws. His father was an influential alderman and party leader from the center of Polonia on the Northwest side of Chicago. Even more influential has been John Dingell of Detroit, who was first elected to Congress in 1955 and is still there (with the second longest tenure on record). A liberal Democrat known for hard-hitting investigations, Dingell has been a major voice in economic, energy, medical and environmental issues. His father John D. Dingell, Sr. held the same seat in Congress from 1933 to 1955. He was the son of Marie and Joseph A. Dzieglewicz, Polish immigrants.

Historian Karen Aroian has identified a bump in Polish immigration in the 1960s and 1970s as the "Third Wave". Poland was liberalized during the Gierek era when emigration was loosened, and U.S. immigration policy remained relatively kind to the Poles. Interviews with immigrants from this wave found that they were consistently shocked at how important materialism and careerism was in the United States. Compared to Poland, as they experienced it, the United States had a very meager social welfare system and neighbors did not recognize the neighborly system of favors and bartering common in Poland. Polish immigrants saw a major difference in the variety of consumer goods in America, whereas in Poland shopping for consumer goods was less a luxury and more a means of survival. Aroian identifies his interviewees may have been skewed by the relatively recent immigrant status of his subjects, as every immigrant faces some setbacks in social standing when entering a new country.

Decay of urban communities

Homes in the Polish district, Detroit. 1942

Polish Americans settled and created a thriving community in Detroit's east side. The name "Poletown" was first used to describe the community in 1872, where there was a high number of Polish residents and businesses. Historically, Poles took great pride in their communities; in a 1912 survey of Chicago, in the black section, 26% of the homes were in good repair while 71% of the Polish homes were; by contrast, only 54% of the ethnically mixed stockyards district were in good repair. Polish neighborhoods were consistently low on FBI crime rate statistics, particularly in Pennsylvania, despite being economically depressed during much of the 20th century. Polish Americans were highly reluctant to move to the suburbs as other white ethnics were fleeing Detroit. Poles had invested millions of dollars in their churches and parochial schools, and World War I drives drained their savings (the Polish National Fund alone received $5,187,000 by 1920). Additional savings were given to family and friends from Poland, where many immigrants and their children sent back money. During the 1960s, the black population of Detroit increased by 98,000, while 386,000 whites were leaving the city. Detroit became known as the murder capital of America. In 1975, the Detroit Polish community was disgusted by the innocent killing of Marian Pyszko, a World War II freedom fighter and 6-year concentration camp survivor who was killed by three African American youth who were avenging the accidental shooting of their friend. The man who shot their friend was sentenced to 3 years for reckless use of a firearm, but the three youths who killed Pyszko were acquitted of all charges by a biased jury. The jurors argued that the black riot was greater than the 3 boys (roughly 700 people were in the Livernois–Fenkell riot where Pyszko was targeted) and there was insufficient evidence to convict them. The Polish community was disgusted by the lack of justice it faced in Detroit, and enmity towards blacks grew during the 1960s and 1970s. Many Polish Americans were forced out by the construction of freeways, public housing, and industrial complexes. More than 25% of Hamtramck's population was displaced by the building of Interstate-75.Poles saw their communities disintegrate as forces such as blockbusting caused their longtime friends and neighbors to take white flight. The quality of life for those who stayed decreased rapidly, as did the sense of community:

Having lived here since her exodus from Poland at age fourteen, my grandmother is bombarded daily with phone calls from high-pressure realtors who tell her she better hurry and sell before "they" all move in and the house becomes worthless. The pitch has succeeded all too well with others and occasionally she admits that "maybe it would be better"...I become angry at those who flee because of fear, bigotry or ignorance. It seems people keep pushing farther and farther out of the city all the white saying it isn't worth their help. I became angry at those who remain and have lost the hope that is so vital for a neighborhood's survival. Many talk of getting out, of biding their time, while ignoring the garbage strewn in the alley behind their houses. Have we become so service oriented that we won't pick up an old tire laying the in street because it's "the city's job: it's not my property?"

As late at 1970, Hamtramck and Warren were highly Polish. The communities (and counterparts in Polish Chicago areas) rapidly changed into naturally occurring retirement communities where young families and single adults fled and left the elderly alone. Many of the elder Polish Americans suffered a loss of control over their daily lives, as many lost the assistance of their children and had a shrinking community to associate with for necessary help and service. Many withdrew from public life and descended into private consumption and activities to occupy their time. Depression, isolation, and loneliness increased in many of Detroit's Poles. The Hamtramck neighborhood used to be inhabited chiefly by Polish immigrants and their children until most moved to Warren, Michigan, north of Detroit. Homes left behind were old and expensive to maintain. Many homes fell into disrepair and neglect, litter grew, and children's playgrounds were deserted.

1960s and 1970s

In the late 1960s and 1970s, Americans of Polish descent felt a new low in their social status. Polish Americans were seen as bigoted and racist towards Blacks during the 1960s, as an increasing number of southern Blacks ran into conflict with Poles inside urban cities such as Detroit and Chicago. In Detroit in particular, Polish Americans were among the last white ethnic groups to remain in the city as its demographics changed into a Black enclave. Poles resented Black newcomers to their urban communities, and resented white liberals who called them racist for their attempts to remain in Polish-majority communities. Poles in Chicago fought against blockbusting by real estate agents who ruined the market value of their homes while changing their communities into low-income, high crime centers. Poles in Chicago were against the open housing efforts of Martin Luther King, Jr., who encouraged black integration into Polish urban communities; his policies and resulting integration efforts led to violent riots between Poles and Blacks in 1966 and 1967, particularly in Detroit. In 1968, a local president of the Chicago Polish Homeowner's Association raised a flag from half-mast to full-mast on the day of MLK's death, nearly sparking a riot. Polish homeowners in Hamtramck were given a legal blow in 1971 when a Michigan federal court ruled against their urban renewal efforts which had effectively decreased the community's black population. The experience created a rift between Polish Americans and political liberalism; Poles were labeled as racist by white liberals who had already fled to the suburbs and did not have any connection to the violence and urban warfare facing Polish American communities. Poles were similarly disgusted by the affirmative action programs institutionalized in their workplaces and schools, and were unfairly blamed for historical slavery and the economic and political disenfranchisement of blacks in America. Race relations between whites and blacks had been poor in many cities, but through the progress of the Civil Rights movement, anti-Black discrimination became highly unacceptable but anti-Polish discrimination did not have the same legal safeguards. Highly offensive jokes commonly replaced the word "black" or "nigger" with "Polack". As an example, historian Bukowczyk heard a student in Detroit tell this "joke":

Question: How can you tell the difference between a dog and a Polack who have been run over by a car?

Answer: For the Polack, there won't be any skid marks.

When he questioned the student why she told this Polish joke, she said it was originally a black joke, but the word "nigger" was replaced by "Polack" because she did not want to be "prejudiced". Whereas Blacks were easily identified by their skin, Polish Americans had the ability to downplay their ethnicity and change their last names to "fit in". In Detroit alone, over 3,000 of the areas' 300,000 Polish Americans changed their names every year during 1960s. A 1963 study based on probate court records of 2,513 Polish Americans who voluntarily changed their names share a pattern; over 62% changed their names entirely from the original to one with no resemblance to the Polish origin (examples include: Czarnecki to Scott, Borkowski to Nelson, and Kopacz to Woods). The second-most common choice was to subtract the Polish-sounding ending (ex: Ewanowski to Evans, Adamski to Adams, Dobrogowski to Dobro), often with an Anglicized addition (Falkowski to Falkner, Barzyk to Barr). These subtractions and Anglicized combinations were roughly 30% of cases. It was very rare for a name to be shortened with a Polish-sounding ending (ex: Niewodomski to Domski, Karpinski to Pinski, Olejarz to Jarz), as such examples accounted for less than .3% of cases. In the late '60s a book of Polish jokes was published and copyrighted, and commercial goods, gift cards, and merchandise followed and even profited at the expense of the Poles. Polish stereotyping was deeply pervasive in America and assimilation, upward mobility, higher education, and even intermarriage did not solve the problem. In 1985, historian Bukowczyk recalled meeting a college student from largely Polish Detroit, Michigan who lived in a home where her Irish-American mother would sometimes call her Polish-American father a "dumb Polack." Americans took no effort to respect or learn the pronunciation of Polish last names, and Poles who made it to positions of public visibility were told to Anglicize their own names. Americans commonly held that Polish names were "unpronounceable" and in an anecdotal study, Linguist John M. Lipski of Michigan State University found his own name was mispronounced by Americans who felt that the Polish root -ski meant his name could not be a simple two-syllable word. He also found that in U.S. cities, mispronunciations were nearly nonexistent in areas where there were no significant Slavic populations such as Houston, Texas. He found that in Toledo, Ohio, and Alberta, Canada, where there were greater Slavic populations, mispronunciations occurred more often, which he believed was an example of unconscious prejudice. With little tolerance for learning and appreciating Polish last names, Americans viewed Poles who refused to change their names as unassimilable greenhorns. During the 1970s, Polish Americans began to take pride in their ethnicity and identified with their Polish roots. In 1972, 1.1 million more people reported Polish ethnicity to the U.S. Census Bureau than they had only 3 years earlier. Public figures began to express their Polish identity openly and several Poles who had often changed their names for career advancement in the past began to change their names back. The 1971 book, Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics explored the resurgence of white ethnic pride that happened in America at the time.

File:Papal Visit to the Philippines Feb 1981.jpg

Pope John Paul II, 1981. As Pope, he elevated the status of Poles around the world

Polish Americans (and Poles around the world) were elated by the election of Pope John Paul II in 1978. Polish identity and ethnic pride grew as a result of his papacy. Polish Americans partied when he was made Pope, and Poles worldwide were ecstatic to see him in person. John Paul II's charisma drew large crowds wherever he went, and American Catholics organized pilgrimages to see him in Rome and Poland. Polish pride reached a height unseen by generations of Polish Americans. Sociologist Eugene Obidinski said, "there is a feeling that one of our kind has made it. Practically every issue of the Polish American papers reminds us that we are in a new glorious age." Polish Americans had been doubly blessed during the election; reportedly, Polish American Cardinal John Krol had played kingmaker at the papal election, and Karol Cardinal Wojtyla became the first Polish pope. John Paul II's wide popularity and political power gave him soft power crucial to Poland's Solidarity movement. His visit to Poland and open support for the Solidarity movement is credited for bringing a swift end to communism in 1981, as well as the subsequent fall of the Iron Curtain. John Paul II's theology was staunchly conservative on social and sexual issues, and though popular as a religious and political figure, church attendance among Polish Americans did slowly decline during his papacy. John Paul II used his influence with the Polish American faithful to reconnect with the Polish National Catholic Church, and won some supporters back to the Catholic Church. John Paul II reversed the nearly 100-year excommunication of Francis Hodur and affirmed that those who received sacraments at the National Church were receiving the valid Eucharist. In turn, Prime Bishop Robert M. Nemkovich paid his respects to John Paul II during his funeral in 2005. John Paul II remains a popular figure for Polish Americans, and American politicians and religious leaders have invoked his memory to build cultural connection.

Civil rights

Polish Americans found that they were not protected by the United States courts system in defending their own civil rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VII states: "No person in the United States shall on the grounds of race, color, or national origins, be excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination." In Budinsky v. Corning Glass Works, an employee of Slavic origin was fired after 14 years for speaking up about name-calling and anti-Slavic discrimination by his supervisors. The judge ruled that the statute did not extend beyond "race" and the employment discrimination suit was dismissed because he was therefore not part of a protected class. In the District of Columbia, Kurylas v. U.S. Department of Agriculture, a Polish American bringing suit over equal opportunity employment was told by the court that his case was invalid, as "only nonwhites have standing to bring an action". Poles were also snubbed by the destruction of their Poletown community in Detroit in 1981, when eminent domain by corporations triumphed against them in court and displaced their historic town. Aloysius Mazewski of the Polish American Congress felt that Poles were overlooked by the eminent domain and corporate personhood changes to U.S. law, arguing for a change in laws so that "groups as well as individuals" could launch anti-defamation lawsuits and confront civil rights charges. Senator Barbara Mikulski supported such a measure, although no movement has been successful in this issue of amending law for ethnic groups not recognized as racial minorities.

1980s and Poland's liberation

File:George HW in Hamtramck.jpg

President George H.W. Bush in Hamtramck, April 17, 1989, promising economic aid to communist Poland for political liberation

U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II placed great pressure on the Soviet Union in the 1980s, leading to Poland's independence. Ronald Reagan supported Poland's independence by actively protesting against martial law. He urged Americans to light candles for Poland to show support for their freedoms which were being repressed by communist rule. In 1982, Reagan met with leaders from western Europe to push for economic sanctions on the Soviet Union in return for liberalizing Poland. Reportedly, European leaders were wary of Russia and sought to practice an ongoing detente, but Reagan pressed firmly for punitive measures against the USSR. The public image of the Polish suffering in an economically and politically backward state hurt the Soviets' image abroad; to change public perception, the Soviets granted amnesty to several Polish prisoners and gave a one-time economic stimulus to boost the Polish economy. George HW Bush met with Solidarity leaders in Poland beginning in 1987 as Vice President. President HW Bush gave a speech on April 17, 1989 to Polish Americans in Hamtramck announcing economic support for Poland, offering money in return for political liberation in the communist regime. Bush's choice of Hamtramck, with its large Polish American population, was done in connection to his speech centered on eastern Europe. Banners at the event included Solidarnosc signs and a backdrop of "Hamtramck: a touch of Europe in America". Bush's speech was politically risky for its promise of financial aid during a tight U.S. budget, and for placing the White House, and not the State Department, as the key decision maker on foreign diplomacy. Bush's original aid plan was a modest stimulus package estimated at $2–20 million dollars, but by 1990, the United States and allies granted Poland a package of $1 billion to revitalize its newly capitalist market. The U.S. Ambassador in Poland John Davis found that President Bush's speech was closely watched in Poland and Poles were eagerly awaiting follow-up on his speech. Davis predicted that a visit by Bush to Poland would be an "action-forcing event for the Polish leadership" and could radically change their government. In Poland, Davis said, "the U.S. occupies such an exaggerated place of honor in the minds of most Poles that it goes beyond rational description...it derives from our economic prosperity and lifestyle, enjoyed by 10 million Polish-Americans and envied by their siblings and cousins left behind..."

Wave of immigration (1989-current)

Polish immigration to the United States experienced a small wave in the years following 1989. Specifically, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent fall of Soviet control freed emigration from Poland. A pent-up demand of Poles who previously were not allowed to emigrate was satisfied, and many left for Germany or America. The United States Immigration Act of 1990 admitted immigrants from 34 countries adversely affected by a previous piece of immigration legislation; in 1992, when the Act was implemented, over a third of Polish immigrants were approved under this measure. The most popular destination for Polish immigrants following 1989 was Chicago, followed by New York City. This was the oldest cohort of immigrants from Poland, averaging 29.3 years in 1992.

Negative media images

American media depictions of Poles have been historically negative. Fictional Polish-Americans include Barney Gumble, Moe Szyslak, Banacek, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Brock Samson, Walt Kowalski of Gran Torino, The Big Lebowski, and Polish Wedding. Polish characters tend to be brutish and ignorant, and are frequently the butt of jokes in the pecking order of the show. In the series Banacek, the main character was described as "not only a rugged insurance sleuth but also a walking lightning rod for Polish jokes." Folklorist Mac E. Barrick observed that TV comedians were reluctant to tell ethnic jokes until Spiro Agnew's "polack jokes" in 1968, pointing to an early Polish joke told by comedian Bob Hope in 1968, referencing politicians. Barrick stated: "... even though the Polack joke usually lacks the bitterness found in racial humor, it deals deliberately with a very small minority group, one not involved in national controversy, and one that has no influential organization for picketing or protesting." During the 1960s and 1970s, there was a revived expression of white ethnicity in American culture. The popular 1970s sitcom Barney Miller depicted Polish-American character Sergeant Wojohowicz as uneducated and mentally slow. Among the worst offenders was the popular 1970s sitcom All in the Family, where protagonist Archie Bunker routinely called his son-in-law a "dumb Polack". The desensitization that was caused by the hateful language in All in the Family created a mainstream acceptance of the jokes, and the word Polack. Sociologist Barbara Ehrenreich called the show "the longest-running Polish joke." In the series Coach, character Dauber Dybinski played the "big, dumb hulk of a player" role for nine series, and a spin-off character George Dubcek (also with a Polish name) in Teech displayed the "burly but dumb son of a former football player". The term Polack was so pervasive in American society through the 1960s and 1970s that high-ranking U.S. politicians followed suit. In 1978, Senator Henry Jackson of Washington made Polish jokes at a banquet. Ronald Reagan told Polish jokes multiple times during his presidential campaign in 1980 and during his presidency. As late as 2008, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania told Polish jokes to an audience of Republican supporters. Reportedly an audience member interrupted him, saying, "Hey careful, I'm Polish", and Specter remarked, "That's ok, I'll tell it more slowly." Mayor Marion Barry slurred Poles in 2012, and was apparently unaware the word Polacks was inappropriate.

Litigation has been pursued by the Polish American community to stop negative depictions of Poles in Hollywood, often to no avail. The Polish American Congress protested against the Dick Cavett Show in 1972, and eventually pushed comedian Steve Allen into an apology for his "polish jokes". In New York State's highest Appellate court, State Division of Human Rights v. McHarris Gift Center (1980), a ruling found that a gift shop was allowed to sell merchandise with "Polack jokes" on them; it was one vote short of making it illegal, based on public accommodations statutes citing the fact that Polish customers should be welcome and free from discrimination in the place of business. A lawsuit filed against Paramount Pictures in 1983 over "polish jokes" in the movie Flashdance was thrown out of court, as the judge found that telling "polish jokes" did not meet the "degree of outlandishness" to harm Poles' reputation.

Contemporary

Polish Americans are largely assimilated to American society and personal connections to Poland and Polish culture are scarce. In the United States, about 90% of Polish Americans of single ancestry report live in a neighborhood of other white ethnics, indicating a very low rate of ethnic isolation. Among American-born citizens of Polish ancestry, roughly 50% report eating Polish dishes, and many can name a variety of Polish foods unprompted. Whereas over 60% of Italian Americans reported eating Italian food at least once a week, less than 10% of Polish Americans ate Polish food once a week. This figure is still a higher occurrence than Irish Americans, who can only name a few traditional Irish foods (typically corned beef and cabbage), and only 30% report eating Irish food each year. Even fewer English, Dutch, and Scottish Americans can report that they eat ethnic cuisine regularly.

Polish imports to the United States have increased in the 21st Century, particularly Polish vodkas. Poland is the world's 4th largest manufacturer of vodka, and as of 2012, is the 4th largest exporter of vodka to the United States. Polish-manufactured Belvedere Vodka launched the "luxury shelf" segment when it was first sold in the United States in 1996. Chopin Vodka similarly is produced in Poland and according to Travel World international magazine, is the "world's only luxury potato vodka". The highest-selling Polish imported vodka in the United States is currently Sobieski, which ranked 8th in U.S. imported vodka consumption. Sobieski has endorsed, as part of its marketing strategy that "Poland is the birthplace of vodka", a historical claim that is of great pride to Poles and Polish Americans. Sobieski actively markets itself in Polish American communities and at Polish American parades, emphasizing the Polish history and heritage of vodka.

Works cited

• Andrews, Theodore (1953). The Polish National Catholic Church in America and Poland. London, United Kingdom: William Clowes and Sons.
• Baker, T. Lindsay (1982). The Polish Texans. San Antonio: The University of Texas Institute of Texas Cultures-San Antonio.
• Bukowczyk, John J. (1996). Polish Americans and Their History: Community, Culture, and Politics. Pittsburgh, Pa: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 0-8229-3953-3. OCLC 494311843.
• Niles Carpenter (1927). Immigrants and their children, 1920: A study based on census statistics relative to the foreign born and the native white of foreign or mixed parentage. Govt. Print. Off. pp. 350–. Retrieved April 30, 2013.
• Joseph Wytrwal (1982). Polish-Black Encounters: A history of Polish and Black relations in America since 1619. Detroit, Michigan: Endurance Press.
• Zych, Adam A. (2005). The living situation of elderly Americans of Polish descent in Chicago. Wroc?aw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Dolnos'la;skiej Szko?y Wyz.szej Edukacji TWP. ISBN 83-89518-15-5. OCLC 169045072.

Further reading

• Bodnar, John, Roger Simon and Michael P Weber. Lives of Their Own: Blacks, Italians, and Poles in Pittsburgh, 1900–1960 (1983) excerpt and text search
• Broz.ek, Andrzej (1985). Polish Americans, 1854–1939. Warsaw: Interpress. ISBN 83-223-2005-1. OCLC 12559288.
• Bukowczyk, John J. (1986). And My Children Did Not Know Me: A History of the Polish-Americans. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-30701-5. OCLC 59790559.
• Erdmans, Mary Patrice (1998). Opposite Poles: Immigrants and Ethnics in Polish Chicago, 1976–1990. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-01735-X. OCLC 37245940.
• Galush, William J. (2006). For More Than Bread: Community and Identity in American Polonia, 1880–1940. East European Monographs. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-88033-587-4. OCLC 255201428.
• Gladsky, Thomas S. (1992). Princes, Peasants, and Other Polish Selves: Ethnicity in American Literature. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 0-87023-775-6. OCLC 24912598.
• Greene, Victor. "Poles" in Stephan Thernstrom, ed., Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic groups (Harvard University Press, 1980) pp. 787–803
• Jackson, David J. (2003). "Just Another Day in a New Polonia: Contemporary Polish-American Polka Music". Popular Music & Society. 26 (4): 529–540. ISSN 0300-7766. OCLC 363770952.
• Jaroszynska-Kirchmann, Anna D., "The Polish American Historical Association: Looking Back, Looking Forward," Polish American Studies, 65 (Spring 2008), 57–76.
• Kantowicz, Edward R. "Polish Chicago: Survival Through Solidarity," in Melvin G. Holli and Peter D. Jones, eds. Ethnic Chicago (3rd ed. 1984) pp. 214–38
• Kruszka, Wac³aw. A History of the Poles in America to 1908: Part Four: Poles in the Central and Western States, Edited by James S. Pula (The Catholic University of America Press, 2001, originally published in 1908; online review
• Kuzniewski, Anthony. Faith and Fatherland: The Polish Church War in Wisconsin, 1896–1918 (Notre Dame U.P., 1980)
• McCook, Brian. The Borders of Integration: Polish Migrants in Germany and the United States, 1870–1924 (Ohio University Press; 2011) 296 pages; $Contrasts the Polish migrants to the Ruhr Valley in Germany with those in northeastern Pennsylvania.
• Kurk McGinley, Theresa (2003). "Embattled Polonia, Polish-Americans and World War II". East European Quarterly. 37 (3): 325. ISSN 0012-8449. OCLC 97880830.
• Lopata, Helena Znaniecka (1976). Polish Americans: Status Competition in an Ethnic Community. Ethnic groups in American life series. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-686436-8. OCLC 1959615.
• Majewski, Karen (2003). Traitors and True Poles: Narrating a Polish-American Identity, 1880–1939. Ohio University Press Polish and Polish-American studies series. Athens: Ohio University Press. ISBN 0-8214-1470-4. OCLC 51895984.
• Nowakowski, Jacek (1989). Polish-American Ways. New York: Perennial Library. ISBN 0-06-096336-0. OCLC 20130171.
• Pacyga, Dominic A. "Poles," in Elliott Robert Barkan, ed., A Nation of Peoples: A Sourcebook on America's Multicultural Heritage (1999) pp. 428–45
• Pienkos, Donald E. PNA: A Centennial History of the Polish National Alliance of the United States (Columbia University Press, 1984)
• Pula, James S. (1995). Polish Americans: An Ethnic Community. Twayne's immigrant heritage of America series. New York: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 0-8057-8427-6. OCLC 30544009.
• Pula, James S. (1996). "Image, Status, Mobility and Integration in American Society: The Polish Experience". Journal of American Ethnic History. 16 (1): 74–95. ISSN 0278-5927. OCLC 212041643.
• Pula, James S. "Polish-American Catholicism: A Case Study in Cultural Determinism", U.S. Catholic Historian Volume 27, #3 Summer 2009, pp. 1–19; in Project MUSE
• Radzilowski, John. "A Social History of Polish-American Catholicism", U.S. Catholic Historian – Volume 27, #3 Summer 2009, pp. 21–43 in Project MUSE
• Richmond, Yale (1995). From Da to Yes: Understanding the East Europeans. Yarmouth, Me: Intercultural Press. ISBN 1-877864-30-7. OCLC 32051226.
• Sadler, Charles Gill (1977). "Pro-Soviet Polish-Americans": Oskar Lange and Russia's Friends in the Polonia, 1941–1945". The Polish Review. 22 (4). Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America: 25–39. ISSN 0032-2970. OCLC 13362578.
• Seidner, Stanley S. (1976). In Quest of a Cultural Identity: An Inquiry for the Polish Community. ERIC: ED167674. OCLC 425945425.
• Silverman, Deborah Anders (2000). Polish American Folklore. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-02569-5. OCLC 237414611.
• Thomas, William Isaac; Znaniecki, Florian Witold (1996) [1918–1920]. The Polish Peasant in Europe and America: A Classic Work in Immigration History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-06484-4. OCLC 477221814.
• *Urbanski, Michael T. "Polite Avoidance: The Story Behind the Closing of Alliance College," Polish American Studies (2009) 66#1 pp. 25–42
• Urbanski, Michael T. "Money, War, and Recruiting an Army: The Activities of Connecticut Polonia During World War I," Connecticut History (2007) 46#1 pp. 45–69.
• Wytrwal, Joseph Anthony (1969). Poles in American History and Tradition. Detroit: Endurance Press. OCLC 29523.
• Zurawski, Joseph W. (1975). Polish American History and Culture: A Classified Bibliography. Chicago: Polish Museum of America. OCLC 1993061.