IMMIGRANT POPULATION STATISTICS
These first figures were “prepared by New Britain Chamber of Commerce in 1922.” Not all are quoted, just the most significant. This was found in the Local History Room.
Nativity of the Foreign-Born Whites in New Britain
1910
|
1920
|
Austria
|
1,972
|
623
|
Canada
|
508
|
439
|
Czecho-Slovakea
|
—
|
360
|
England
|
871
|
730
|
Germany
|
1,605
|
1,112
|
Hungary
|
147
|
109
|
Ireland
|
1,435
|
986
|
Italy
|
2,005
|
3,177
|
Lithuania
|
—
|
1,246
|
Poland
|
—
|
1,152
|
Sweden
|
2,381
|
2,102
|
Turkey
|
203
|
—
|
Armenia
|
—
|
153
|
1. Which immigrant groups dropped from 1910 to 1920? How many of these would be related to WW I, and why?2. The heaviest immigration was obviously coming from 3 main countries. See the statistics for Connecticut below and see how New Britain’s pattern fits in.
Immigrant Settlements in a WPA Federal Writers’ Project for the State of Connecticut, 1938, prepared by Samuel Koenig, Ph.D., Hartford State Dept. of Education, 1938. (The M on the left stand for thousands.)
1. This information obviously explains the absence of Polish immigrant figures for 1910 in New Britain and the Russian figure drop. Why?
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2. If the figures in the accompanying paragraph (above) are correct, then Polish immigration in 1920 would match which other countries’? What country’s immigration is making the most spectacular rise?
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3. In the 1870’s and 1880’s what countries are supplying most of the immigration?