For a discussion of immigrant groups in Connecticut in general, see Unit XI of this volume; for a study of the Italians in particular, see Unit XII. See also Appendix A of Unit XII.
The life of immigrant groups in New Britain can be traced through town records, police blotters, church rolls and occasional editorials. Whether you follow the Irish arriving in the 1840s and after, the Sweden and Germans in the same period, the Poles arriving in the late 1880s or the Italians after the turn of the century, the pattern is a similar one of social isolation, economic struggle, establishment of their own parish through personal sacrifice, individual accomplishment in business or education and finally political success. The period of 1871 to around the turn of the century saw the acceptance of Irish and the early struggles of the Poles. The Irish had had their Church since 1853, St. Mary’s was originally built on Myrtle Street, later on Main Street. Thirty-six Irish families were recorded on the Grand List for 1906-07 with holdings of over $10,000. Politically they were astute.
The naturalization records in the New Britain Town Clerk’s office are interesting; between 1875 and 1900, 3,064 persons became citizens, the vast majority from Great Britain and then Ireland. Austrians and Swedes and others registered, but almost no Poles, Yet, according to the U. S. Census, 1900 there were 1,117 Russian Poles living in the city, The Irish were taking out citizenship papers, and they were gaining power. The 1877 City Directory, although it shows that all the executive offices are held by Yankees, shows the third and fourth wards with Irish aldermen and predominantly Irish councilmen. Of the six city police, three are Irish. One, Patrick Lee, was appointed in 1871 to the first city police force, was also a councilman. When he retired he was memorialized in the
Herald
as one who had never used his night stick on anyone’s head. This immigrant political and social advance took place only twenty and thirty years after the state legislature had limited immigrants’ role under the “Know-Nothing” governorship of William Minor (1855). The Irish militia had been disbanded, the bishops had lost control of church property, and suffrage had been restricted to men able to read the Constitution or laws. Later, in 1868, toughened state electoral laws required “ . . . one to register three weeks before the election and registry boards and polling places closed at 5:00 P.M., a distinct hardship for workers . . . ”
11
Politically, however, the Irish prevailed in New Britain by the time the Poles arrived. Their earliest coming is difficult to trace. The population figures in Appendix I (with the explanation that they were considered Russian) and the obituaries of two of the earliest Polish women in the city provide some of the very little information we have of their arrival. The general pattern of Polish migration and emigration has been studied. In a very interesting piece, Richard Ehrlich points out that for most Poles “America was merely another alternative, perhaps the final and most profitable one, available to someone desperately in need of work to preserve a way of life slipping through his fingers.” The Polish immigrant might have already worked in Prussia, Russia, or the Ukraine, saving money to send home to preserve the land and the family. “Long distance migration was confined mainly to the younger males . . . always their intent was to return home . . . At least 40 per cent, perhaps 60 per cent, did so.”
12
Whether New Britain’s Poles returned at this rate is not known, but Appendix K contains references to their return to Poland as well as some of the prejudice they encountered on the job, in the courts, and in their social life. Certainly this is a good field for oral history investigation in the future. One possible reason for difficulty in finding solid population figures is expressed by a city official in the November 16, 1898
Record
. He claimed he “ . . . took the census of the city as far as possible. He says that among foreigners they didn’t give exact information fearing a tax would be levied on them.”
Evidently the Poles had cause to distrust those in power, for they had to struggle even to form their own church. The beginnings of Sacred Heart parish were difficult. The American bishops did not want their newly burgeoning parishes to be broken up along ethnic lines. The bishop “ . . . under pressure from American nativists . . . sought to use the church as a supra-ethnic instrument for the immigrants’ rapid Americanization and assimilation.”
13
Besides, some of the Irish hierarchy might have agreed with Cardinal McClosky who said “ . . . a pig shanty is an adequate church for the Poles.”
14
But many of the Poles didn’t choose to assimilate. Under the strong leadership of Father Bojnowski, who arrived in New Britain newly ordained in 1895, they created an economic and social entity around the Sacred Heart parish. They built and supported a newspaper,
Przewodnik Katolicki
(Catholic Leader) in 1907; a stone church for Sacred Heart Parish in 1904; a religious order in the same year; a parish school in 1910; and in the 1920’s an orphanage and home for the aged. There were close to twenty-five parish societies and these were the tools which kept the Poles united under Father Bojnowski. The power and wealth wielded in the parish did not go unchallenged, however. The Polish Political Club No. 1 and Mutual Aid Society was formed by thirty-nine individuals and had as its purpose “ . . . to help the Poles acquire citizenship papers, to secure the appointment of Poles to such agencies as the Police Department and Post Office . . . ”
15
This group’s aims were to acquire the benefits the Irish had already achieved. But the dissenters were a challenge to the authority of Father Bojnowski and thus were denounced as holding “drunken balls, having reveries even on Sundays” and showing “ . . . a hostile attitude towards the Catholic Church and its clergy.”
16
Regardless of the resultant split in the community which led to the eventual establishment of a rival parish, the Poles still managed political success. The 1910 election shows Polish councilmen serving from the fifth ward, and a Polish alderman was finally elected in 1918, completing the cycle for immigrant acceptance in the community.