Immigration to America

Immigration is a world-wide issue today, but it is not new. Throughout human history, people have been migrating to other places. This movement of people has always fascinated me. One particular migration of people has been of most interest to me, and that is across the Atlantic to America that began long before 1776 when this country was founded. As a descendant of a passenger on the Mayflower on the paternal side and the granddaughter of a Czechoslovakian-born naturalized citizen on the maternal side, I am the proud and appreciative product of immigration. And I am not alone. Most Americans today are descendants of immigrants who withstood brutal conditions as they crossed the Atlantic.

On board an emigrant ship - 

the breakfast bell immigrants on ship deck, 

1884, Library of Congress Prints and 

Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 

USA, LC-USZ62-60319

I believe America owes much to the millions of immigrants who have come to this country. They have given their raw labor to build the infrastructure that is the foundation of our nation: the canals, the railroads, the roads. Although the jobs available to new arrivals have changed through the decades and the centuries, the contributions of immigrants have always been essential to the strength of America. Let’s take a look at what conditions cause immigration. Why did Europeans, starting in the 1600s, emigrate to the Americas? 

From reading Marcus L. Hansen’s book The Atlantic Migration  and from ideas formed over years of reading about immigration to America, I have reached several conclusions. The reasons for emigration were mainly economic (worsened by population growth), but people also left their birth countries seeking to avoid religious persecution and forced conscription. I discussed the “push” and “pull” factors that influence the movement of people in my post of April 19,2014.

“Descriptive portraiture of Europe in storm and calm….,”  

Edward King, 1886, C.A. Nichols, 

Springfield, MA, https://www.flickr.com/photos/

internetarchivebookimages/14595849259/ 

The economic push factors first centered around agriculture. For much of the time that humans have been on this earth, raising crops has been the main way of survival. And anyone who has tried to grow a garden can attest to the effect weather has on the harvest. For thousands of years, people have been at the mercy of the elements as they try to grow enough food to pay the landlord and feed their own families. Droughts, floods, insect infestations, worn-out soil and other natural events have brought devastation and starvation and driven people to seek new land.

It was not until the 18^th century with the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in England that the majority of the population would become less dependent on farming for their livelihood. The Industrial Revolution caused a shift in the economic paths people took to sustain their families. Although agriculture remained paramount to the sustenance of most people, small cottagers benefited from advances in transportation to increase markets for their hand crafts (spinning, weaving, knitting) to supplement what they could raise on their small parcels of land.

Irish spinner and spinning wheel.
County Galway, Ireland,
between 1890 and 1900,
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, 

Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

Mechanization slowly developed and factories began pulling people from their homes.

Walton, Perry, The Story of Textiles, 1912,
 J.S. Lawrence, Boston, MA, p. 166-A

The movement of poor peasants to factory work did not relieve their poverty (due to low wages) and overcrowding in urban areas led to the spread of disease. The health and life expectancy of the new factory workers suffered from conditions brought about by mechanization, including exposure in enclosed spaces to air full of toxins from textile production and injuries from machines. As we have seen, poor economic conditions played a big part in the urge for people to look for opportunities somewhere else. 

From the early 1600s through the early 1900s, the “New World” (as it seemed to the Europeans) functioned as a safety valve for people from Europe who were fleeing the situations caused by the events mentioned above. Other things also “pushed” people to leave their birth countries. These include the intermittent warring between European countries that made daily living for people precarious: food shortages, more taxes to pay for military activity, and forced conscription were factors that encouraged emigration.

“Descriptive portraiture of Europe
in storm and calm….,”
  Edward King, 1886, C.A. Nichols,
Springfield, MA, https://www.flickr.com/photos/
internetarchivebookimages/14595830779/

The lack of religious freedom was one other push factor that led people to leave Europe and sail across the Atlantic to America. 

This discussion of push and pull factors leads us to ponder how emigration affects both the sending (home) country and the receiving  (destination) country. The effects of immigration (economic, cultural, social) on America is right now and historically has been the cause of heated debate and sometimes violent protests all the way back to colonial times. In a post from July 9, 2014, I discussed the anti-immigrant movement symbolized by the Know Nothing Party  which was born and became popular at a time of high immigration of poor, unskilled Catholics from Ireland.

 How American-born or even many naturalized citizens feel about new immigrants often stems from fear of the outsider: will our language/culture be lost, will our society be taken over by foreigners, will our jobs be lost?  What never seems to enter the equation are two factors. First, history has shown that the children of immigrants nearly always embrace this country with its language, culture and government as their own. Second, the immigrant generation provides labor for jobs that many native Americans do not want.

Know-nothingism in Brooklyn, 1881, Illus. in: Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper,

 vol. 51 (1881 Jan. 15), p. 340, 

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs 

Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

America has been eager to accept immigrant labor for more than three centuries, but many Americans have not been as willing to welcome them into the fabric of our society. Joseph Connor wrote an excellent article in "American History Magazine,"¹ chronicling American sentiment toward immigrants since our nation began. Connor shows that the American people’s vacillating  relationship with immigration often coincides with economic shifts in the economy. This view is corroborated by Eytan Meyers in his study² of immigration policy, where he states that laws restricting immigration were passed during the recession of 1882-1885 and again during the depression of 1891-1897.

Politicians and others have long tried to understand and sway public opinion. And one of the best ways to grab the public’s attention is through images. With the advent of newspapers and magazines, would-be movers and shapers of popular belief found a successful tool in the art of political cartooning. The political cartoon also functions on the back end to capture the prevailing mood of the citizenry, actually responding to the public’s attitude to many things, including immigration, at different points in our history.

Joseph Connor included two political cartoons in his piece that clearly show how public opinion on immigration parallels economic downturns. One can ask several questions of these cartoons. Do they convey just the opinions of the artist? Does the artist attempt to capture the widespread feelings/fears/beliefs of the day? Is the artist conveying the opinions of one political party or another? Is the artist simply portraying the feeling of the publication paid for his/her work?

The title of the first cartoon, “Columbia's Unwelcome Guests” gives us a big clue as to the sentiment behind the drawing. Frank Beard was the illustrator, and the cartoon was published in 1885 by Judge Magazine at the tail end of a four year recession. In the drawing, Mr. Beard depicts multitudes of immigrants from the sewers of Germany, Russia, and Italy pouring across the Atlantic and breaching our shores. As you can see from the labels he places on the newcomers, (Socialists, Communists, Anarchists, Dynamiters) Beard shows them threatening the law and order of America.

'Columbia's Unwelcome Guests.' American cartoon by Frank Beard, 

1885, showing unrestricted U.S. immigration policies

 encouraging the arrival of anarchists, socialists, 

and the Mafia from the sewers of Italy, Russia, 

and Germany; used by permission under  2019 

The Granger Collection LTD d/b/a Granger Academic.

The title of the second cartoon, “Where the Blame Lies” by Grant T. Hamilton is a not-so-subtle condemnation of immigrants also. It was published in 1891, (the beginning of a seven-year depression) in Judge Magazine. Hamilton goes a bit further in his name-calling as he links political movements, crime and poverty to certain nationalities: German Socialist, Russian Anarchist, Italian Vagabond, English Convict, and Irish Pauper. Perhaps the saddest part of the cartoon is the Statue of Liberty is pictured in the background.

Hamilton, Grant E., Artist. Where the blame lies / Hamilton. 

Castle Clinton New York United States, 1891. 

New York: Sackett & Wilhelms Litho. Co., 

April 4. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/97515495/.

In conclusion, humans have been on the move for centuries. Many reasons spur this movement, and we have mentioned some of the major ones in this post in our discussion of immigration to this country. Throughout its history, America has been the beneficiary of the labor and the many other contributions that newcomers bring. Let us never forget this.

Locating an Ancestral Homeland in Ireland

In an early Chicago history from 1912, Josiah Seymour Currey mentions James Carney as one of the earliest Irish settlers in the muddy, swampy area that was to become Chicago. He joined with other intrepid and enterprising people (including Native Americans, French Canadians, the offspring of the unions between French and Native Americans, and Americans from other established cities and towns) to build a village that would become a great metropolis in a few decades.

Fort Dearborn & Chicago in 1831.jpg,
probably engraved from a sketch by Juliette Kinzie, wikimedia

James Carney is listed in the Robert Fergus’ Chicago Directory, 1830 as having a “grocery and provision store, 133 Lake Street.” p. 9 A Patrick Timoney is listed as a laborer, boarding with James Carney. p. 33.

As mentioned in a previous post, this James Carney was a merchant, grocer, and finally a brewer in the 1830s-1850s in Chicago. He belonged to a stellar group of early businessmen who laid the economic foundations for the young city. But who was this Irish Chicagoan? Where did he come from in Ireland? Or did he come from Northern Ireland? On the map below, Northern Ireland is at the top right and the rest of the country is Ireland.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/
commons/archive/d/d7/20070313214912%21Ireland.svg

Where did he learn the trading, marketing, operating, brewing skills that brought him such success in Chicago? With whom did he associate in Chicago? This became my challenge – learning as much as I could about James’ life in Chicago from available records and maybe getting some clues as to where in Ireland James Carney was born and lived until his emigration to America. In a later post I will explore possible connections between James and John Carney, my great great grandfather.

If you have done any research on your Irish American ancestors, you have probably faced this obstacle: a minimal number of records both here and across the Atlantic. If you’re lucky, you might have a family bible, oral histories, photos, or maybe an heirloom or two. In my case I had none of the above about James Carney. Despite the scarcity of official records, the fact that James participated in local politics and joined in some social groups earned him a mention or two in some local histories of Chicago. Let’s start there.

James Carney was an early Irish immigrant and successful merchant who recognized that participation in local politics could be an entry into acceptance as an “American.” In 1840 he ran for alderman of Chicago’s second ward and was elected as noted  on p. 102 in M.L. Ahern’s Political History of Chicago: 1837-1887.

In addition to his work as a businessman and his political service, James also showed a passion for the independence of his birth country. In the 1844 Chicago City Directory, reprinted in 1902 by Ellis and Fergus, he is listed as the treasurer for The Chicago Repeal Association. This group’s mission, as was of the original group in Ireland, was to advocate for the repeal of the 1800 Acts of Union that joined England and Ireland into United Kingdom of Great Britain.

James was also active in the intellectual life of his Catholic parish of Old St. Mary’s. The photo below is the third structure of the church which was built on Madison and Wabash in 1842.

St. Mary's Cathedral of Chicago, from Robert N.
Dennis collection of stereoscopic views.jpg;
NY Public Library, digital ID G90F170_001F

The 1844 City Directory lists him as the treasurer of the Catholic Library Society (p. 68) I could find no information about this society after a google search and an inquiry to the Archdiocese ofChicago. But the name of the society, the fact that it met in the basement of Old St. Mary’s Church, and the time of its existence (1840s) provide some clues. At this time in Chicago’s early history, public libraries were non-existent. It wasn’t until after the Great Fire of1871 that a public library system was created. Religious, civic-minded businessmen with an interest in both local, national and world affairs would require a comfortable and private place to read/discuss both Catholic and secular newspapers, magazines, and books.

We now have some knowledge of James Carney’s business, civic, and social footprint in early Chicago, but where did he come from in Ireland? To begin to answer this question, we need to re-visit that research technique called “cluster genealogy” that I discussed in my blog post  Immigrants to America tended to travel from the old country in groups of people known to each other. This historical phenomenon is known as "network migration."  (p. 83-84.) Once in America, they lived near the same people and others from their country of origin. Since we don’t know where James Carney lived in Ireland, maybe we can find out some answers from the people he lived with, worked with, and worshiped with. Who were James Carney’s associates? 

The 1850 Chicago, Cook, IL federal census provides a detailed look at James Carney’s household; we see who worked for him in the brewery and lived in his household: Patrick Timoney, Daniel McElroy, John O’Neill and Mary McGillen. But how long had these families been in community? Let's start with US records.

The earliest documents in Chicago of James Carney and allied families are in the marriage records from Old St. Mary’s Catholic Church in its second structure at Michigan and Madison.

Chicago History Museum, ICHi-37096.
J.H. Murphy, photographer

As early as 1836, James Carney and several Timoney family members are witnesses for weddings:

• 10-01-1836 Marriage of Joseph Brown & Elsie Donnelly; Witnesses: Patrick Kelly, James Carney p. 8

• 07-06-1837 Marriage of Denis McCarty & Marguerite McCloghart; Witnesses: Francis M. Crogha, Esther Timoney p. 9

• 12-26-1837 Marriage of Lawrence Dorsey &Jane Strickland; Witnesses: William Dorsey, Catherine Timoney p. 10

• 09-18-1839 Marriage of James Summer & Elleanor Summers; Witnesses: Patrick Duffy, Catherine Timoney p. 13

A researcher, who wishes to be anonymous, on the O’Neill and McGillen lines, found baptism records at St. Mary of the Assumption, (Old St. Mary’s on Wabash,) that reveal more connections among the families:

• 1 Jan 1850 - Marriage of John O'Neill and Ann McGillen; Witnesses: Daniel McElroy & Bridget Carney

• 15 Dec 1850 - Baptism of James Edward O'Neill; Sponsors: Daniel McElroy & Mary Timoney

• 12 Nov 1852 - Baptism of Mary Anne (Mollie) Victoria O'Neill; Sponsors: James Carney & Ann Carney

• 19 May 1854 - Baptism of Alice (Sr. Cornelia) O'Neill; Sponsors: Patrick Timoney & Margaret O'Kane

A pivotal point in the web of familial relationships is James Carney’s kinship to the McGillen line; he was the grand uncle of Edward McGillen, a fact that I found in a 1909 history of Chicago:

“Edward McGillen…came to Chicago (from Ireland) in the early 1830s when he was only eight years old. He was brought here by a grand uncle, James Carney, who was a merchant and traded with the Indians in Fort Dearborn days of Chicago history.” p. 712.

A geographic anchoring for Edward McGillen comes from a death certificate for his son, John McGillen, dated 01 March 1924 in Chicago, IL., stating that he was born in Fermanagh County, Northern Ireland.

Wikimedia, GNU Free Documentation
License, Fermanagh_Ulster.png 2007
(Fermanagh is in red, NI in bright green)

Thus we have established a family foothold in Ulster for James Carney’s grandnephew, our first placing of a cohort across the ocean.

The aforementioned researcher also shared with me that some of her McGillen ancestors lived in Leitrim County, Ireland in the townland of Kiltyclogher near the Fermanagh border. In the 1911 Ireland Census, a Bessie McGillen, age 74, is listed as mother of Patrick McGillen, age 39. Bessie’s birthdate puts the family in County Leitrim prior to 1837.

By Island_of_Ireland_location_map.svg:
Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa)derivative work:
Rannpháirtí anaithnid (talk)derivative work: Mabuska
 (Island_of_Ireland_location_map.svg)
 [CC BY-SA 3.0  (https://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons
(County Leitrim is dark green)

What about the rest of the cohort families: McElroy, O’Neill, and Timoney? Did they originally hail from Northern Ireland, around Fermanagh near Leitrim or Tyrone? Dr. Tyrone Bowes has created a tool that was just right for me to use to begin my search. He made a geographical distribution of surnames in Ireland/Northern Ireland and plotted them on a map, and it is available for purchase on the website. 

To spread out this large map and see the names of your target families jump out at you is truly an awesome experience. Three names (McCarney, McElroy, and O’Neill) appear in the Northern Irish county of Tyrone (bordering on Fermanagh to the north) and the name Timoney is shown just across the northwestern border of Fermanagh with County Donegal.

With this information from Bowes site to orient me, I moved on to Griffith’s Valuation which is like a census in that it recorded where people lived and what property they owned in mid-nineteenth century Ireland. This record is arranged according to the levels of administrative units in Ireland/Northern Ireland: townland (village,) civil parish, religious parish, Poor Law Union (based on neighboring townlands around a central market town,) barony, and county. A civil parish often included more than one barony or county. The website Ask About Ireland provides free access to those who want to search Griffith’s Valuation. 

Where to begin my search in the database? I thought the best place would be the important clue we have: County Leitrim, near Kiltyclogher by the Fermanagh border, where the McGillens once lived. From here we might see if any of the families were in nearby Fermanagh also.

When we look name distribution in County Leitrim near Kiltyclogher and the Fermanagh border, we see an interesting picture. Members of the Carney family are found in two townlands in Leitrim County in the barony of Drumhaire. The first townland is Manorhamilton, in the Civil Parish of Cloonclare, which is 7 miles from the second townland of Cashel, in the Civil Parish of Killanummery. Members of the three of the four associated families all lived in the same barony between 5-9 miles of one of these townlands. One family lived in the barony of Roscloger which is only 6 miles from Manorhamilton. This can be shown more clearly on the map below. 

Map data @Google 2018

When we turn to the locations of Carney and associated families in County Fermanagh, we also find an intriguing picture. Carney family members settled in the townlands of Culky and Laragh, about five miles from the large market townland of Enniskillen. The other families all lived within 8-13 miles of Culky. As can be seen on the map below, Enniskillen is about 15 miles from the County Leitrim border.

Map data @Google 2018

The results of my search were no surprise; members of the five different families were scattered in, around and between the townlands of Kiltyclogher (County Leitrim, bordering Fermanagh) and Enniskillen in County Fermanagh near the Leitrim border.

I started this project with two goals:

• To find out if the four families that lived in the Carney household in Chicago in the 1850 Federal Census might be known to each other before they came to the US

• To find out where in Ireland/Northern Ireland James Carney was born and lived before his emigration to America.

I am very happy with how far I have come in my effort to find the homeplace of James Carney and his associated families in Northern Ireland. I have used Irish records to show that the five families did indeed live near each other in Northern Ireland along both sides of the border of County Leitrim near Kiltyclogher and up to Enniskillen in County Fermanagh. However, more research is needed to try to identify more exactly the Carney townland/village. In a subsequent post, I will explore the possible connections between James Carney and my great great grandfather, John Carney.



Labels: Irish, immigrants, Chicago, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Carney/Kearney, Chicago city directories, cluster genealogy, cohort, collateral families

1909 Greektown Chicago -- You are There

One of my most fervent wishes is to get as close to my ancestors as possible. I yearn to look into their apartment windows, listen to their dinner conversation, or shadow them as they go about their daily work. Perhaps what I want most is to sit with them and ask questions:  what made you leave your birth country, where did you settle in the US, what were your communities like in America, and what did you do for entertainment?

I came closer to my ancestors than ever before when I discovered a journal article on JSTOR by Grace Abbott, “A Study of the Greeks in Chicago,”

Grace Abbott, 1878-1939, 1930 Nov. 17, 
LC-USZ62-73282, 

Library of Congress Prints and
 Photographs

 Division Washington, D.C. 
20540 USA

published in 1909. (Note: for more information on JSTOR, please see my post of Sept 30, 2014) Not only did Ms. Abbott live in Chicago during the times my Greek ancestors were there, but she studied Hull House census data gathered from the Greek community and then wrote about her findings. As I read her piece, I found answers to some of my questions about the lives of the Greek immigrants to Chicago, including my great grandfather Peter Flessouras, who came to America in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

From my research, I know that Peter Flessouras came from Pigadakia, a small village south of Tripoli in the Peloponnese area of Greece. (Please see my post of Nov 16, 2015 to see maps of Peter’s Greek homeland.) 

But I didn’t know until I read Abbott’s Study that:

 “Most of the Greeks who come to the United States (were) from the Peloponnesus.” (p. 380) 

This area of Greece has so much rocky terrain that farming is difficult. When my husband and I visited the Peloponnese in September of 2015, we saw this challenging terrain.

View of terraced land once used for
farming in Vatheia, taken
by Bert Schuster, Sept 2015

With agriculture as the principle means of livelihood at that time, the lack of good crop land led to a larger migration from the Peloponnese than from other parts of Greece where the soil was more conducive to farming. This small piece of geographical information partially answered my question to my great grandfather: why did you leave Greece?

Ms. Abbott also reveals an interesting behavior of Greek immigrants: 

“All of them talk of ‘the Athens’ as though it had been their home, but although it belongs to them in a very intimate sort of way, very few of them have ever seen it. For example, out of 424 who live within a few blocks of Hull House 205 came from Sparta, 102 from Tripolis, and 5 from Athens. Moreover, most of those who say they came from Sparta and Tripolis, have not really lived in those towns but in the country villages nearby.” (p. 380)

I can see why my great grandfather might say he was from Tripolis as no one outside of his community would have heard of Pigadakia, 15miles south of there. 

Ms. Abbott provides a fact about the life of my ancestors in Greece that I did not know: 

“There is peasant proprietorship of land in the Peloponnesus and most of those who emigrate have lived on small farms which they owned and worked for themselves.” (p. 385) 

So, my Greek ancestors were not tenant farmers as my Irish and Swiss forebears likely were. 

Perhaps this experience working for themselves helped steer the Greeks into areas of the American economy that would allow them to be more independent than if they went to work in factories.

I have heard from talking with Greek Americans that an entry-level job for Greek immigrants, as for many other ethnic groups who came to America, was working on the railroad. Ms. Abbott confirms this:

 “Like other foreigners most of the Greeks must first serve an apprenticeship in the gangs that do the railroad and general construction work for the country.” (p. 386) 

Steam shovel doing construction work for the Western

 Pacific Railroad, Thompson, P. J., 1906, LC-USZ62-29487,

  Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

 Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

But the fierce desire for independence and an entrepreneurial spirit which the Greeks brought from home combined to make their time on the railroad

 “…shorter than with most nationalities.” (p. 386) Within a short while “…he has learned some English and has accumulated enough money to venture on a small commercial enterprise for himself. He becomes a peddler, perhaps later owns a fruit-stand and finally an ice-cream parlor.” (p. 386)

Since there were no farms in early 20^th century Chicago, Greek farmers adapted to their new conditions by peddling food instead of growing it. Some photographs from the Library of Congress’ Prints and Photographs Division show how peddling foods was not unfamiliar to Greeks. (Note: I came across these photos on the internet but did not know their source. I sought the help of Maureen Taylor who is known as "the photo detective" for her skills in photo identification. Thank you, Maureen, for identifying the source of the following two photos.)

Poultry pedlar in Greek costume, Athens, Greece, c1895,

 LC-USZ62-65904, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

 Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

Areopagus and Theseion, N.W. form Athens, toward sacred way to

 Eleusis, c1907 Jan. 31, LC-USZ62-66122, Library of Congress

 Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

Peter Flessouras described himself as a peddler and huckster on several birth records of his children and on the 1910 Chicago, Cook, IL federal census. However, unlike many of his cousins, he did not progress to become the owner of a grocery, a candy store or a restaurant. Here is a photo that could have been my great grandfather:

Street peddler pushing his cart past Kentron Cafe and Mouzakiotis

 Music Store on Halsted St., courtesy of the

National Hellenic Museum, Chicago, Illinois

Another question that tugs at my mind: what kinds of institutions did the Greeks build in their new American communities? Again, Ms. Abbott provides an answer:

 “The largest settlement of Chicago Greeks is in the nineteenth ward, north and west of Hull House. Here is the Greek Orthodox Church, a school supervised by the priest in which about thirty children are taught a little English, some Greek, much of the achievements of Hellas…here too, is the combination Greek bank, steamship ticket office, notary public, and employment agency, and the coffee-houses, where the men drink black Greek coffee, play cards, speculate on the outcome of the next Greek lottery, and in the evening sing to the accompaniment of the Greek bagpipes or -- evidence of their Americanization -- listen to the phonograph.” (p. 380)

As part of the Hull House papers, period photos were taken that add to the data collected from door-to-door interviews conducted by census collectors trained by Hull House. Fortunately, some photos from the Hull HouseYearbooks of the early decades of the twentieth century are online, thanks to the University of Illinois at Chicago. These add to Ms. Abbott’s description of the activities that the Greeks pursued after hours:

A Group of Greek Wrestlers – Hull House Gymnasium,

6375.JPG, Hull House Yearbook, 1927, p. 39,

http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm/ref/collection/uic_hull/id/284

Greek Woman's Club, 6360.JPG, 

Hull House Yearbook, 1910, p. 24, 

http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm/ref/collection/uic_hull/id/275

In conclusion, genealogists seek ways to connect with their ancestors. Since we are physically unable to talk with those who have passed away, one tool that enables us to “visit” the times our ancestors lived is through contemporary written and photographic materials. Journals from our target time period can be very useful in building a picture of vanished lives. JSTOR provides a way to access many such journals. 

Academic Journals: A Powerhouse of Research

Most genealogy researchers are very familiar with the journals of genealogy societies: local, regional and national. An example of a local society journal is the ChicagoGenealogist, a publication of the Chicago Genealogical Society. The Western New York Genealogical SocietyJournal, published by said society , covers eight counties. A national organization, such as the NationalGenealogical Society, will have a national journal -- the National Genealogical Society Quarterly.

Many genealogical journals, including the ones above, are classified as academic or scholarly journals. When a writer submits an article to an academic journal, he or she can expect to have the piece peer-reviewed. Because of the rigorous standards that writers in academic journals must adhere to, the quality of the research is very high.

en:State University of New York at Brockport's 

Hartwell Hall, east side, DanielPenfield,

 31 May 2010, Wikimedia.

Peer-reviewed journals follow some established patterns.The Department of Sociology at the College of Brockport posted an article, Reading Journal Articles, on the college website, which outlines the framework that makes up a report of research in an academic journal. The parts of this framework look very similar to the parts of a good research plan; the basic elements of research are all here:

First, the scholarly article begins with an Abstract or summary of the research question: What is the reason for this study? What are the topics/questions being investigated?

Second, comes the Introduction:“What is already known about this topic and what is left to discover?” 

Third, is the Literature Review: “The review of literature is meant to discuss previous work on the topic, point out what questions remain, and relate the research presented in the rest of the article to the existing literature.” 

The fourth part of a journal article is the Methods and Data: What did the author find and how did he/she find it? 

The fifth section is Analysis and Results: What analytic techniques does the author use to tease out information from the data? How does the author interpret the findings?  

The final step in the reporting on research is the Discussion and Conclusion:  How do the findings connect with other data? What other questions can be asked based on the new information? Has this research added any new knowledge to this topic that would be valuable to others?

Many genealogical societies publish scholarly journals that contain information very helpful to family researchers. But academic journals in a variety of disciplines often contain articles of great interest to genealogists.

in the stacks, Anna Creech, April 14, 2005, 

Creative Commons, flickr.com

Where might one look to find these publications? Scholarly journals have long resided in college and other libraries. But in this age of the internet, digital copies are now available for many journals.

Used by permission JSTOR

According to Wikipedia, in 1995 Princeton University led an effort to digitize ten journals at seven libraries in order to save storage space. The project was called JSTOR, “pronounced JAY-stor; short for Journal Storage.” Today JSTOR offers “more than 1900 journal titles” from over 900 publishers. 

To get an idea of the breadth of the journal offerings at JSTOR:

Go to the webpage and follow these steps:

In the upper right of the screen (next to JSTOR logo), click “About.”

On the menu bar at the top of the screen, hold the mouse on “For Publishers” to access a drop-down menu.

Click on “JSTOR Publishers & Content Providers.”

This gives you an A-Z list of the more than 900 content providers whose journals are in the database. You can also find journals arranged by content area: Browse by Subject.

I did a quick search and found these intriguing organizations sure to get a genealogist’s interest up:

Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society

Economic History Society

Georgia Historical Society

Presbyterian Historical Society

University of Arizona Vertical Logo,

 https://brand.arizona.edu/guide/identity,

19 September 2014, Wikimedia.

Now that we know about JSTOR and its treasures, how can we access the journals? For faculty, staff and students of one of the 8,400 institutions that belong to JSTOR world-wide (including many colleges and universities, museums and public libraries), unlimited access is free. If you are an alumna or alumnus of one of these participating universities, you may also have free access. I was greatly pleased to see my alma mater, the University of Arizona, on the list!

How about for un-affiliated individuals? JSTOR has two ways you can gain access: JPASS (costs and has some limits) and Register and Read  (free but has limits.) JSTOR is also offering free access (some limits) to journals “published prior to 1923 in the United States and prior to 1870 elsewhere” through a program called Early Journal Content. 

Well, now that we know how to access journals at JSTOR and what kinds of journals we can expect to find, let’s look at the results of a search. One of my family lines is Irish, and they lived in Chicago from the 1850s. I want to learn as much about the lives of these people in the mid to late nineteenth century as I can. In JSTOR, I did a search on “Irish Chicago” and got over 2500 hits.

 But on page 5, I found this listing:

Neighborhood Effects on the School Attendance of Irish Immigrants' Sons in Boston and Chicago in 1860 David W. Galenson American Journal of Education, Vol. 105, No. 3 (May, 1997), pp. 261-293.

It is important to remember that although this article was not written for genealogists, it has great significance for anyone interested in American history:  life in large cities in the nineteenth century with an emphasis on the lives of immigrants. 

The ghetto, Chicago, Ill., Bird's-eye view of street scene, c1920, 

LC-USZ62-80739, Library of Congress Prints and

 Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

Dr. Galenson conducted this study to shed more light on a question that has challenged experts in academia, government, and non-profits: does growing up in poverty in urban ghettos decrease children’s chances of becoming employable, responsible, engaged citizens? As he states in the introduction to the study:

“In recent years social scientists have become increasingly interested in the question of how members of ethnic and racial minorities are injured economically by living in segregated neighborhoods. A central concern has been that the poverty of these neighborhoods may be self-perpetuating.”  p. 261.

As Dr. Galenson noted, this concern with the adverse effects of poverty on immigrant children is not new:

“It was often expressed in the nineteenth century, with a particular focus on the problem of immigrant children who failed to attend school.” p. 261-262.

The purpose of this study was to “investigate the concern of (George Emerson, prominent Boston educator) and others in the nineteenth century that the children of immigrants who lived in ethnic ghettos were less likely to attend school than their peers who lived elsewhere.” p. 262.

1860 Census Questionnaire,
1860 Image Gallery,
US Census Bureau website.

Of great interest to genealogical researchers is the source Dr. Galenson used for his study: the 1860 Federal Census for Boston, MA and Chicago, IL. He looked at each of the wards in both Boston and Chicago and compared them by wealth and ethnicity – with a focus on Irish heads of household.

Many of us have perused census documents, but it is unlikely that we have done anything like what Dr. Galenson did with the data.  Among the information the 1860 Census asked for were the ages of the children living in the household and if they had attended school at any time during the last year, what ethnicity the people in the household were and if the family income was over or under $1,000 for the period.

Correlating this data for the different wards in Boston and Chicago allowed Dr. Galenson to see the effects of the wealth of a household, and if the household were Irish, on the chances of the children attending school. And what he discovered was startling:

“…in Boston the probability of school attendance was positively related to a ward’s wealth and negatively related to its proportion of Irish residents, but in Chicago the reverse was true.”  p. 270-271.

In other words, if you were a poor, Irish male child in Chicago in 1860, you had a better chance of attending school than a child of similar wealth and ethnicity in Boston.

The rest of Galenson’s study attempted to explain why this difference existed. He found that there was no Catholic School System in Boston, so the public schools in Boston were pretty much the only game in town – “…more than 85 percent of all children who attended school in Boston in 1855 and 1860 went to public schools.”  p. 271 In other words, the public schools had a monopoly on the market. Unless you were wealthy, your children had only one choice – the public school.

In Chicago, on the other hand, the public schools had competition from the Catholic Church. In fact, in 1860 nearly 36% of Chicago children attended private school (mainly Catholic.)  p. 275

Why would it make such a difference on school attendance if a child had the choice to attend a public or a Catholic school? Galenson found the answer in a condition that differed in each city. Boston had a public system that went back to 1635 while Chicago’s “…basis for a city school system was first established by an act of the Illinois legislature in 1837….” p. 283. Along with the much longer history of its public education system, Boston had more nativist sentiment among the administrators who ran the schools and the teachers who interacted with the students.

American citizens! We appeal to you in all calmness. Is it not time to pause? . . . 

A paper entitled the American patriot, Boston : Published by

 J.E. Farwell & Co., 1852, LC-DIG-ppmsca-07575,

 Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

 Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

Chicago was different:

“In contrast to Boston, Chicago’s early public school system may have also had a different attitude toward immigrants. Chicago’s population was very heterogeneous from its earliest days, as the foreign-born made up 30 percent of its population in 1843 and more than 50 percent in 1850.”  p. 284. 

So what conclusion did Dr. Galenson make as to why Irish boys in 1860 Chicago attended school in greater numbers than their cohorts in Boston?

Irish children in 1860 Chicago had the choice of attending a Catholic School where their ethnicity, social class and religion were respected. On the other hand,  Irish school-age boys in 1860 Boston had only one choice of school -- the public school, where they encountered discrimination due to their poverty, their Irishness, and their Catholicism.   

I learned an incredible amount of history from this academic study – history, economic, sociology, education, immigration – all covered in this article whose author was comparing school attendance of Irish immigrant sons in 1860 Boston and Chicago. And only in JSTOR did I find this resource.

Categories: genealogy tools

Escape to Kentucky in the 1940s

If you aren’t yet familiar with the novel, A Far Piece to Canaan, by Sam Halpern, you’re in for an unforgettable reading experience.

Used by permission of
Harper Collins and author

 This book, although a novel, reads like a memoir. The first-person narrative keeps you riveted to the page.

You can read Canaan on many levels. First, there is the pure joy of being immersed in rural Kentucky of the 1940s. For anyone with an interest in family history, this is a visit to a by-gone time and place that you won’t want to miss.

When you read Canaan, you get a glimpse of daily life seventy years ago in a small farming community where everyone (except the few landlords) is trying to eke out a living by sharecropping. Although extreme poverty hangs over the community, this seems to help bring people together. We watch neighbors come together at revival meetings, during plantings and harvests when someone is injured or falls sick, and when their stock

Sheep grazing on farm of Russell Spears near Lexington, Kentucky, 

Wolcott, Marion Post, 1910-1990, photographer, 

[1940 Sept.?], LC-USF33-031128-M1, 

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division 

Washington, DC 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

 is threatened by an unknown peril.

The main character is Samuel Zelinsky, who at the outset is the twelve-year old son of a Jewish couple, Morris and Liz Zelinsky. Morris is a sharecropper, and the novel begins when the family moves to an area “fifteen miles south of Lexington, Kentucky” to begin three years of cropping on Mr. Berman’s farm. You can read Canaan as a “coming of age” story. Halpern weaves an interlocking tale of a group of young boys who have fun doing things that kids today often miss out on as they build friendships. But the group also finds out that life can put you into situations where you are torn between loyalty and doing what’s right.

Halpern appeals to all of our senses as he paints a picture of Kentucky:

“March and early April crept by in their wet, cool, blustery, miserable way, and real spring come on with its bee-buzzing sounds and warm-wind feeling. 

http://www.forestwander.com/2009/02
/blooming-tree-apple-spring/

ForestWander Nature Photography, Wikimedia.

The brown hills turned dark green and the apple trees busted out in pink-white. The creek in the hollow below the tobacco barn

Field of Burley tobacco on farm of Russell Spears, 

drying and curing barn

 in the background, vicinity of Lexington, Ky., 

Wolcott, Marion Post, 1910-1990,

 photographer, 1940 Sept.,  

LC-DIG-fsac-1a34368, Library of Congress

 Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540

 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

 settled back inside its banks and it was a great feeling to belly down beside it and listen to its sounds and let the sun beat down on my back and smell the grass and warm, black, soft, moist ground.” p. 21

Canaan is also a testament to the American Dream of owning your own piece of land. Genealogists who study early America from the mid-1600s through the early 1900s are familiar with the hunger for land that resulted in people spreading across this continent. I believe this “land rush” lasted longer and had more effect on the making of America than almost any other phenomenon.

By the time Samuel Zelinsky’s family came to Kentucky, the time of land patents, homestead acts, land rushes and military bounty land warrants was long gone. You had to have resources to buy land in the 1940s and after the Great Depression of the past decade, many people had very few. 

Canaan gives us a chance to see the scourges of this poverty up-front as the families in this story are all barely making it from season to season. They often see their profits eaten up by what the landlord claims and by what bad weather does to their crops. But what keeps them going is the hope that sometime in the future, with lots of hard work and luck, they might be able to save some dollars for a down payment on their own few acres.

Willie Nall, 11 years old; Raymond Jones, 10 years old; Denver Jones, 

5 years old; plowing on farm, …Elizabethtown vicinity,

 Kentucky; Hine, Lewis Wickes, 1874-1940, photographer; 

1916 May 5, LC-DIG-nclc-00399, Library of Congress Prints

 and Photographs Division Washington, DC 20540 USA

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

For those genealogists who wonder, and I think that includes all of us, how childhood circumstances affected our ancestors in their adult lives, Canaan lets us look over Samuel Zelinsky’s shoulder as he interacts with his peers on neighboring farms. We learn about the values that Samuel internalizes from his day-to-day socialization, some from his parents but mostly from the boys who become his friends. And Canaan’s author gives us the opportunity to see how this early part of Samuel’s life plays a part in his efforts in later life to fit in in college and the workplace.

The book also touches on the themes of immigration and religious persecution. The Zelinsky family is Jewish, and Morris was sent to America from Eastern Europe in the early 1900s to escape pogroms. But he found that even in America, the land of immigrants from so many cultures and religions, anti-semitism was present. When his mother worries about Samuel’s friends, Morris assures her that the boys are good for Samuel:

“…there’s nothing wrong with those boys. They’re good kids and they treat him like one of their own. They don’t hold it against him that he’s a Jew. They don’t look up to him or down at him, just across, and that’s what I want for Samuel.” p. 34

As you watch the adventures that Samuel and his friends have and how they treat each other, you can judge whether or not Morris was right.

You can read Canaan on many different levels: a sociological study of mid-twentieth century rural America, a psychological profile of a man whose relationship challenges in adulthood have their roots in his childhood, a rip-roaring saga of the everyday doings of young boys in the days when after the work was done, you could get lost all day in the woods and never see an adult.

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