USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Lawrence > Immigrant city: Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1845-1921 > Part 10
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102
IMMIGRANT CITY
immigrant community challenged the integrity, in fact the very existence, of the family, but at the same time made it a necessity.3
The marriage rate in Lawrence was always high, particularly during the more difficult years before the Civil War and after 1890. While there were about thirteen marriages each year per thousand population between 1856 and 1865, the average dropped to eleven during the next twenty-five years, only to climb again to twelve between 1890 and 1910. A higher proportion of immigrants than natives were marrying, thus providing the impetus for the high marriage rate of the city. The percentage of immigrants in the total who married started high at 56 per cent in 1855-65, dropped to 53 per cent in 1875-85, and rose again to 62 per cent after 1890. Thus during the years of the shanty Irish and the decades of despair, the immigrants sought security in marriage more fre- quently than during the decades of promise. And at any given time in the history of the city about 60 per cent of the marriageable immigrants were married and only about 40 per cent of the natives. In 1909 the French Canadians and the English led the others with two-thirds married.4 In an unfriendly city the immigrant did not dare remain single.
3. Le Progrès, April 6, 1900, Feb. 8, 22, Mar. 1, 1901, Aug. 15, 1902, Oct. 16, 1903, May 4, Sept. 14, 21, 1905, April 25, 1907; Le Courrier de Lawrence, Dec. 14, 1911, Jan. 11, 1912.
4. Report ... relating to the Registry and Return of Births, Marriages, and 'Deaths , XIV (1855), Mass. Pub. Doc. 1; XIX (1860); XXIV (1865); XXXIV (1875); XXXIX (1880); XLIV (1885); XLIX (1890); LIV (1895); LIX (1900); LXIV (1905); LXIX (1910). See Tables XI and XII. Carroll D. Wright, The Census of Massachusetts: 1885, I, Part 1 (Boston, 1887), 224-25; United States Census Bureau, Thirteenth Census of the United States . . . 1910. Abstract of the Census ... with Supplement for Massachusetts ... (Washington, 1913), p. 588. Immigration Commission, "Community A," pp. 778-79.
MARRIAGE STATISTICS FOR WORKERS*
14 and over 1885
20 and over 1909 1910
15 and over
Native-born of foreign-born father
-
34.3 per cent married
Native-born of
native-born father
44.1
Total native-born
41
37.0
42
Foreign-born
55
55.7
61
Men
-
62
Women
45
* More details in Cole, "Lawrence," Table XXV, p. 411.
103
SECURITY IN THE FAMILY
It followed that immigrants married earlier than natives. Irish brides and grooms were about three years younger than their native counterparts before 1850. In 1885 over 2 per cent of the foreign- born under twenty were married but less than 1 per cent of the natives. Among mill operatives in 1909 over a third of the immi- grants in their twenties were married and only a fifth of the natives.5
In selecting his mate the immigrant could theoretically marry either within or without his own particular group, but he rarely considered the choice. Endogamy prevailed. Immigrant married immigrant and native married native because there was greater security that way. When there was a little less need for security during the last years of the decades of promise, endogamy went down with the marriage rate, but both rose again during the decades of despair. The percentage of endogamy was as follows:
Husband
Wife in Same Category
1860 & 1865 1885 & 1890 1910
Native-born
91%
69%
77%
Foreign-born
91%
84%
89%
Even within narrower ethnic groups intramarriage was the rule. The city marriage records for ten scattered years between 1847 and 1912 reported about 4,500 marriages from which the follow- ing chart was derived:
PERCENTAGE OF MARRIAGE WITHIN OWN GENERAL ETHNIC GROUP
Wife Born in Same Area
Birthplace of Husband
1847-49
1854
1865
1875
1882
1894
1902
1912
United States
92
90
85
75
71
63
73
Northwestern Europe
74
67
72
54
76
70
51
64
Ireland
96
98
88
74
70
60
74
65
Canada
59
71
70
67
48
Southeastern Europe
95
96
5. The Essex Institute, Vital Records of Lawrence, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849 (Salem, Mass., 1926); Census of Mass., 1885, I, Part 1, 224; Immigration Commission, "Community A," p. 779. In 1909 actually 36 per cent of the foreign-born and 22 per cent of the natives in their twenties were married.
104
IMMIGRANT CITY
For those born in northwestern Europe, mostly in Britain and Germany, the percentage of endogamy fluctuated about the 70 per cent mark (except for 1875) until it dropped off in 1902 only to climb again in 1912. The Irish showed a steady decline down to a low point in 1894 and then went up again in the twentieth cen- tury. The Canadian figures were inconclusive until 1882, but from then they fell steadily until 1912. Those from southeastern Europe married almost exclusively within their own group.
When immigrants first came to America, they married their own kind. And when their religious or physical characteristics were most different from those in America, as in the case of the Irish and the southeastern Europeans, the amount of exogamy was at first negligible. Intramarriage declined as time passed, but then it increased again as the nationality became established. Those who had been here the longest or the shortest period of time married endogamously most frequently. In 1912, for example, both the native Americans and the southeastern Europeans were more ex- clusive than the nineteenth-century immigrants. A reason for the increase in native endogamy in 1912, however, was that by then the term "American" included many second- and third-generation Americans who preferred to marry each other rather than natives of longer standing or the more recent immigrants.
There were certain definite marriage habits. Natives took wives from Canada or northwestern Europe if they could not find American girls, while northwestern Europeans favored Americans after members of their own group, as did the Irish and the Canadi- ans. It meant that an immigrant preferred to marry another from the same general area but failing that would wed a second-genera- tion American whose parents were from his group. Marriages in Lawrence were divided into three broad classifications: first, those between persons within the same group (77 per cent); second, those involving immigrants and Americans (19 per cent); and third, those between foreigners from different areas (4 per cent). An immigrant would either come to America with his wife or, if he married in Lawrence, would select a mate from his own group or from the ranks of the native-born. Rarely did he marry an
105
SECURITY IN THE FAMILY
immigrant from another country. There was certainly no melting pot in Lawrence. 6
Immigrant marriages meant frequent childbirth. Families had to have two or three members working to survive and children could often get jobs in the mills when their parents could not. Immigrant families, therefore, tended to be large, particularly before the Civil War and after 1890. In 1856 the parents in 70 per cent of the births were foreign-born, mostly Irish, and in 1865, 78 per cent. No wonder the American contended that the native stock had exhausted itself. The proportion of immigrant parents dropped during the decades of promise-65 per cent in 1885-but
6. Report of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, XIV (1855); XIX (1860); XXIV (1865); XXXIV (1875); XXXIX (1880); XLIV (1885); LIV (1895); LIX (1900); LXIV (1905); LXIX (1910); Record of Marriages City of Lawrence, MSS, City Clerk's Office, Lawrence, Mass., I (1850-59); II (1860-66); IV (1872- 77); V (1878-82); VI (1882-86); VIII (1891-95); XI (1902); XVI (1912-13); Essex Institute, Vital Records. See Tables XIII, XIV, XV.
The most frequent marriages were as follows:
1. American husband and American wife 1300
2. Irish husband and Irish wife 682
3. Southeastern European husband and southeastern European wife 593
4. Northwestern European husband and northwestern European wife 495
5. Canadian husband and Canadian wife 276
These 5 plus number 12 totaled 3418 endogamous marriages or 77% of the total
6. Northwestern European husband and American wife 186
7. American husband and Canadian wife 168
8. Canadian husband and American wife 136
9. American husband and northwestern European wife 135
10. American husband and Canadian wife 118
11. Irish husband and American wife 86
These 6 plus number 16 and a few scattered marriages
involving Americans totaled 861 marriages between native-
born and foreign-born or 19%
12. Asian husband and Asian wife
72
13. Irish wife and northwestern European husband
56
14. Northwestern European wife and Irish husband 42
15. Northwestern European husband and Canadian wife 28
16. Southeastern European husband and American wife
23
17. Canadian husband and Irish wife
20
18. Canadian husband and northwestern European wife
19
19. Irish husband and Canadian wife
These marriages (13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19) plus a few scattered totaled 187 or 4% 9
The censuses of 1880 and 1895 showed that in 90 per cent of the cases a person's father and mother were from the same nationality. Again no melting pot. Carroll D. Wright, The Census of Massachusetts: 1880 ... (Boston, 1883), p. 126; Horace G. Wadlin, Census of ... Massachusetts: 1895, II (Boston, 1897), 95.
106
IMMIGRANT CITY
went up again to 70 per cent in 1910. Consequently the city's birth rate dropped from about thirty-three per thousand population before the Civil War to twenty-seven in the 1870's and 1880's and climbed back to thirty-one in the period 1890-1910.7 The immi- grant seemed to need the security of a big family more during the periods of Irish and Italian predominance than during the era of the French Canadians. But even during the decades of promise immigrant families were larger than those of the natives. In 1875 nearly as many mothers with one child were natives as immigrants, but as the number of children grew larger, foreign-born mothers were more and more in the majority. Among those with four children, for example, there were 211 native mothers and 499 foreign, while in families with more than six it was 163 to 1,139.8
So many of the newborn, particularly those with immigrant parents, failed to survive birth or early childhood that 40 to 45 per cent of the deaths in Lawrence were children under three.9 The year 1878 was unusually bad as measles, whooping cough, diptheria, and typhoid fever took a heavy toll. The last week of July, during which thirty-one children died, was the most horrible of all. Few cities had a record as bad as Lawrence where up to two hundred of a thousand newborn babies died each year. The
7. [Lemuel Shattuck], Sanitary Survey of the Town of Lawrence (Boston, 1850), p. 20. In 1864, 650 of the parents of newborn babies were Irish, 240 were from other foreign countries, and only 268 were natives. Lawrence American, Mar. 22, 1862, Jan. 28, 1865; Municipal Records and Memoranda 1856-1859, II; The Essex Eagle, Jan. 8, 1876.
Percentage of Population That Was Immigrant
Percentage of Births in Which Both Parents Were Foreign-Born
Percentage of Births in Which One Parent Was Foreign-Born
1865
42.5
78.3
5.3
1875
44.5
68.0
9.8
1885
44.0
64.5
12.6
1895
46.6
71.2
14.4
1905
46.1
64.9
19.1
1910
48.1
70.8
14.1
Report of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, XXIV (1865); XXVIII (1869); XXXIV (1875); XLIV (1885); XLIX (1890); LIV (1895); LIX (1900); LXIV (1905); LXIX (1910). See Table XVI.
8. Carroll D. Wright, Census of Massachusetts: 1875, I (Boston, 1876), 392-93.
9. Essex Institute, Vital Records; Report of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1857-59; 1867-69; 1877-79; 1887-89; 1899-1901; 1907-9. See Tables VII, XVI.
107
SECURITY IN THE FAMILY
carnage continued into the next century when Lawrence ranked seventh in the state in the infant death rate.10
Even if the child survived his first two years, those which fol- lowed were made hazardous by the filthy environment. A sensa- tional infant starvation case in 1866 revealed conditions that were not unusual. In an alley between Essex and Common Streets a woman lived who took in babies, some of them illegitimate, for pay. The discovery of the dead, maggot-covered body of one of her infants in the alley led to a series of indignant articles, but the city missionary maintained that her home was no worse than a hundred tenements in the city. There were frequent stories of abandoned babies thrown into the canal or the Spicket, stories of infanticide and abortion. One young country girl murdered her illegitimate child in a boarding-house room; another threw hers into the vault of an outhouse.11 Even the wanted babies suffered, for soon after childbirth their mothers returned to the mills leaving them alone in damp cellars and later loose in the streets. In a society where children were numerous and mothers had to work to support them, neglect was the natural result. It was ironic that the immigrant's search for security in a family led also to acute suffering.
But once marriage and childbirth had formed the family, the parents struggled to protect and strengthen it. Needing a place where all could gather to perform the simple rituals, they turned to the kitchen. Since it was the only heated room, it was ordinarily in the middle of the tenement with two rooms in front and two in back. Here, instead of the peasant hearth, was the stove that warmed the cold, fed the hungry, and cheered the unhappy. And here, too, were beds because the room was warm, the household large,
10. Massachusetts Board of Health, Annual Report, IX (1877), Mass. Pub. Doc. 34, p. 417; United States Census Office, Tenth Census of the United States (1880), XII, Part II (Washington, 1886), 180-83; United States Census Office, Eleventh Census of the United States . . . 1890, XVII, Part I (Washington, 1896), 554. Massachusetts Board of Health, Report, XXVIII (1896), 753; Statistics Department, City of Boston, Monthly Bulletin, II, Nos. 1-3 (Mar., 1900), p. 32; Sunday Sun, July 10, 1910; Charles P. Neill, Report on Strike of Textile Workers in Lawrence, Mass. in 1912, 62 Congress, 2 Session, Senate Doc. 870 (Washington, 1912), p. 27.
11. These stories were as disgusting as they were commonplace. A two-weeks old child was abandoned by her mother. A male infant was found buried on the south bank of the Merrimack. The Lawrence Sentinel, July 4, 1868; The Essex Eagle, May 21, Nov. 12, 1870, Nov. 29, 1873, May 30, 1874; Lawrence Journal, May 22, Mar. 31, 1883.
108
IMMIGRANT CITY
and the apartment small. The scene of all domesticity and the place for recreation, the kitchen more than any other spot provided security for the frightened and lonely immigrant.
The essentials for this room and the others in the home were a stove, table, chairs, and beds, costing initially up to $45.00. Beds were normally of iron, but the Italians and Syrians preferred brass. The interior of an Italian home in 1912 showed "pleasing vistas of spotless beds piled high in the old world fashion, the frames ... surmounted with feather beds rising high to enormous heights and crowned with crochet-edged pillows." This family was obviously more prosperous than most and others like them often had curtains, lamps, rocking chairs, rugs, bureaus, and even gramophones. The dangerous stoves burned wood, but coal gradu- ally came into use, and kerosene was the lamp fuel.12
Into such an apartment in 1912 Polish families packed an average of nine persons, Lithuanians eight, and Italians seven. Privacy, difficult to attain within the family, became an impossi- bility when roomers also crowded in.13 Most often the boarders bought their own food and sometimes even prepared it themselves. The city missionary painted vividly the picture of the boarder sys- tem: " ... there will be what is called a central family; that is, lodg- ers occupy rooms in the house for so much a week, and each indi- vidual has his own loaf of bread and makes his mark on it, and lays it on the table, and it is his bread until it is eaten; he may have some cucumbers with it in the summer or may have some cheese with it, or he may join in purchasing some meat and make a stew; but he eats his own bread, and he does not butter it. .. . " They paid $2.00 or $3.00 a month for their rooms. While the system strained the family ties as much as having the mother work, it was such an economic necessity that about half of the worker households in 1912 had boarders and roomers.14 Since they were usually of
12. Only four of eighty immigrant apartments studied in 1912 had heat other than from the kitchen stove. Neill, Report, p. 152 The furniture would include two beds, two mattresses and springs, a stove, four chairs, four yards of oilcloth, and a table. If new, the cost might reach $45.00. Ibid., pp. 180-82. Alice W. O'Connor, "A Study of the Immigration Problem in Lawrence, Massachusetts" (unpublished social worker's thesis, Lawrence, 1914), p. 28.
13. Neill, Report, pp. 156-60. See Table XVII.
14. O'Connor, "Study," p. 49; Strike at Lawrence, p. 381; Neill, Report, p. 155.
109
SECURITY IN THE FAMILY
the same nationality, ethnic unity was maintained even if the family integrity was threatened.
Since the family depended so completely upon the home, it was encouraging to immigrants to know that their homes were likely to get better. Sometimes it took several generations, but the Irish did not remain in their shanties forever and the Germans and English soon had attractive homes. The immigrant cycle brought newcomers into the undesirable dwellings in the heart of Lawrence and enabled the earlier immigrants to move to better sections closer to the outskirts of the city. Geographically Law- rence was like a bowl. The low land between the Merrimack and the Spicket (Wards Two, Three, and Four) was the bottom and Prospect Hill (Ward One), Tower Hill (Ward Five), South Law- rence (Ward Six), and the surrounding towns the sides. (See map, page 110.) The characteristic immigrant movement between 1845 and 1912 was up from the bottom of the bowl.
In 1855 the Irish were strongest in Wards Two and Three, where the boarding houses and the "plains" were situated. While these wards did not add much foreign-born population in the next decade, Wards One, Four, and Five grew rapidly as the Irish moved into them. The influx of French Canadians following the Civil War began in Ward Three, but by 1875 many of them had also shifted into Ward Four. During the same period the English had pushed west from the central wards to Ward Five and the Germans east into Ward One.
A comparison of the 1880 and 1910 figures demonstrated the up and out phenomenon more clearly. While the percentage of immigrants in the wards at the bottom of the bowl increased tre- mendously, that in the outside wards either remained constant or dropped, showing that the new immigrants were entering the center of Lawrence, while the second-generation Americans were moving to the outside. Many Irish-Americans moved across the Merrimack into Ward Six; the French-Canadians who had moved out into Ward Four continued on to the slopes of Tower Hill in Ward Five. While one-quarter of the members of a French- Canadian women's club lived in Ward Four between Common and Bradford Streets in 1908, a larger group occupied an area in Ward Five across the railroad tracks and up Tower Hill. The Italians,
110
IMMIGRANT CITY
Map IV ETHNIC SHIFTS IN LAWRENCE AND WARD BOUNDARIES
LAWRENCE, MASS.
1000
2000
ARD HREB
WARD ONE
E
WARD ILTWO
METHUEN
It
PROSPECT HILL
WARD FIVE
TOWER HILL
DISTRICT
River
DISTRICT
Merrimack
SIX
SOUTH LAWRENCE
River
Shawsheen
ANDOVER
Park St. Polls
1884
1912
Oak St. Polls
1884
1912
British or American
58
60
British or American 43
30
Irish 48
150
Irish
357
127
Post-1890 Immigrants 0
23
Post-1890 Immigrants 0 358
Common St. Polls 1884 1912
British or American 198
79
Irish
257 35
Post-1890 Immigrants 4 655
MILI
MILL
111
SECURITY IN THE FAMILY
meanwhile, had pushed the Irish out of the lower end of Common Street and the Syrians had ousted the Irish from Oak Street on the "plains." And before 1910 one street had even shifted from an Italian quarter to a mingled Jewish, French, and Portuguese colony.
A study of three well separated and parallel streets cutting across the three interior wards showed the same movement up from the Merrimack to the edges of the city. These were Common Street just one block above the shopping center of the city, Oak Street on the "plains" north of the Common, and finally Park Street on higher ground close to the Methuen line. A comparison of the names on the street lists for various years between 1884 and 1912 showed population shifts.
There were 257 persons with Irish names on Common Street in 1884, but only 35 in 1912. On Oak Street the number dropped less drastically, from 357 to 127. The Irish names on Park Street, meanwhile, climbed from 48 in 1884 to 150 in 1912. The British and native Americans, whose names were indistinguishable, also deserted Common Street for the hills but had not moved to Park Street. While 198 of them inhabited Common Street in 1884, only 79 were left in 1912. On both Oak and Park Streets their totals remained constant. The post-1890 immigrants adhered to the pattern by moving into the lowest street, Common Street, in the greatest numbers. Only a few of them lived on Oak Street in 1912 and hardly any had penetrated Park Street.
The shifts within parts of Common Street were also revealing. Two-thirds of lower Common Street in Ward One was made up of Irish names in 1884, but a decade later the invasion of Italians, Poles, and Armenians had cut the Irish proportion in half. In 1902 almost none of the names were Irish, while one-tenth were Polish, and half Italian. The dominance of the Italians was com- plete by 1912 when they comprised four-fifths of the names. Ward Three Common Street started in 1884 as a section of Irish, French Canadians, British, and Americans, but by 1902 the French Canadians dominated it with over half of the names. Ten years later the southeastern Europeans had driven almost everyone out.15
15. The shifts in ward population were derived from Oliver Warner, Abstract of the Census of Massachusetts,-1865 ... (Boston, 1867), pp. 62-63; Census of Mass., 1875, I, 288-311; Census of Mass., 1880, p. 50; Thirteenth Census . .. Supplement for Mass., p. 609. See Table V. Paroisse Sainte-Anne, Lawrence,
112
IMMIGRANT CITY
Moving to a better section was just one of the ways in which the immigrant strengthened his family in Lawrence. Visits home, early marriage, endogamous marriage, and frequent procreation also helped him protect his family from the unfriendly city. Family life in Lawrence conformed to the pattern established by the immi- grant cycle between 1845 and 1912. The rate of marriage, the de- gree of endogamy, and the birth rate tended to be high during the difficult years of the shanty Irish and the southeastern Europeans and lower during the years between. When security was most difficult to attain, the miserable immigrant found it in his family.
Mass., Congrégation des Dames de Ste. Anne (Salem, Mass., 1908) gives French addresses. O'Connor, "Study," pp. 19, 36-37, 40-41, 44. Since five of the six wards were parallel to one another running north and south above the Merrimack River, it was impossible to determine the northward migration up from the river merely by examining ward figures. While such ward statistics demonstrated the shifts out to Ward Six and up to Wards One and Five, they did not indicate the great movement of immigrants from the low areas of Wards Two, Three, and Four to the hilly outskirts of the same wards. The source of all in- formation regarding Common, Oak, and Park Streets was the Lawrence Asses- sors' Street Lists of Polls, which listed all adult males liable for poll taxes. Assessors' Street List of Polls ... 1884 ... (Lawrence, 1884); Assessors' Street List of Polls ... 1894 ... (Lawrence, 1894); Assessors' Street List of Polls ... 1902 ... (Lawrence, 1902); Assessors' Street List of Polls 1912 . (Lawrence, 1912). See adjoining map. See also Cole, "Lawrence," Table VI, pp. 387-90, for statistics.
CHAPTER VII
Security in the Mills
When the mill whistles blew before six o'clock in the morning, the Lawrence immigrant got out of bed; when they blew again, he marched into the factory; a final blast sent him home at night. He had little choice but to obey the whistles because in Lawrence al- most every one had to work in the textile mills. In 1860 the woolen and cotton factories employed one-third of the 18,000 inhabitants. At the beginning of the 1912 strike half of the population fourteen years of age and over worked in the factories, and three-quarters of the city depended on them for their livelihood. The Immigration Commission studied Lawrence because it was the leading worsted center in America and because the textile industry dominated the city.1 The mills at the same time depended heavily on the immi- grants for their working force. In 1872, 3,800 of 4,700 employees at the Pacific Mill and at the Atlantic Mill were foreign born. Six years later all the Lawrence factories employed only 3,000 natives out of 9,000 workers. Of the remainder, 2,800 were born in Ire- land, 1,400 in England, 700 in Canada, and 400 each in Germany and Scotland.2 In his search for security the immigrant had to look
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