USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Lawrence > Immigrant city: Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1845-1921 > Part 13
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29. Bureau of Statistics of Labor, Twenty-fifth Annual Report . . . 1895, Mass. Pub. Doc. 15, p. 314; Bureau of Statistics of Labor, Twenty-sixth Annual Report ... 1896, Mass. Pub. Doc. 15, p. 731; The Evening Tribune, May 2, 6, 1896; Anzeiger und Post, April 22, 1905; Sun, Aug. 1, 1906; Sunday Sun, Oct. 24, 1909; The Weekly People, Dec. 16, 1905; Solidarity, Sept. 17, 1910, Feb. 4, 1911; Neill, Report, p. 11.
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Kearney, the California labor agitator. With a cigar makers' group as well as brewery workers', bakers', and carpenters' unions, the Germans showed more interest in the labor movement than did any other nationality. There was also a French carpenters' union and the Italians had a coal handlers' organization as well as the Building, Laborers, Excavators, and Rockmen's Union.
But these groups did not represent the great mass of immi- grants, who worked in the mills. The German Weavers did dominate the 1902 strike and there was a German branch of the A.F.L. textile union, but only the I.W.W. made a concerted effort to organize all the immigrant textile operatives. To court the apathetic Canadians the I.W.W. held a smoker in 1905 with speeches in French and a convention of all the French and Franco- Belgian branches of the I.W.W. in 1911. Simultaneously an Italian branch of Local 20 of the I.W.W. met and considered sending for Joseph Ettor, the Italian I.W.W. strike organizer. A year later Ettor came to Lawrence and took over the great textile strike.30
Stronger unions and a successful strike were needed before the Lawrence immigrant could find real security in the mills. Yet the immigrant could not quite understand the deep concern shown for him in 1912. Of course his life was grim and of course he desperately needed more money, but all was not despair. The business cycle and the immigrant cycle, which meant rising wages, better jobs, property ownership, and savings, combined to make his plight more tolerable. And even if everything failed, the
30. For the English see Lawrence American, Dec. 1, 15, 1865, Mar. 30, 1866; The Lawrence Sentinel, Oct. 23, 1869, Mar. 28, 1874; Lawrence Journal, Oct. 31, 1874, May 8, 1875, cited in R. T. Berthoff, British Immigrants in Industrial America (Cambridge, Mass., 1953), p. 243, n. 80; The Lawrence Sentinel, Mar. 11, Sept. 20, 1870, Nov. 11, 1871, Mar. 30, 1872, Feb. 20, 1875; The Essex Eagle, Oct. 1, 1870, Feb. 28, Mar. 28, June 25, 1874, May 15, 1875; Lawrence Journal, Sept. 2, 1882, Jan. 20, 1883. For the Irish see ibid., Nov. 30, 1878, Nov. 29, 1879, Sept. 2, 1882. For Germans and others see ibid., Aug. 10, 1878, April 10, 1880; Bureau of Statistics of Labor, Twenty-fifth Annual Report . 1895, pp. 314, 330; The Evening Tribune, Sept. 1, 1894, April 28, 1896, July 9, 1897, Mar. 17, Jan. 2, 1899, April 18, 1902; Anzeiger und Post, May 5, 1906. For mill workers see Bureau of Statistics of Labor, Twenty-eighth Annual Report ... 1898, Mass. Pub. Doc. 15, p. 342; Bureau of Statistics of Labor, Thirty-sixth Annual Report ... 1906, p. 527; Sunday Sun, Sept. 3, 10, 1905; The Lawrence Sun, Feb. 26, 1906; The Weekly People, Dec. 16, 1905; Solidarity, Mar. 18, July 1, 1911.
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immigrant was buoyed by the knowledge that his children and grandchildren would be more prosperous than he. All about him examples of immigrant success gave him hope. His optimism, not understood by the native American strike observers of 1912, en- abled him to find considerable security in the mills of the immigrant city.
CHAPTER VIII
Security in Groups
In 1890 Lawrence held a contest to determine the most popular club in the city. As the climax approached, some groups were adding two thousand votes a day while others were holding ballots back in order to surprise their opponents. Down to the final hour it looked as though the German Turners would win, but in the last minutes Father O'Reilly marched in with fifty thousand votes for the Saint Mary's Cadets, and Thomas Gilmanton followed with forty thousand for the Father Matthew Temperance Society. The result: both societies came in ahead of the Turners, over a quarter of a million votes were cast, and "good humor" prevailed.1 The absorption of Lawrence in this contest and others like it reflected the importance of clubs to the immigrants of the city, particularly the new ones. When they first arrived, the scared, lonely Germans would join their fellow countrymen at the Turn Hall, where they were drinking beer and exercising. Irishmen after the long voyage from Dublin, Cork, or Liverpool found a haven at the Hibernians' clubhouse. All immigrants turned to organizations-large or small, formal or spontaneous, permanent or temporary-in their search for security. Whatever the form, the immigrant club was an indispensable part of immigrant life. They were established, not by chance, but according to a definite chronological order.
In determining this order the first year in which a nationality had a hundred immigrants in the city was considered the time of its "arrival" in Lawrence. The number of years from that date to
1. The Evening Tribune, Nov. 19, 1890-Jan. 10, 1891, passim. Contests to determine the most popular individuals resulted in Irish and English victories in 1893. Ibid., Jan. 28-Aug. 19, 1893, passim.
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the establishment of particular clubs was then tabulated and the pattern quickly emerged. Immigrants on first arriving in Lawrence were usually too weak and disorganized to accomplish much until the end of the first decade, when they managed to found a church. In the second decade a nationality established social clubs, pro- tective societies, cooperative stores, and organizations that ce- mented ties with the homeland. The third decade produced in- tellectual achievements such as newspapers, debating circles, and political clubs; while in the fourth and fifth the immigrants began to unite with other societies throughout the state and form hyphen- ate clubs.2
Almost as soon as the Irish reached Lawrence, Catholic priests began to give services and within a few years a church was built. With its debating groups, temperance societies, cornet bands, and other affiliates, the Catholic church offered the Irish more than just religion. Not until 1869 or fourteen years after the first hun- dred had come to Lawrence were there enough French Canadians for separate worship and even then they met in the basement of the Irish Immaculate Conception Church. For the same reason the Germans were tardy in constructing their own church or even in holding separate services, but in 1872, seventeen years after their arrival, the Germans had a Presbyterian church.
The later immigrants worked more rapidly and with the help of the earlier Catholics produced nine new churches between 1900 and 1912. Many nationalities and dozens of Catholic organizations took part in the inauguration of the Polish and Portuguese churches. At the dedication of the Syrian Catholic Church, Father O'Reilly stressed the financial sacrifice necessary to build these
2. This paragraph and much of the first part of this chapter were derived from references to immigrant groups in the Lawrence newspapers. Twenty-six different types of immigrant organizations were decided upon, and the date of the first example of each for certain nationalities was determined. The number of years from the time the nationality first came to Lawrence to the time of the founding of its various organizations was ascertained. (The year that a nationality first came to Lawrence was the year in which it had 100 in the city.) The various lengths of time that elapsed before the formation of certain types of organizations were then averaged, and it was thus possible to determine in which decade a specific type of organization was most likely to arise. News- paper references will follow each paragraph on the various types of associations. More details are to be found in Donald B. Cole, "Lawrence, Massachusetts: Immigrant City, 1845-1912" (Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 1956), Table XXXII, pp. 421-22.
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churches and urged all to give part of their wages to lift the debt. In 1903 the Tribune mentioned Catholic services in eight different languages: English, French, Italian, German, Polish, Lithuanian, Syrian, and Portuguese.3
The older nationalities began social clubs in the second decade after their arrival in the city. The earliest for the Irish were the Ancient Order of Hibernians, established in 1863, and the Knights of Saint Patrick, formed about 1870. When each held a picnic in the summer of 1870, the Hibernians outdid the Knights by hiring Finn and Pfefferkorn's Full Quadrille Band. Even though the Irish were avid baseball players skillful enough to push natives off the Lawrence team, they failed to form their own athletic club until 1892, when they founded a branch of the Gaelic Athletic Association. 4
The British, on the other hand, for many years had nothing but athletic societies. The Lawrence Cricket Club, founded by soldiers who played at Fort de Kalb, Virginia, was the first British organization in the city and the forerunner of other cricket clubs. And no Caledonian or Clan MacPherson picnic took place without running events and wrestling. At the 1878 Caledonian meet at Haggets Pond, Andover, the Lawrence club bested the Boston Caledonians in a tug of war and the burlier Scots competed in throwing the caber. Four years later 4,000 people, some from as far away as Canada and New York, saw Duncan Ross pin Donald Dennie twice out of three falls in the feature event of these games. The first English society not based on athletics was the Albion Club in 1886 and the English Social Club that followed. The many Ulster Irish, meanwhile, had formed the Orangemen group, which made itself so famous in the 1875 riot.5
3. Katherine O'Keefe, A Sketch of Catholicity in Lawrence (Lawrence, 1882), p. 61; Lawrence American, Jan. 12, June 29, 1866; Lawrence Journal, Nov. 10, 1877, Jan. 26, July 27, 1878; The Essex Eagle, Feb. 27, Oct. 9, 1875; The Evening Tribune, Feb. 4, Mar. 24, 1903. St. Anne's Church, the first French church, was not dedicated until 1884. The Lawrence Sun, April 9, July 2, 1906; Anzeiger und Post, Dec. 5, 1903. The Germans set up their own Catholic Church in 1887. Lawrence Journal, Oct. 15, 1887; The Lawrence Directory 1912 (Boston, 1912), pp. 37-39; Sunday Sun, Feb. 5, 1905, Sept. 30, 1906.
4. The Lawrence Sentinel, Mar. 19, July 2, Aug. 13, 1870; Lawrence Journal, Aug. 11, 1883, April 16, 1887, Mar. 8, 1897; The Evening Tribune, Nov. 8, 1892, June 20, 1894, Jan. 18, 1896; Sunday Sun, May 28, 1905.
5. Lawrence American, May 30, 1863; Lawrence Journal, Sept. 7, 1878,
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No one surpassed the German in his interest in sports. The Turner Society, started in the second decade of German migration to Lawrence, merely formalized German gymnastics which had been going on since 1853. By 1890 the Turners had one of the best gymnasiums in the state and their annual exhibition of tab- leaux, bar and ring calisthenics, work on the horses and parallel bars, and dumbbell drills was a high point of the Lawrence social season. But calisthenics was but one side of the Turners' activity. Socialism in Lawrence got its start at Turn Hall, where members of the German Socialist Labor party flew red and black flags to show sympathy for the anarchists arrested in the Haymarket Riot of 1886. There was also a Turner Choral Society. The Germans operated altogether eight musical clubs of which the Lyra, formed in 1871, was the oldest. With his game and song the German loved his drink. When the Lyra Society dedicated a new clubhouse in 1899, the president explained that the Germans were "different from other settlers in America in regard to social life" and that they did not "come together to have a good time by eating ice cream and drinking soda." He added that Germans found it hard to "have a social time without lager beer." Beer mug in hand, the new arrival lost his loneliness discussing socialism at Turn Hall.6
Like the earlier immigrants the French Canadians also had a band, marched in parades, went picnicking, and played games, particularly whist, during their second decade in Lawrence. The chief French group was the Saint Jean de Baptiste Society, founded in 1870, fifteen years after the first Canadian arrivals. Connected with their church were other social clubs such as the Congrégation des Dames and the Cercle Paroissial of Saint Anne's. Gathered safely around the whist table, the French Canadians found pleasure in an alien city.7
Sept. 9, 1882, Mar. 6, 1880; The Essex Eagle, Mar. 20, 1875; The Evening Tribune, Sept. 28, 1892; Sunday Sun, Nov. 19, 1905, Oct. 18, 1908; The Essex Eagle, Oct. 9, 1875. There was also a British Merrimack Social and Improve- ment Club and a Devonian Society.
6. The Turners started in 1866. The Evening Tribune, May 27, 1890, Nov. 23, 1894, April 23, 1900, Jan. 8, 1896, July 29, 1899; The Essex Eagle, June 8, 1867. Also the Arion, Mozart, Vorwarts, Glocke, Turner, and Liederkranz Singing Societies.
7. Lawrence Journal, May 7, 1881, Aug. 26, 1882; The Evening Tribune, April 3, 1891, Aug. 19, 1898, May 16, 1901, May 14, Nov. 27, 1893; Joseph- Edouard Fecteau, Monographie du Cercle Paroissial Sainte Anne (Quebec,
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Church groups predominated also among the post-1890 immi- grants. When the Italians paraded in 1910 in honor of Columbus Day, five of their eight societies were religious. The largest was the Christopher Columbus Society, started in 1899 a scant four years after the first Italians had come to Lawrence and a year be- fore they had a church. The Lithuanians had at least five clubs participating in their 1909 celebration. For the Jews there was the Sons of Israel and later the Young Men's Hebrew Association.8
All the immigrant social groups, whatever their origin, had the same goal: uniting a nationality and somehow expressing its feeling of group consciousness. Immigrants in Lawrence did not want to be alone and did not wish to mix with those from other countries. Through religion and recreation they found security among their own people.
And since the immigrants looked also for economic safety among their fellow-countrymen, their clubs provided benefits more substantial than picnics and lager beer. In a society that talked of rugged individualism but wanted social security, the immigrant organizations offered life insurance, funeral benefits, and aid while out of work. The earlier benefit associations usually arose a few years after the social clubs, but the later immigrants set them up at about the same time. The Irish Benevolent Society with its motto, "We visit our sick, and bury our dead," was typical of the others. In return for an initiation fee of $1.00 and monthly dues of $0.25, members were certain of $4.50 a week when sick and $25.00 for burial.
The immigrant cooperative store was another means of finding security. English immigrants established the Arlington Associa- tion, a Rochdale cooperative, in 1866. Since it had open member- ship, a limit to the number of shares per person, and one vote per member, it was more democratic than most other cooperatives. It was also more practical because it sold goods at market prices and thereby avoided merchant hostility. With its 3,440 members
1925), p. 41; Paroisse Sainte-Anne, Lawrence, Mass., Congrégation des Dames de Sainte Anne (Salem, Mass., 1908).
8. For Italian societies see: Sunday Sun, Aug. 28, Oct. 9, 1910; Lithuanian, Sunday Sun, May 23, 1909; Jewish, The Evening Tribune, Oct. 25, 1897, Mar. 5, 1911; other, The Lawrence Directory 1912, pp. 37, 39, 40, 46, 48, 67, 68. There were also Syrian, Armenian, Polish, Portuguese, and Franco-Belgian societies.
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and three stores, the Arlington was for years the largest Rochdale cooperative in America. But when it granted too much power to its manager, who began to muzzle members at meetings and was finally convicted of dishonesty, it soon collapsed.9
Almost all the nationalities had benefit associations and many had cooperatives. The Hibernian, Turner, Alsace, Saint Jean de Baptiste, Columbus, and Syrian societies were only a few of those providing insurance and relief. The German, French, Lithuanian, and Franco-Belgian cooperative stores were famous. Although most of the stores and benefit societies were started during the second decade after arrival in Lawrence, those formed by the post- 1890 immigrants came much sooner. The relief groups paid up to $5.00 a week in sick benefits and $25-$100 at death, both ample sums. Monthly dues ranged from $.15 to $.50, a not inconsider- able amount in Lawrence at that time. With annual sales of $50,000 to $100,000, the stores were able to pay dividends ranging from 5 per cent to 11 per cent. Since Lithuanian and German co- operatives were scarce, the two in Lawrence were known through- out New England. Within the city, all the associations provided a substantial amount of security.10
Also in the second decade, immigrants began to demonstrate an interest in their former homes by commemorating patron saints and national heroes. The first observance of Saint Patrick's Day occurred in 1864, seventeen years after the first Irish migrations to Lawrence, and the parades were always colorful since the marchers wore green scarves and green carnations. Within five years, how- ever, a debate began concerning the celebrations. Although some
9. The Lawrence Sentinel, June 25, Oct. 22, 1864, June 26, 1869; James Ford, Co-operation in New England Urban and Rural (New York, 1913), pp. 7, 69-70; The Evening Tribune, June 9, 1894, Dec. 30, 1903, Feb. 17, 1904.
10. Other benefit societies were Catholic Mutual Benefit Association, Alsace (German), Lafayette Court of Foresters, Jewish Benefit Lodge, Polish Young Men's Protective Association, and Russian National Benefit Society. The Lawrence Sentinel, June 25, Oct. 22, 1864, June 26, 1869, May 9, 30, July 4, 1874; Lawrence Journal, June 12, 1880, Jan. 8, 1881; Sunday Telegram, Sept. 4, 1887; Ford, Co-operation, pp. 35-40, 185f; The Evening Tribune, Oct. 9, 1897, May 19, 1898, Jan. 18, 1904; Cour Lafayette, No. 94, Ordre des Forestiers d'Amérique, Statuts et Règlements (Lawrence, 1911); Sunday Sun, Nov. 25, 1906, Oct. 20, 1907, June 30, 1912; Al-Wafa, Oct. 16, 1908. Other cooperatives included the British Equitable. The Evening Tribune, June 9, Dec. 10, 1894, Aug. 11, 1904; Lawrence Journal, May 30, 1885; Ford, Co-operation, pp. 69, 185f. For additional information, see dissertation copy, pp. 121-27.
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felt that the money spent on the parades could better be devoted to charity, it was not until the depression of 1873 that they stopped. Even then one person maintained that unless they marched every two or three years, they would soon forget the day, and others stated that no one could be a true Irish patriot without keeping this Catholic holiday. Another, however, responded that patriotism had no connection with Catholicism or Saint Patrick's Day. From that point on the Irish paraded sporadically and held grand cele- brations only in 1887 and 1897, when former Mayor Breen rode on a horse with green trappings. The history of Saint Patrick's Day in Lawrence reflects the basic conflict between those who would hold on to the old country and those who would break away. Those who needed it found security by holding on.
Other holidays were less controversial. The Scots banqueted in honor of Robert Burns every January. Although the Germans held frequent parades and celebrations on their own club anni- versaries, they only occasionally feted a national hero or holiday. They paraded in 1869 to honor the centennial of the birth of the German statesman Friedrich H. A. Von Humboldt and in 1883 to observe Schiller's birthday and two centuries of German migra- tions to America, but there is no record of a parade celebrating victory in the Franco-Prussian War. While the English often marched on Saint George's Day, the Orangemen, with good reason, made less of the Battle of the Boyne, and the French Canadians only occasionally noted Saint Joseph's Day. Aside from the Columbus Day parade, the Italian festivities were always in honor of a church figure such as Saint Mary of Pompeii. The calendar of immigrant holidays was so full that it dominated the social schedule of the city.11
11. The Lawrence Sentinel, Mar. 12, 1864, Jan. 30, Mar. 20, 1869, Mar. 23, April 20, 1872; Lawrence Journal, Feb. 15, 1879, Mar. 19, 1887; The Evening Tribune, Mar. 5, 1897. From New Year's to Christmas ethnic groups marked these and other events:
JAN. Robert Burns' Birthday
FEB. Chinese New Year
MAR. Robert Emmett's Birthday
APR. Turnverein Exhibition St. George's Day Passover
MAY St. Michael's Day (Portuguese)
First Portuguese Immigration
JUNE St. Jean de Baptiste Day JULY Battle of the Boyne St. Joseph's Day (Italian) Armenian Massacre
AUG. St. Anthony's Day SEPT. Von Humboldt's Birthday
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During the second decade the immigrants found another way to maintain ties with the old country: raising money for relief of the poor back home. The Irish were collecting funds as soon as they arrived in Lawrence; the English after only thirteen years. Later, during the Boer War, the Scots and English united to assist the "widowed orphans of Tommy Atkins." An Italian relief fund drive in 1910 raised close to $1,000 about twenty years after the first Italians reached the city. It was not difficult to reach the pocketbooks of Lawrence immigrants.12
Often the raising of money was to support some revolutionary movement in the old country. The Irish, of course, devoted much of their time and money to Fenianism and the home rule movement, and they were not alone in their trans-oceanic interests. Herr Fritsche, a member of the German Reichstag, addressed Germans at Matthes Hall to raise money for his party in Germany. When King Humbert I was assassinated in 1900, the Christopher Colum- bus Society sent a telegram of sympathy to the Italian royal house. The Armenian Hunchak party, which had a branch in Lawrence, wanted Armenian independence, as did a certain Mr. Galesian, who maintained that if the Armenians had the vote as the Jews and Irish did, there would be American gunboats off Turkey. While the United States and Britain wrangled over Venezuela, Lawrence Armenians petitioned the President to start cooperating with the British in order to help Eastern Christians against the Turks. "Young Syria," flourishing in Lawrence, wanted the United States to start a revolt to free Syria from the same Turks. Al- though a mass meeting protested against the abusive treatment of the Jews in Russia, the Lawrence Jews split in 1905 over the issue of the peace petition sent by the United States to the Czar.13 These efforts and protests, vain as they usually were, did serve to unite strangers in a new land.
First German Immigration
Atonement Day Rosh Hashana Yom Kippur
St. Michael's Day (Italian) Columbus Day
OCT. Virgin of Pompeii
NOV. Schiller's Birthday Polish Revolution.
12. Lawrence American, July 19, 1862, Jan. 17, 1863; The Evening Tribune, Mar. 21, 1900; Sunday Sun, Jan. 10, 1909; The Lawrence Courier, Feb. 27, 1847; The Lawrence Sentinel, Dec. 24, 1870; Lawrence Journal, April 24, 1880.
13. Ibid., Mar. 12, 1881; The Evening Tribune, May 2, 7, 1896, April 24, 1899, Aug. 3, 1900; The Lawrence Sun, Nov. 20, Aug. 28, 1905.
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Immigrants in their third decade in Lawrence were able to devote time to more intellectual activities. All the earlier groups except the Scots started a newspaper between their twenty-third and thirty-first year in the city. The Lawrence Journal was the organ of pro-labor English immigrants between 1872 and 1877 and then became the weapon of the Sweeney family. The French- Canadian and German forces brought out Le Drapeau in 1874 and the Anzeiger und Post in 1882. Later immigrants, who moved faster in all categories, established the Syrian Al-Ikbal in 1904 and Al-Wafa in 1906, nine years after the start of Syrian migration to Lawrence.
Meanwhile, other evidences of intellectual ferment began to appear. Between 1875 and 1882 the Irish started the Catholic Debating Society, the Sheridan Dramatic Club, and the Emmett Literary Society, as well as the Journal. The talks and readings of Katie O'Keefe also began about this time. The English started a Glee and Madrigal Club in 1873 and the Germans got a school underway the same year. German and French-Canadian dramatic societies opened in the early 1880's, and the Canadians quickly followed with a literary society and a school. As in other areas, the later immigrants moved more rapidly and were able to produce Italian and Syrian schools by 1910. A year later there was a Syrian play, "The Black Knight."14
Active participation in American politics came with the rise of the second- and third-generation Americans during the group's third and fourth decades in the city. There was a German Hayes Club in 1876, but the first overt British political organization had to await the Albion Club of 1886. The French Canadians held numerous naturalization meetings in the 1890's in order to strengthen their position in local politics. Aside from the Armenian Republican Club, the later immigrants had not organized politically by 1912. But even though each group did not have its own political club, the immigrants were soon identified with a party. This identification-the process of joining with their fellow-coun-
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