When you look at early 1900s ship manifests, one thing is very clear. Rich people didn't leave their homeland. They didn't need to leave. Anyone related to me arrived in New York City with a few dollars in their pockets and nothing more. They were lucky to have scraped together enough money for the ticket.
Fourteen-and-a-half million people came to the United States between 1890 and 1920. They came to earning a living and escape hardship. Their numbers are staggering:
- nearly 4 million Italians
- almost 3 million Eastern Europeans
- more than 2 million Germans
- close to 2 million from Austria-Hungary
- 1¼ million from the UK and Ireland
- just over 1 million from Mexico
- ½ million from Scandinavia
- less than ½ million from Canada
- almost 1½ million from other countries
Read about what was going on in their homeland when your ancestors emigrated. After visiting Italy, I couldn't imagine why my ancestors left such a beautiful place. But history was never kind to Southern Italy. My grandfathers and some of their ancestors needed employment. They heard about the availability of jobs in other countries, so they left home.
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How does your life compare to your recent ancestors' lives? A little research adds eye-opening insight to your family tree. |
Hard Work Was Their Only Option
When the 14½ million did arrive, were their lives better? Well, they were alive. They were able to secure jobs. They managed to start families and raise their children. But these immigrants often worked the most difficult, dirty, and downright dangerous jobs.
During these years, most men in my family tree worked for:
- railroads
- steel manufacturing plants
- coal mines
These jobs had long hours, low pay, and almost no safety oversight.
My great grandfather Pasquale's job was to clean the boiler in locomotive trains. He was scrubbing the caked-up coal residue off the walls of the boiler. Were there any safety precautions? No. Did he develop black lung disease? Yes, he did.
My grandfather Pietro worked in two steel mills before getting fed up with the work and leaving. (The second part sounds like me!) He wanted a job that wasn't as likely to kill or maim him. He moved his family to New York City and landed a job as a stone setter for a jewelry manufacturer. He sat at a workbench all day and used hand tools. My grandmother Lucy worked, as so many women in New York City did at the time, for a clothing manufacturer. Talk about specialization, her job was to snip off the extra bit of thread around button holes on shirts. Together they earned enough money to raise and educate their children. They were lucky.
Many of Pietro's friends from the old country went to work in the coal mines of Western Pennsylvania. Every day they risked:
- collapsing cavern roofs
- gas explosions
- suffocation
- black lung disease
- serious physical harm.
In the steel mills, men worked near open furnaces, gigantic ladles of liquid metal, and coke ovens. It wasn't uncommon for them to suffer serious burns, amputation, heatstroke, and worse.
The labor conditions for shipyard workers weren't any better. Injuries, many fatal, were common. Think about the wives and children of these injured men. Imagine how difficult their lives became without their primary wage-earner. But at least child labor was plentiful. All the little kids in the family could earn a pathetic wage for dangerous, difficult work, too!
My grandfather Adamo fared much better because he had a trade. Trained as a shoemaker, he worked for shoe manufacturers, and even opened up his own shoe repair shop. He was lucky to have a trade to keep him out of the mines, railyards, and steel plants.
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Death-defying work conditions led to workers' unions. Was anyone in your family tree an organizer? |
Class Struggles Lead to Progress
Both immigrants and native-born Americans had hoped for better lives than this. Imagine risking life and limb for 12 hours a day, six days a week, and still struggling to feed your family. While the titans of industry became obscenely wealthy, their workers fought to survive.
It's no wonder these conditions led to the formation of unions. Before unionization, workers were faceless cogs in the machinery. They had to stand together to force corporations to treat them with any decency at all. What a rough time it was to make your way in America.
Many of today's U.S. immigrants work in farming, construction, manufacturing, and healthcare. They're also finding work in hotels, restaurants, and warehouses. There are more safeguards in place than our ancestors enjoyed. But many workplaces slip through the cracks of oversight and safety regulations.
It's fascinating to think of how conditions can change for one family over a few generations. My ancestors left behind abject poverty. They each found different ways to provide for their families. A boiler cleaner, a stone setter, a shoemaker, a tavern keeper. The stone setter's children became an insurance executive and an IBM manager. Their children became an insurance executive, a television producer, a college sports commissioner, and a website manager. And we all take work safety conditions for granted.
My family improved their lot over a couple of generations. But today is day one in another immigrant family's story. They're struggling now so their grandchildren can have a safe job and a good education. The cycle continues on and on. We all hope for a better life for our children.
Take a closer look at your ancestors' occupations on their census forms. It's one thing to know that an ancestor worked for the city department of sanitation. It's quite another thing to research the conditions of that job in that place and at that time. It makes you feel lucky to be alive.
Note that I used Microsoft Copilot to ask questions and get summaries and links to more information. Here are a few resources I found to get you started:
- "Labor Strife during the Development of Industry in America, 1890-1920" from Rutgers University.
- "America at Work, America at Leisure: Motion Pictures from 1894 to 1915" from the Library of Congress.
- "American Labor in the 20th Century" from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.