DANIEL E. WEINBERG
Ethnic Identity in Industrial
Cleveland: The Hungarians
1900-1920
Melting pot and Americanization,
assimilation and acculturation,
accommodation and integration are
traditionally popular terms used
to describe the processes of
interaction between immigrants to the
United States and American society.
Exploiting the country's vibrant
economy, having access to cheap and
expanding communication
facilities, and enjoying their freedom
from centuries' old political and
social constraints, immigrants
frequently have been portrayed as
trading away their European values and
identities and assuming
American cultural and behavioral norms.
Although some peoples
experienced greater difficulty than
others, scholars have suggested
that ultimately immigrants achieved
socioeconomic mobility, adapted
their attitudes in imitation of the
larger societal goals, and were
assimilated into the American
community.1
However, such judgments, and the
assumptions underlying them,
have been the subject of an
increasingly critical reappraisal of
America's immigration and ethnic
history. Employing new research
techniques, especially statistical
quantification methodologies, and
posing new questions, a growing number
of scholars have challenged
Dr. Weinberg is Associate Professor of
History and Director of the San Diego
History Research Center, Love Library,
San Diego State University, San Diego,
California. An earlier draft of this
essay, entitled "Greenhorns: The Autobiography of
Buckeye, An Hungarian Community,"
was presented at the 68th Annual Meeting of
the Organization of American Historians,
April 16-19, 1975, in Boston, Mass.
1. See, for example, Humbert Nelli, Italians
in Chicago, 1880-1930: A Study in
Ethnic Mobility (New York, 1970); Carlton Qualey, "Ethnicity and
History,"
Ethnicity: A Conceptual Approach, ed. Daniel E. Weinberg (Cleveland, 1976); Timothy
Smith, "New Approaches to the History
of Immigration in Twentieth Century
America," American Historical
Review, LXXI (July 1966), 1265-79; Will Herberg,
Protestant, Catholic, Jew, an Essay
in American Religious Sociology (Garden
City,
NJ, 1955); Stanley Feldstein and
Lawrence Costello, eds., The Ordeal of Assimilation:
A Documentary History of the White
Working Class, 1830's to 1970's (Garden
City,
NJ, 1974); Andrew Rolle, The
Immigrant Upraised (Norman, OK, 1968); W. I.
Thomas, R. E. Park, and Herbert A.
Miller, Old World Traits Transplanted, reprint ed.
(Montclair, NJ. 1971); Frederick Luebke,
Bonds of Loyalty: German Americans and
World War I (DeKalb, IL, 1974).
172 OHIO
HISTORY
the assimilation-consensus view with a
pluralism-conflict perspective.
The debate is destined for a long
history. Fundamental differences
have arisen over the nature of the
immigrants' identity; the character
of inter- and intra-group relationships;
the kinds of political-economic
activities in which they engaged; their
institutional commitments; and
the limits of community loyalties.2
Collectively and individually,
these controversies illustrate that
historians require clearer, more
precise insights into immigrants'
aspirations. Relying on traditional
documentary resources, scholars' efforts
to establish causal
relationships between the immigrants'
observable history and their
perspectives toward appropriate goals,
criteria for decisions, and the
significance they assigned particular
goals and behavior have been, at
best, only partially successful. The
resources are all too often the
voices of elites, providing little, if
any, insight on the "invisible"
immigrant. Only individuals who were
"joiners," or activists, are
identified, ignoring those who did not
have the time, ability, or
interest to act similarly. Personal
documents - diaries, memoirs,
correspondence, autobiographies - have
offered little relief from
these problems. They are simply too few
in number and too difficult
to obtain.3 For some
historians, however, oral history research has
been a valuable complementary tool in
their work. Integrating their
discoveries with information gained from
other methodological
strategies, these investigators have
scrutinized immigrants' lives with
2. For recent, good historiographical
discussions of these issues, see Rudolph J.
Vecoli, "European Americans: From
Immigrants to Ethnics," International Migration
Review, VI
(Winter 1972), 404-34; Robert P. Swierenga, "Ethnocultural Political
Analysis: A New Approach to American
Ethnic Studies," Journal of American
Studies, V (April 1971), 59-79; Robert D. Cross, "How
Historians Have Looked at
Immigrants to the United States," International
Migration Review, VII (Spring 1973),
4-13; Samuel T. McSeveny, "Ethnic
Groups, Ethnic Conflict and Recent Quantitative
Research in American Political
History," Ibid., 14-33; M. Mark Stolarik, "From Field
to Factory: The Historiography of Slovak
Immigration to the United States," Ibid., X
(Spring 1976), 81-103.
Otto Feinstein's personal and angry
criticism of the melting pot symbol identifies
some of the assumptions with which early
scholars addressed immigration history. See
Feinstein, "Why Ethnicity?" Immigrants
and Migrants: The Detroit Ethnic
Experience, ed. Wayne State University Division of Ethnic Studies
(Detroit, 1974), 1-9.
A more balanced and inclusive assessment
of the melting pot is Philip Gleason, "The
Melting Pot: Symbol of Fusion or
Confusion?" American Quarterly, XVI (Spring
1964), 20-46.
3. Continually greater access to federal
census manuscript data will help to enrich
immigration history. However, this
material is hardly a panacea. Millions of immigrants
came after 1900, compelling scholars to
wait many more years before this information
can be obtained. Even more importantly,
the comprehensiveness of census reports is
suspect. The quality of census
manuscript data leaves much to be desired because the
data deal, on the one hand, with many
people unable to speak the English language
and, on the other, census investigators
hesitate to venture into "strange" areas.
Hungarians in Cleveland 173
greater intensity and begun to provide a
more complex, as well as
expansive, picture of the foreign-borns'
experiences.
The histories of Hungarians in
Cleveland, Ohio, have largely relied
on traditional materials and methods,
and they reflect the limits of
such an approach.4 Portraying
the immigrants as generally poor,
unskilled, rural, and non-industrial
upon arrival in the city, the few
studies made of them assert the
assimilation-consensus perspective as
they describe the aliens' rapid
Americanization in response to the
demands and dynamics of Cleveland's
urban-industrial environment.
Absorbed by the burgeoning community,
their Hungarian cultural
traditions and priorities were displaced
and the immigrants' desires
for new opportunities, greater wealth,
and upward mobility fulfilled.5
However, when the data of these
histories is reexamined free from
the assumptions and judgments of their
authors, and the immigrants
themselves queried about their
experiences, a very different history
begins to emerge. They did interact with
the larger Cleveland society,
became naturalized, and prospered in a
community unencumbered by
political, economic, and social
constraints imposed upon them by
harsh local and imperial regimes.
However, they perceive their new
life in terms that suggest the
persistence and transcendent importance
of Hungarian cultural traditions,
values, and behavioral norms. Their
community, called Buckeye, was a
parochial social context and it
encouraged its people's retention of
their Hungarian identity.6
"Buckeye Road was a wonderful
territory, just like ... [your] own
town. People would all know each other
and all like each other."7 "A
4. The studies referred to and
identified below addressed Magyar-speaking people. I
have retained this approach, despite the
multi-ethnic character of Hungarian
immigrants. My research, in addition,
was rooted in the experiences of people who
articulated their identity as Hungarian,
that is apparently found Hungarian adequately
descriptive and possessing satisfactory
historical and associational meaning.
5. Leslie Konnyu, Hungarians in the
United States: An Immigration Study (St.
Louis, 1967); Frederick Gonda, The
History of Cleveland Hungarians,
Abbreviated English Version (Cleveland, 1917); John Korosfoy, Hungarians in
America (Cleveland, 1943); Joshua Fishman et al., Language
Loyalty in the United
States: The Maintenance and
Perpetuation of Non-English Mother Tongues by
American Ethnic and Religious Groups:
A Final Report to the U.S. Office of Education
Language Research Center, Under
Contract SAE-8729 (Washington, D.C.,
1964), 3
vols.; Hulda F. Cook, The Magyars of
Cleveland (Cleveland, 1919).
6. Buckeye was located on Cleveland's
east side. While the community grew
throughout the period under
consideration, there is general agreement about its
geographic configuration. The northern
edge ran along Woodland Avenue; the western
edge extended from East 75th Street to
the city limits; the southern perimeter reached
from the municipal boundary toward
Shaker Boulevard and beyond to Imperial
Avenue; and the eastern edge ran along
Imperial Avenue to East 116th Street.
7. Daniel E. Weinberg, Hungarian Oral
History Tapes. Tapes of the interviews are in
the author's possession, as well as the
few transcripts and outlines of responses made
from the oral documents. Respondents'
anonymity was promised as a precondition to
174 OHIO
HISTORY
few would come from Europe because
somebody already has been
here and asked them to come. .. ."8
These are the memories of two
Hungarian people who immigrated to
Cleveland in the first decades of
the twentieth century. Their
descriptions were echoed by others:
Buckeye was a familiar, warm, and
vibrant community largely settled
by people who came to the United States
with the intention of
working in Cleveland alongside relatives
or known friends and
associates.
Between 1900 and 1920, Cleveland's
Hungarian immigrant
population jumped from 9,558 to 42,134.
From roughly 8 percent of
Cleveland's foreign born in 1900,
increases in immigration pushed the
Hungarian share of the city's foreign
born to 18 percent by 1920.9
Immigrant men who were predominantly
single-but not necessarily
unmarried-came to Cleveland for money.10
From their perspective
immigration was a temporary exile, the
money gained to be used for a
satisfying life at home in Hungary.11
Commenting that her father
emigrated to the United States when she
was an infant, one immigrant
explained that it was not until 1913,
eleven years later, that he
decided to remain in Cleveland and
brought the family over: "Until
then they always thought they would go
back to Europe, like
everybody those days."l2 Largely
from areas in Upper Hungary, they
were heterogeneous in terms of
occupational, or skill, backgrounds.
Most of the immigrants came from an
agricultural context: small
landholding families, landless
agricultural laborers, and distressed
interviews. Because the tapes contain
numerous personal references and references to
families and friends, they are not
available to other researchers.
8. Ibid.
9. U.S., Department of the Interior,
Census Office, A Compendium of the 12th
Census, 1900, vols. 1 and 2 (Washington, D.C., 1902); U.S.,
Department of Commerce,
Bureau of the Census, 13th Census,
1910, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C., 1922). See also
Konnyu, Hungarians in the United
States, 40.
10. A survey of Cleveland conducted by
the Dillingham Commission between 1907
and 1910 reinforced the importance of
recognizing that many married men were part of
the early twentieth-century immigration.
Approximately 60% of the men between the
ages of sixteen and twenty-nine
interviewed concerning their "conjugal condition"
reported they were married-221 of 367
persons. (The number or percent of this group
who married after arrival in Cleveland
is not possible to identify from the Commission's
information. The oral research data from
my study of Buckeye, however, would
suggest that the Commission's findings
largely described men who were married prior
to emigration. Other statistical tables
in the government's survey lend support to such a
judgment also. In the Middle West, it was found, Magyar
immigrants who resided in
the United States for less than five
years reported that 59.5% had wives abroad.) See
U.S., Congress, Senate, Senate
Document, 61st Congress, 2nd session, 1909-1910, vol.
67, 168-71; Ibid., vol. 71, 31.
11. Fishman et al., Language Loyalty
in the United States, III, 7-21.
12. Weinberg, Hungarian Oral History
Tapes.
Hungarians in Cleveland 175
artisans such as cabinet makers,
tinners, and blacksmiths from rural
towns.
13
The eastside Buckeye neighborhood or
westside Hungarian
settlement in Cleveland were the
immigrants' residential goals. They
knew of them, the jobs available nearby,
wage levels, and housing
opportunities before leaving Hungary
from "America Letters" and
returning immigrants, and it was
Cleveland, alone, to which these
people were traveling.14 Indeed, even when unable to reach the city
immediately upon entering the United
States because of financial
miscalculations, robbery, entrapment by
unscrupulous labor agents,
unclear directions, or illness, these
immigrants grasped the first op-
portunity to reach Cleveland. Lost in
Perth Amboy, New Jersey,
when they entered the United States in
1902, a group of townspeople
from Felpecz were preyed upon by a labor
agent. Under the pretense
of protection, he took and refused to
return their money and belong-
ings. Threatening and frightening the
immigrants, he contracted their
labor and received their wages. Using
subterfuge six months later, the
group escaped the agent and headed
straight for Cleveland.15 Reach-
ing the city, immigrants found lively
Hungarian neighborhoods-an
"American Debrecen"16-family
or friends willing to house, feed,
and assist them in becoming familiar
with the area and acquiring a
job. Boarding was an experience shared
by most immigrants.17 Quick-
ly, moreover, they discovered that
Hungarian was the language of
13. Fishman et al., Language Loyalty
in the United States, III, 6. See also, Gonda,
The History of Cleveland Hungarians, 28; and background discussions from interviews.
According to the Dillingham Commission,
75.3% of Magyar immigrants in the Midwest
were employed in farming or farm labor
prior to emigration. Of the remaining people,
10.7% worked as general laborers, 5.8%
were employed in iron and steel manufacturing
and manufacturing of its products, 4.1%
were engaged in hand trades, and 4.1% were
distributed among other types of
manufacturing labor, trade, and miscellaneous
occupations. Senate, Document, 61st
Congress, 2nd session, 1909-1910, vol. 71, 19.
See also John Kosa, "A Century of
Hungarian Emigration, 1850-1950," American
Slavic and East European Review, XVI (December 1957), 506.
14. Weinberg, Hungarian Oral History
Tapes; Josef Barton, Peasants and Strangers:
Italians, Rumanians and Slovaks in an American City,
1890-1950 (Cambridge, MA,
1975), 49, underscores the exclusive
locational intentions of immigrants to the city,
"Migration to Cleveland flowed
mainly within well-defined steams [sic]; more than
three quarters of the Italians,
Rumanians and Slovaks proceeded along well-traveled
courses to specific destinations in the
city."
15. Weinberg, Hungarian Oral History
Tapes.
16. Yeshayahu Jelinek,
"Self-Identification of First Generation Hungarian Jewish
Immigrants," American Jewish
Historical Quarterly, LXI (March 1972), 218.
17. Of the 137 households studied in
Cleveland, the Dillingham Commission reported
that forty-six kept boarders (both board
and lodging) and that twenty kept lodgers, that
is, 48.5%. In the Midwest, it discovered
that 53.6% of Magyar households kept
boarders or lodgers. See Senate, Document,
61st Congress, 2nd session, 1909-1910,
vol. 67, 182; Ibid., vol. 81,
150.
176 OHIO
HISTORY
their new surroundings. English was
unnecessary for day-to-day af-
fairs and was heard only occasionally.l8
Nor did they lack familiar
services. Between 1900 and 1925,
Buckeye and its westside sister
possessed rapidly growing and varied
small businesses owned by fel-
low immigrants: butchers,
confectionaries, bakeries, taverns,
hardware and clothing stores, and
pharmacies. Their religious needs
were also addressed by Roman and Greek
Catholic, Lutheran, Re-
formed Church, and Jewish congregations
which already existed or
were in the process of being formed.19
The immigrants' primary concern,
however, was neither the ability to
feel "at home"-most did not
intend to make their homes in the United
States-nor patronize community
businesses-money was to be hoard-
ed because it was too precious to be
spent on anything but necessities.
The immigrant wanted to work.
Employment could be had on both
the east and west sides, but Buckeye
offered the greatest number of
opportunities within walking distance
of the community's
center-Woodland Avenue and East 79th
Street-and it was to the
east side that the majority of
Hungarians came. The work available
was factory and heavy industrial. In
and around Buckeye, and eager
to exploit the immigrants' muscle,
were: National Malleable Steel
Castings Company ("Oreg
Gyar"), Mechanical Rubber Works,
Eberhardt Manufacturing Company
("Uj Gyar"), Ohio Foundary,
18. The immigrants' lack of concern in
this regard is dramatically illustrated by the
Dillingham Commission's study of Magyars
in Cleveland. Specifying English language
competency by years of residence in the
United States, the Commission found that
merely fifteen of sixty-eight
respondents who lived in Cleveland for less than five years
could speak English; of those who
resided in the United States between five and nine
years, only twenty-two of forty-eight
could do so; and for those resident in the United
States for more than ten years, only
seven of eleven people had acquired this skill. In
short, a miserly forty-four people,
approximately 35% of the total, showed interest in
developing an English language capacity.
(While the statistics indicate a significant gain
in ability over time, it should not be
assumed that they are expressing a concerted
interest in acquiring the English
language to displace the native tongue or to adjust to
American cultural norms. Indeed, the
discussion regarding naturalization and education
for children would suggest that
developing this ability was merely another tactical
maneuver to ease what were felt to be
unnecessary disabilities.) See Senate,
Document, 61st
Congress, 2nd session, 1909-1910, vol. 67, 204.
19. St. Elizabeth Roman Catholic Church
was organized in December 1892; St. John
the Baptist (Greek) Catholic Church was
begun in January 1893; the First Hungarian
Lutheran Church was created when
Hungarian immigrants were granted a charter in
April 1906; the First Hungarian Reformed
Church was organized in January 1891; B'nai
Jeshurun, the Hungarian Jewish
congregation, was founded by immigrant "pioneers"
to Cleveland in 1866, and finally built
a permanent synagogue in Buckeye in 1905;
congregation Shomre Hadath Magyar
Izraelta Hitkozseg, a smaller group of Hungarian
Jews who immigrated to Cleveland in the
1890s and early 1900s, was formally
organized in 1922, many years after
using rented facilities and feeling as step-children
to Kenneseth Israel Congregation. See,
Karl Bonutti and George Prpic, "Selected
Ethnic Communities of Cleveland: A
Socio-Economic Study" (Cleveland, 1974), 46-58.
Hungarians in Cleveland
177
Van Dorn Iron Works, Electric Controller
Manufacturing Company,
Herbert Feis Manufacturers, and other
similar companies.20 A few
immigrants, in addition, were able to
obtain work as carpenters,
autobody repairmen, bakery helpers,
housekeepers, and tobacco
shredders and trimmers for cigar
makers-work for which they had to
acquire a skill or for which previous
skills were adapted.21 Some also
functioned as padrone, that is, labor
middlemen. Immigrants and
companies, alike, sought them out in
order to satisfy both the need
for employment and the work force
demands of an expanding
economy. Employed in Sandusky, Ohio, at
the limestone quarries as
a cutter, G. S. (fictitious initials) in
fact never cut stone. His value to
the company was his skill as an informal
labor contractor. He
recruited many Hungarians to work in the
quarries and even managed
to bring over laborers directly from Hungary.22 Within the various
companies, immigrants were occasionally
in positions of authority,
for example, foremen, and performed
skilled tasks such as steel
molding. The majority, however, found
employment where only
strength, durability, and a desire to
work were required. Sixty hours
and more, apparently, was a common work
week, and wages of
$10.50 per week for unskilled labor was
the usual pay.23
The Hungarians cherished their income.
For some, the money ac-
cumulated meant an ability to escape the
drudgery of heavy industry
and translate previous skills into
marketable forms. For the tinner,
this could mean opening a hardware
store; for a farmer, opening a
20. Weinberg, Hungarian Oral History
Tapes; Bonutti and Prpic, "Selected Ethnic
Communities of Cleveland," 30.
21. These data combined with the
information gathered by the Dillingham
Commission allow for a rather complete
reconstruction of the distribution of Magyars
among occupational alternatives.
Manufacturing and mechanical pursuits, general
labor, and transportation accounted for
approximately 92% of the industrial
employment reported by males age sixteen
and over (86%, 3.3%, and 2.7%,
respectively). The employment of male
heads of households is also illustrative: 67.2%
of the individuals reported their status
as laborer; 4.9% reported working as cigar and
cigarette factory employees; 4.9% were
employed in furniture factories; 3.1% indicated
they worked in foundaries and machine
shops; and 3.1% identified themselves as
cabinet makers. The remaining 16.8% were
distributed randomly among the following
areas: bartender, blacksmith, car
repair, grocery proprietor, painter employee, peddler,
tailor-employees and proprietors. See,
Senate, Document, 61st Congress, 2nd
session, 1901-1910, vol. 66, 497-502; Ibid.,
vol. 67, 190-92.
22. Weinberg, Hungarian Oral History
Tapes.
23. Ibid.; The Dillingham
Commission reported wage levels only for individuals age
eighteen and over. Many of the
respondents for my study began work at an earlier age.
The figure of $10.50, nevertheless, is in close
agreement with the Commission's data.
Male Magyars living in the Midwest and
employed in the iron and steel industry had
average weekly earnings of $12.34, while
Magyars in manufacturing and mining
averaged $11.65 per week. See, Senate, Document,
61st Congress, 2nd session,
1909-1910, vol. 71, 21; Ibid., vol.
81, 111.
178 OHIO HISTORY
grocery store or butcher shop; for a
cabinet maker, it could mean
contracting to build homes. Others used
their savings to buy land and
become realtors in a rapidly expanding
neighborhood. Mostly, how-
ever, the immigrants saved their money
at one of the two Buckeye
banks that adroitly recognized a large,
interested clientele and used
Hungarian-speaking employees. When
their savings were large
enough, their loneliness no longer
bearable, or Cleveland experienced
economic hardship, many immigrants
returned to Hungary.24 A core,
nevertheless, stayed and their incomes,
businesses, and social and
religious institutions were the roots
that gave Buckeye its cohesive-
ness in the midst of population
transience.
Buckeye underwent a dramatic change in
1914. The world war
made travel difficult and many
immigrants who intended only to work
in Cleveland changed their plans and
became permanent residents.
The stability of the community was
reinforced by wartime political
turmoil in Hungary and by the postwar
Treaty of Trianon which
formalized the deep ethno-political
fractures in the country by
creating new nation states out of the
former empire. Many immigrants
no longer had homes to which they could
return. Creating a satisfying
life now became a goal to be pursued
within their foster Hungary,
Buckeye.
The sociocultural context for
understanding Cleveland's east side
Hungarians' experiences is profoundly
important. Immigration was a
conservative undertaking, an act
initially limited to economic exploi-
tation by the immigrant.
Moreover, the change from transience to
permanence and the pursuit of
contentment after 1914 had little dis-
cernible impact on the Hungarian
character of the immigrants' ex-
periences. Remaining within the
confines of Buckeye, and satisfying
their social, business, recreational,
and religious needs within the
growing community, Cleveland's
Hungarians molded the environment
to satisfy themselves. Contacts with
the rest of Cleveland-
geographically and socially-were
shunned and limited in nature.
Cleveland was where these people lived,
Buckeye was clearly their
home.
The elements and operational character
of this ethnically insulated
experience are revealed in the routine,
pedestrian aspects of the im-
migrants' lives. Ironically, one of the
clearest indicators of this di-
vergence is naturalization. All but
three of the respondents contacted
24. "The number of returnees is
estimated anywhere between 15 to 33 percent of the
gross emigration," Kosa,
"Hungarian Emigration," 504-05. Adequacy of savings was
defined idiosyncratically during
interviews and no sense of uniformity developed,
except that savings rarely were less
than two hundred dollars. See also, Bonutti and
Prpic, "Selected Ethnic Communities
of Cleveland," 30-31.
Hungarians in Cleveland 179
for this study obtained citizenship
quickly. The immigrants believed
naturalization would enhance their
opportunities for employment and
enable them to receive preferential
treatment in bringing relatives to
the United States. They were also
convined it was an essential step in
achieving their goal of "be[ing]
part of the country."25 The signifi-
cance of their response lies in the
assessment of what it is, or what
one does, to feel "part of the
country." For these immigrants, their
activities and memories demonstrate, it
was being Hungarian.
They voted regularly. They experienced
great difficulty, however,
remembering the names of prominent
federal and local political
figures whose activities lacked
visibility beyond five to seven years
past. In addition, few respondents could
recall with any confidence
whether they had voted for a particular
individual, for example, Al
Smith, Franklin Roosevelt, Thomas Dewey,
Harry Truman, Dwight
Eisenhower, Henry Wallace; or locally,
mayors such as John
Marshall, Harold Burton, and Frank
Lausche. Yet, when asked to
identify their councilmen, people they
knew in the Buckeye
community, and noteworthy events, most
were able to recall for
whom they voted, numerous people, dates
of marriages, births,
deaths, installations of clergy,
erections of churches, parades, and
building of bridges.26 The
limit of their concerns was Buckeye; what
occurred outside it, apparently, was
much less important.
Like other Americans in the early
twentieth century, Buckeye's
Hungarians were a geographically mobile
people. Five to six
residence changes between the years 1900
and 1925 were typical of
the people interviewed. The direction of
movement was east and
south, which was away from the original
settlement and toward land
bordering, and within, the city's
limits. This was familiar terrain to
the immigrants, often used as picnic and
recreational sites prior to its
development. Equally significant, their
mobility followed the
extension of Buckeye Road, the second
name for Woodland Avenue,
the street that had been the major
east-west artery of the original
community. Upper Buckeye, as this area
came to be known, grew
south also because expansion to the
north was undesirable; a
consequence, in part, of the presence of
the Nickel Plate Railroad
tracks, but more importantly, of
non-Hungarians living there. They
were not, one immigrant emphasized,
"our people." Lower Buckeye,
25. Weinberg, Hungarian Oral History
Tapes. These are not rank ordered, merely a
summary of the comments.
26. Samuel Hays, "The Changing
Political Structure of the City in Industrial
America," Journal of Urban History, I
(November 1974), 14-15. provides insight on the
selectivity of immigrants' perspectives. I did not
attempt to validate dates or names.
My interest was to establish the
boundaries of familiarity.
180 OHIO HISTORY |
|
she continued, was also "filling up," and "starting to mix."27 Mobility served to expand the community and to maintain its perceived homogeneity; Hungarians were not moving out or away. The housing they chose to build, own, and rent also illustrated the persistence and power of their ethnic context. They placed little difference in value between renting or owning a house. Respondents each displayed a varying combination of rental and ownership experiences, interspersing one with the other. Ownership was only slightly more pronounced. Generally, housing was shop-with-attached-house style or multiple family style, with the owner or builder-owner using the two, three, or four additional suites for income.28 The houses ranged in value from $7,000 to $10,000, and the people obtained mortgages for amounts between $2,000 and $5,000. They amortized their loans quickly, typically before the end of the mortgage's life. Aware that they lived in an environment strongly favoring the landlord, needing room for growing families, desiring proximity to their businesses, comfortable within the community's entire circumference, the Hungarians showed little regard for their housing in terms of status or one-family privacy and
27. Weinberg, Hungarian Oral History Tapes. 28. See also Barton, Peasants and Strangers, 18. |
Hungarians in Cleveland 181
exclusiveness. Home was where these
immigrants placed it, rented or
owned, and home was community alongside
and among their
cohorts.29 Prosperous enough
to make major capital investments and
frugal in their use of capital, the
immigrants did not abandon their
goal of accumulating money.30
The economic activities of the
immigrants encompassed more than
home ownership, hourly wage employment,
and small business pur-
suits. After arriving in Buckeye and
getting jobs, these people began
savings accounts quickly and maintained
them religiously. They
ranged in value from a few hundred
dollars to several thousands of
dollars. None of the respondents' close
friends, in addition, lacked
savings accounts; the feeling that it
was necessary seems to have
been common. Beyond the initial goal of
returning to Hungary with
money adequate to meet their needs, the
immigrants also saw savings
as a means for warding off some
undefined disaster: "You never
knew," "just in case."
Clearly, money was not to be spent except for
the most serious of needs, or, as their
housing experience reveals,
except under controlled conditions.
While contentment and
satisfaction were part of their futures,
anxiety and insecurity were
apparently there also. The present was
what they knew and handled,
the future was outside them and only
partially discernible.
Consumption activities in terms of
tangible, convenience goods also
illustrate the immigrants' conservatism,
as well as the insularity of
Buckeye and their contentment with such
a proscribed sociocultural
environment. Typically, purchases were
paid for immediately and in
cash. Credit was an anathema to the
Hungarians and, apparently,
only considered appropriate for coping
with the extraordinary
circumstances of buying a house.31 Moreover,
the immigrants
acquired merchandise, such as clothes
washers, refrigerators,
29. Barton's comments regarding the
Slovak community of Cleveland are instructive
in this regard, Ibid., 48-63, passim.
30. When asked to analogize their
experiences in this regard to those of friends and
relatives, respondents indicated
similarity. In response to my comments that movement
of such frequency within a short time
seemed significant, respondents expressed
wonder at my comments and were,
uniformly, blase about the entire matter. "Living in
the community," it seems, literally
meant that. Their clear indifference to ownership
suggests that the immigrants persisted
in seeing their lives in terms of traditional
themes that were translated into new
forms: transience, the continuity of family and
home unqualified by the circumstances of
housing, and using the environment's
resources adroitly for income.
31. The informants' absolute repudiation
of credit was probed in the interviews.
Responses were too vague, however, for
any but the most tentative assessments. One
theme of their comments was that charge
accounts and personal loans qualified the
personal control over life and economic
relationships they cherished. Credit buying was
also associated with poverty and none of
the immigrants perceived themselves as poor
in these years. Rather, they had
"hard times" and "difficulty."
182 OHIO HISTORY
telephones, and cars, only gradually.
With few exceptions, the people
examined for this study purchased the
clothes washer first. Growing
families, boarders and, frequently,
relatives made huge demands on
the strength and time of the household
wife, or children, responsible
for this chore. Refrigerators were
acquired by the majority of
respondents in the 1940s. Ice chests
were the common means for
storing perishable foods of daily use.
While cost could have been a
consideration, it seems more likely that
in the immigrant's
perspective of moderation and the
importance attributed to always
having "enough" money, he was
not impressed with the advantages
of mechanical refrigeration over ice
cooling. With one exception,
none of the interview group's families
had a telephone until the
children demanded one, and then
supporting it was partially
their responsibility. It was seen as a
luxury and wholly unnecessary
to the immigrants' communications needs.
This perspective
underscores an element of Buckeye's
social dynamics. People were
on the streets greeting, gossiping, and
shopping with one another all
day and into the evening. "People
would [not only] . . . know each
other," they knew all about each
other. The stores, saloons, fraternal
meetings, and religious services were
all as much social settings as
occasions for business and prayer.
Respondents casually recalled long
lists of other familiar social
opportunities; related stories of helping
out at church card parties and picnics;
proudly emphasized their
regular attendance at fraternal
meetings; and shared numerous
anecdotes about people they knew. At the
same time, they lamented
long, demanding days that severely
limited social activities. "I was
too busy working, too tired to have
friends" was a comment frequently
made.32 Rather than a
contradiction, however, the juxtaposition
suggests that contact with friends and
different people in the
community was so frequent, routine, and
normal that it possessed
no special aura. There was no need to
make "new" friends.33 A
community whose life was
"outdoors" had no room, let alone need,
for cars. Buckeye was developed for
pedestrians' needs.34 Most of
the respondents purchased cars only in
the late-1920s. Yet, even in
32. Weinberg, Hungarian Oral History
Tapes.
33. Barton, Peasants and Strangers, 89,
discovered a similar circumstance among
Slovak immigrants. "The prevalent
values," he asserts, "were order and continuity ....
The community wove a pattern of
stability for its members."
34. See also, John Palasics,
"Economic Influences on the Hungarian Ethnic Life in
Cleveland," Paper presented at the
National Conference on Ethnicity, Cleveland State
University, May 1972, 5. Palasics is a
second-generation Hungarian. Born and raised in
Buckeye, he has lived his entire life in
the community. Known locally for his expertise
about Buckeye's history, Palasics was
employed by Joshua Fishman to coordinate the
section of Language Loyalty in the
United States that considered Hungarians.
Hungarians in Cleveland 183
the early 1930s, cars were still unusual
enough that some of the
people recalled their hilarity at
hearing "awful" noises and seeing
cars repeatedly break down during a
parade of them in Buckeye.
Although they had incomes adequate
enough that they were able to
save a portion by the late teens, and
they enjoyed the prosperity of
the 1920s, Buckeye's Hungarians chose
not to indulge in conspicuous
consumption nor to acquire convenience
merchandise in significant
quantity. They wanted, or needed, little
to be content. Actively
participating in their vibrant
community, easing what were felt to be
overly burdensome tasks, providing
security for the family, and
enjoying a social web of friends and
relatives seem to have been the
desired and achieved goals. They
attempted to inculcate many of
these same priorities in their children
also.
Most of the repondents' children
attended public school and
graduated.35 Education was
very important to them and they
addressed it as a way to avoid the
barriers of language and as a
means to acquire skills. Electrician,
baker, mason, bookkeeper, and
mechanic were to be the desired fruits
of education. Expressive
of the immigrants' consensus was the
comment "we wanted the boys
to learn a trade."36 They
were voicing upward mobility aspirations
for their children. Such an interest,
however, was for the children,
not themselves. Education was desired to
protect their children from
the difficulties the immigrants
experienced. At the same time, the
immigrants also expected the second
generation to perceive income
and its uses, Buckeye, and life
generally as they knew these.
Expressed variously as "stay with
his own," "marry a good girl,"
"live nearby," "take over
the business," and continue to "help
[his/her] father out at the place,"
the immigrants were painting a
picture of persistence.
Mobility, housing, income, attitudes,
and goals all describe what,
for these Hungarians at least, was meant
by being "part of the
country." America and American, for
them, were operationally and
immediately translated, identified with,
and limited by a powerful
ethnic prism. They chose and prized
their parallel existence. Their
families, relatives, and friends
constituted the significant reference
group for behavior and values, and the
persistence of earlier
immigrant perspectives and ideas in new
forms.37 They were content,
35. Of the seventy-six boys and girls up
to the age of fifteen, only one girl was
reported as employed by the Dillingham
Commission. See, Senate, Document, 61st
Congress, 2nd session, 1909-1910, vol.
67, 195-96.
36. Weinberg, Hungarian Oral History
Tapes.
37. Barton, Peasants and Strangers, 13,
states, "The family, the residential
neighborhood, the voluntary
association-these were the principal agencies of social
184 OHIO HISTORY
satisfied with what they achieved:
"We had what we wanted, we
didn't have to go without,"
"we lived comfortable," "things got o.k.
after a while." Equally
significant, it was they, in dynamic interaction
with the Hungarian community, who
established the means and
criteria for success.
Unlike the assessments of earlier
scholars that immigrants were
"un-modern" or
"anti-modern" burdens for the urban-industrial
environment, were disorganized and
disoriented by immigration, and
were immediately confronted with the
necessity to shrug off
behaviors, values, and relationships in
order to effectively cope with
the new surroundings,38 Buckeye's Hungarians experienced
familiarity and reinforcement in
Cleveland and they powerfully
controlled their own lives. More than
merely creating a parallel
community to ease their assimilation, or
acculturation, into American
society, they created a context which
functioned to thwart these
processes; one in which Hungarian ethnic
values, preferences, and
needs persisted and were preeminent. The
implications here are
significant. If scholars are to be
confident in their understanding of
the complexities and consequences of the
nation's immigrant-ethnic
experience, the mundane, pedestrian,
grass-roots lives of the
immigrants must be learned. Our
knowledge of their churches,
leaders, press, organizations, and
statistics must be integrated with
their biographies. Without this
grounding, the history will lack the
richness and completeness it requires.
NOTES ON METHODOLOGY
I interviewed as many immigrants as
possible and I attempted no se-
lectivity in choosing respondents. The
sample group ranged from sixty-five
to eighty-two years of age. Informants were asked
questions in an informal
manner. None were requested or permitted
to respond in writing. The major
problems of the research were the
infirmities of old age, my status as a
non-Hungarian outsider, language, and
the extraordinary demands of time
and money that are inherent to oral
research. Despite the unqualified kindness
and constant assistance of many
community notables, I was able to talk with a
relative handful of people. How many
immigrants I missed from lack of
information regarding their whereabouts,
how many died between the
beginning and end of my research, and
indeed, the actual size of the remaining
immigrant population itself, are
unknown. My best guess, and it is only that, is
that approximately 150-200 people
constituted the population within which I
control and reform between 1890 and
1954. These characteristics defined the New
World for the immigrants and structured
the course of their lives."
38. Perhaps the best known statement of
such views is Oscar Handlin's essay, The
Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great
Migration that Made the American People
(New York, 1951).
Hungarians in Cleveland 185
was working. Of that group, I was able
to identify a mere sixty to sixty-five
and interview forty-three. I do not
suggest the representativeness of the data.
Without intensive research regarding
Hungarian immigrants in Cleveland and
the Hungarian community in America
generally, a judgment of this kind is
impossible. Rather, the information
obtained and supplemented with
traditional historical resources should
be considered suggestive. Its value for
understanding America's immigrant
history, I believe, is not diminished
because it lacks a definitive nature.
The experiences of Buckeye's
Hungarians discussed in this study are
rich with historical insight. Enabling
the research to be freed from the
constraints of inadequate and frequently
filiopietistic secondary resources and
to transcend the immediate obstacle of
primary resources in a language other
than English, oral research enlightened
dimensions of the American immigrant
experience that challenge many
traditional views. Even in such a
limited study, it has demonstrated an
effective, creative capacity for
enriching scholarship.
The limits of my data, and oral history
research as an investigative method,
are no less important than the
observations they stimulated. Many scholars
shared their precious time and expertise
with me, indicating methodological
and analytical deficiencies of this
study and suggesting remedies. Professors
Ron Grele, John Bodnar, M. Mark
Stolarik, and John Wunder were
especially helpful, and the excited
exchanges at the session of the
Organization of American Historians'
meeting where this study was first
presented also raised interesting questions about the
data and their
significance. The character of the
research sample, in particular, has
provoked a number of comments: was it
exotic, or aberrational? Can the
immigrants' recall be trusted? Were
their responses rationalizations, or
self-justifications, for lives more
accurately assessed in other terms? The
process of interviewing has also been a
matter of concern: were informants
directed to responses, unknowingly on my
part, by the questions? Can their
remarks about friends, relatives, and
neighbors-"second-hand," "hearsay"
information-be assigned a value equal to
the comments about their own
lives? How reliable were their responses
regarding the Buckeye community in
general, that is, were they in a position to know this
data?
also being tested. This is not the place
to engage in such a debate. Rather, the
clarifications that follow are limited
only to my procedures and to the
relationship of the Hungarians
interviewed to their community cohorts.
These questions address more than the
procedures I employed in the
investigation. The viability of oral history as a
research method is, in essence,
All the information gathered from the
interviews was cross-referenced with
data, but not the assessments, contained
in other studies. In addition,
respondents were asked to comment on the
details of their experiences in a
number of ways, that is, monitors were
built into the interviews to indicate
discrepancies, contradictions, and
ambiguities. The background research on
Buckeye's history and the history of
Hungarians in the United States I
conducted prior to beginning the
interviews also gave me a critical context
from which to approach the responses.
Individuals knowledgeable about the
community were asked to react to the
information as well. The confidence I
developed in the reliability of the data
was a derivative of these processes.
Moreover, I am convinced that the people
investigated were not ecologically
flawed "stayers." Residential persistence was
not unique to the people I
interviewed. Whether located in Buckeye
when I met with them, or with their
186 OHIO HISTORY
children in the suburbs, they expressed
a common, sympathetic attachment
to the community. The immigrants' commitment and
long-term residence
were also acknowledged by those
second-generation immigrants from whom I
received assistance and by a selective
use of city directories in tracing
mobility. That the interview group was
not drawn from a representative
cross-section of occupational and wealth
backgrounds, in addition, seems to
have affected the overall picture of
Hungarian experiences little. Included in
the group were people who had worked as skilled and
unskilled hourly wage
employees, had been small business proprietors,
professionals, and
housewives. The degree of comfort and
wealth the respondents possessed in
the years 1900-1920 is indicated in the
study. The second generation's
memories and the other resources used in
the study suggest Buckeye was
largely a moderately wealthy community.
It is not possible to assess whether
respondents were inadvertently directed
to particular kinds of comments. I do
not believe they were. Interviews were,
in fact, a series of interviews ranging
in duration from thirty minutes to two
hours, individually, and commonly
involving two and three visits.
Respondents were asked both specific and
general questions and allowed to
answer relatively free from
interference. Probing usually occurred in an
interview when a significant issue was
raised, contradiction made, or
ambiguity introduced. Questions I asked
were typically short and addressed
real life experiences. When attempting
to investigate discrimination, for
example, I queried the people on whether
they had been called "Hunkie,"
"Kike," or
"Sheenie." The issue of housing was approached similarly,
asking them to identify streets on which
they had lived, the number of
families living on the premises, if they
rented, why they moved, years resided
at a specific location, how they paid to
build or buy a home, and if other
Hungarians were their immediate
neighbors. The immigrants' insularity was
also determined in such a manner by
focusing questions on their shopping
preferences, occupational sites,
religious associations, social and leisure
pursuits, and frequency and reasons for
traveling out of Buckeye. Finally, to
the fullest extent possible, I asked the
same questions of all respondents and
did so in the same way. Most
importantly, my faith in the interviews'
spontaneity and the respectability of
the information derives from their
informality and freedom from persistent
intrusions.
This is only a preliminary study. In
addition to the questions raised
concerning the experiences of
Cleveland's Hungarians, both the discoveries
and limits of the research indicate the
need for a serious, multi-strategy
approach to America's immigration-ethnic
history. Fundamental concerns for
understanding the nation's development
and character are intrinsic to this
history. Scholars cannot afford to
compromise its comprehension by
restricting the methods that will
provide them access to necessary
information.
DANIEL E. WEINBERG
Ethnic Identity in Industrial
Cleveland: The Hungarians
1900-1920
Melting pot and Americanization,
assimilation and acculturation,
accommodation and integration are
traditionally popular terms used
to describe the processes of
interaction between immigrants to the
United States and American society.
Exploiting the country's vibrant
economy, having access to cheap and
expanding communication
facilities, and enjoying their freedom
from centuries' old political and
social constraints, immigrants
frequently have been portrayed as
trading away their European values and
identities and assuming
American cultural and behavioral norms.
Although some peoples
experienced greater difficulty than
others, scholars have suggested
that ultimately immigrants achieved
socioeconomic mobility, adapted
their attitudes in imitation of the
larger societal goals, and were
assimilated into the American
community.1
However, such judgments, and the
assumptions underlying them,
have been the subject of an
increasingly critical reappraisal of
America's immigration and ethnic
history. Employing new research
techniques, especially statistical
quantification methodologies, and
posing new questions, a growing number
of scholars have challenged
Dr. Weinberg is Associate Professor of
History and Director of the San Diego
History Research Center, Love Library,
San Diego State University, San Diego,
California. An earlier draft of this
essay, entitled "Greenhorns: The Autobiography of
Buckeye, An Hungarian Community,"
was presented at the 68th Annual Meeting of
the Organization of American Historians,
April 16-19, 1975, in Boston, Mass.
1. See, for example, Humbert Nelli, Italians
in Chicago, 1880-1930: A Study in
Ethnic Mobility (New York, 1970); Carlton Qualey, "Ethnicity and
History,"
Ethnicity: A Conceptual Approach, ed. Daniel E. Weinberg (Cleveland, 1976); Timothy
Smith, "New Approaches to the History
of Immigration in Twentieth Century
America," American Historical
Review, LXXI (July 1966), 1265-79; Will Herberg,
Protestant, Catholic, Jew, an Essay
in American Religious Sociology (Garden
City,
NJ, 1955); Stanley Feldstein and
Lawrence Costello, eds., The Ordeal of Assimilation:
A Documentary History of the White
Working Class, 1830's to 1970's (Garden
City,
NJ, 1974); Andrew Rolle, The
Immigrant Upraised (Norman, OK, 1968); W. I.
Thomas, R. E. Park, and Herbert A.
Miller, Old World Traits Transplanted, reprint ed.
(Montclair, NJ. 1971); Frederick Luebke,
Bonds of Loyalty: German Americans and
World War I (DeKalb, IL, 1974).