Ohio History Journal

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).

• 1
 

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.

• 2
 

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

• 3
 

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.

• 4
 

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.

• 5
 

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.

• 6
 

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.

• 7
 

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.

• 8
 

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.

• 9
 

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.

• 10
 

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."

• 11
 

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.

• 12
 

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

• 13
 

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).

• 14
 

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

• 15
 

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.

• 16