
At the end of the decade, Wielkopolska suffered a population loss of 41,000. This migration reached its greatest height in the 1870s. These first immigrants tended to come from the Prussian Partition. The first wave of Polish immigration to the United States began in the 1850s. When did the first significant wave of Polish immigration occur? industrial centres powered this Polish economic migration. The opportunities afforded in Chicago and other U.S. All of these needed both skilled and unskilled labour and attracted wave after wave of immigrants. In addition, a wide variety of other industries developed in Chicago. Large mass production industries such as garment manufacturing, meat packing and steel settled in the city.

After the American Civil War, it developed as an industrial and railroad centre. Why exactly this city?Ĭhicago was the fastest growing city in the United States in the 19 th century. Mrs Bissie’s Polish family working on a farm near Baltimore in 1909, hand-coloured photographĪs I have mentioned, many migrants chose Chicago as their destination. They also sent a good deal of money back to their villages to help their relatives. In turn they often planned to return after making their fortunes, and helping their families expand their land holdings. Many left Polish villages for American, German, French cities and Brazilian farms creating a vast diaspora. All of these provided Polish peasants with a great deal of mobility. In addition, transatlantic travel was greatly improved in speed and safety. After 1850 they opened up the interior of Europe east of the Elbe River.

Comparably important was the growth of the vast transportation networks, especially railroads. This included peasant emancipation and the granting of land to peasants, the cutting off of traditional markets for Polish agricultural products in Western Europe, the expansion of the capitalist and industrial market system to Central and Eastern Europe. How did it happen that people from Polish lands started to migrate to America in the 19 th Century?ĭominic Pacyga: After 1840 the Polish lands went through several changes that transformed all three of the partitions. 1,5 million) lives outside Poland – in Chicago – may come as a surprise to many. But the fact that the second biggest population of Polish people (ca. Łukasz Kożuchowski: The fact that the biggest Polish city is Warsaw is quite obvious. As a result, the second biggest population of Polish people still lives in this city today, outside Poland! How did it happen that people from Polish lands started to migrate to America in the 19th century? The most common direction of their emigration was Chicago in the United States.

An estimated 3 million Poles left their country between 18.
