ETHNIC GROUPS IN CLEVELAND
CLEVELAND POPULATION:
1796 - 4
1797 - 15
1800 - 7
1810 - 57
1820 - 150
1830 - 1075
1840 - 6,671
1850 - 17,054
1860 - 43,333
1870 - 92,529
1880 - 160,143
1890 - 261,353
1900 - 381,763
1920 - 560,663
1930 - 900,429
1940 - 878,336
1950 - 905,636
SPECIAL COMMEMORATIVE ISSUE OF THE PLAIN DEALER MAGAZINE - MARCH 3, 1991
150 YEARS OF RACIAL AND ETHNIC HERITAGE
BOOM TOWN: 1870 – 1930 by William F. Miller
It was as if someone shook the world and people from every country fell into Cleveland. The tremendous influx of immigrants between 1870 and 1930 brought people with strong backs and a willingness to work hard – qualities that were needed in Cleveland’s steel mills, petroleum refineries, coach factories, lumberyards and canal boats. They were Poles, Irish, Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, English, Scots, Slovenians, Serbians, Croatians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Romanians, Russians, Lithuanians, Greeks, Hispanics, Ukrainians and people from two dozen other nations. They thought they were coming to a land of gold-paved streets, but they usually spent their lives working a dozen hours a day, six days a week, for low wages, often in unsafe workplaces.
New arrivals could easily be spotted, with women from Russia and Poland and other Eastern countries wearing babushkas and men dressed in coarse woolen trousers, black high-top boots and shirts with colorful embroidery. Many immigrants who had come a generation or two earlier were fearful of this large influx of immigrants, whom they considered exotic people. But eventually most accepted the opinion of American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote in 1823: “A nation, like a tree, does not thrive well till it is engrafted with a foreign stock.”
And observing this influx of immigrants, newspaper columnist Walter Lippmann wrote in 1914: “The great social adventure of America is no longer the conquest of the wilderness but the absorption of 50 different peoples.”
Between 1870 and 1930, jobs in the city’s rapidly expanding industry drew people of the world to Cleveland’s doorstep like a magnet. The need for cannon and other weapons for the Union Army during the Civil War propelled Cleveland’s industrialization and continued it long after the guns were silent. Cleveland became a major center for industrialization in the nation and world.
The Ohio and Erie Canal, completed in 1832, was followed by the growth of railroads and lake transportation, which combined to give Cleveland an edge over many other cities. Despite the poor wages, many immigrants still earned more in a month than they could have in their own impoverished countries in a year. Many came alone, lived frugally in rooming houses and saved their money to bring their family over later.Men who came alone lived in boarding houses, which were overcrowded family residences with beds set up dormitory style and meals served throughout the day and into the night.
Here is how a Slovenian explained the process in 1885: “First some bold spirits came to spy out the land; when they found it good they so reported to others in Europe, and others followed them. Then, the families began to be sent for and homes took the place of boarding houses.”
“Every Hungarian worker’s home in Cleveland where there was a woman became a boarding house,” said plumber John Kovacs in 1891. His comments were recorded in “Peoples of Cleveland,” a 1942 Works Progress Administration project.
The beds were used in shifts. When one man fell out of bed, another was just getting ready to turn in. The woman of the house, the wife of a worker who used the boarding house to earn extra money, was on duty around the clock, cooking, washing, and making beds. Hungarian boarders could live very well on $8 a month or average from $5 or $6 in the late 1890s. Wages were 10 to 20 cents an hour.
Immigrant workers chances of surviving to an old age without getting killed or maimed on the job were so slim that insurance companies refused to sell them insurance. The need for some protection for widows and children was so critical that ethnic fraternal insurance companies were founded. The First Catholic Slovak Union of the United States and Canada and the Alliance of Poles of America are two of many that still operate in the city. First Catholic celebrated its 100th birthday last year. The Alliance is 96 years old this year.
Immigrants were forced to be rugged individuals because there was no such thing as medical benefits, unemployment insurance or Social Security, which did not come until the mid 1930s under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
A feeling for the worker experienced then was described in the book “The Birth of Modern Cleveland, 1865-1930.” A Serb in 1880, recalling his first night in a Cleveland machine shop said,: “When I was through at midnight the muscles of my feet, legs, fingers, hands, arms and back ached terribly. I dragged myself home and slept like a dead man.”
The new immigrants often lived on the edge of survival. Somehow they managed to squeeze enough money, with everybody in the family, including children, working, to buy a house with a little yard to grow vegetables and some flowers. It was not until later, with the growth of unions, that their working lives and pay improved to eventually make middle-class Americans out of them.
Most immigrants arrived in a strange land, with unusual customs and a new, difficult language to master. They struggled to learn English and raise families. They educated their children, founded businesses from the pennies they saved and helped create a new, stronger American society. Some immigrants never did assimilate and chose to live in ethnic neighborhoods that were much like their own countries, with a common foreign language, stores, churches, newspapers, and social halls.
It was in America that, for the first time, many immigrants had a native-language newspaper to read. This was an enthusiastic letter to the editor of the Szabadsag (freedom) Hungarian newspaper in 1892:
“I intended to write a long time ago, but a simple, common workman like me can write only on Sundays; and on Sunday one likes to take a rest. This is the first time n my life I have written a letter to an editor. In Hungary I scarcely knew what a newspaper was. I have been here only four years, but during this time I have been a faithful newspaper reader. I feel that I know 10 times as much now as I did in Europe. Had I known the joy of newspaper reading then I would gladly have parted with my cow in order to afford it.”
The Szabadsag, which is now a weekly, is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.
Those who did not jump into the American melting pot learned just enough English to function on an assembly line. Their children went to school and adopted American ways but were bilingual. Often these children lived in two worlds, one of America and the other of their parents’ native country. These children also married people from other nationalities – often with the disapproval of parents who wanted them to marry their own – and called themselves Americans.
The first Poles to settle here in large numbers were lured by work in the stone quarries of Berea in 1860. Later they came for jobs in the steel industry and settled along Broadway and Fleet avenues, where they created the community known as Slavic Village.
For the Italians, it was Big Italy on Woodland Avenue, where the Cuyahoga Community College Metropolitan Campus now stands, and Little Italy, because it was a smaller version, on Mayfield Rd.
Living next to the factories meant workers saved car fare. There is little left of these early ethnic neighborhoods, although little Italy and Slavic Village help preserve a shadow of that former age.
The ethnic neighborhood was like an oasis; a place where a worker could stop struggling with his English and relax in the environment that resembled his former homeland. The casual observer who walked the streets of downtown Cleveland or the neighborhoods heard people speaking in two dozen different languages in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Cleveland still retains much of that texture through ethnic organizations and festivals that celebrate the ethnic culture.
AMERICAN INDIANS by Michael Norman
It’s a little strange to think of American Indians as immigrants. After all, they were here first. But European settlers displaced the original Northeast Ohio Indian communities in a series of wars and skirmishes that ended in the early 1800s. The modern Indian community in Greater Cleveland dates to the 1950s, when the Eisenhower administration instituted a program to relocate reservation Indians to urban areas. More than 5,000 Indians came to the city as part of the program, but, over the years, the population has dwindled to about 2,000 in Cuyahoga County.
ARABS, by Michael Norman
The first Arab immigrants came to Cleveland about 1895 from Greater Syria, then a part of the Ottoman Empire. Most of the early arrivals were Christians, and came from the area of Syria that includes present-day Lebanon. Over the years, these immigrants built several churches in Greater Cleveland, including St. Elias Melkite Church, St. Maron Church and St. George Orthodox Church. A second wave of Arab migration followed Israeli independence in 1948, and included displaced Palestinians who settled mostly on the city’s West Side. Further migration occurred after subsequent wars in the Middle East. The Islamic Center of Cleveland, 9400 Detroit Ave., was founded in 1967 to serve this predominantly Muslim population.
ARMENIANS by Michael Norman
Many of Greater Cleveland’s early Armenian immigrants came from the Turkish city of Malatya, arriving here in the early 1900s to work at the old American Steel & Wire Co. The Armenian population remained relatively small until after World War I, when a second wave of mostly illegal immigrants made its way to America and Cleveland through countries like Mexico, Cuba and Canada. This migration included a good number of young Armenian women who came to Cleveland to find husbands. The immigrants brought the politics and division of their homeland to the New World. The two Armenian political parties – the Tashnags and the Ramgavars – established headquarters in Cleveland. Later, this division carried over into church life. The Tashnags built Holy Cross Armenian Apostolic Church in North Royalton. The Ramgavars built St. Gregory of Narek Armenian Apostolic Church in Richmond Heights. Today, an estimated 2,500 Armenian-Americans live in Greater Cleveland.
CHINESE, by Michael Norman
Cleveland’s Chinese community is most visible in the small “Chinatown” area around Rockwell and St. Clair avenues and E. 20th Street, but its influence is felt throughout Greater Cleveland. Today, many Chinese-Americans work as college professors, engineers, doctors and scientists. The first Chinese immigrants began settling in Cleveland around 1880 and built a community on Ontario Street between Lakeside and St. Clair Avenues. The community migrated to the Rockwell area around 1930, creating a business and restaurant district and a thriving residential community. By 1980, about 2,500 Chinese were living in the area. An influx of new immigrants from Taiwan and Hong Kong after World War II, and from the People’s Republic of China in the late 1970s, added a new dimension to the community. These new arrivals came to the United States to attend college and graduate school. Many stayed after graduation, advancing quickly into professions and moving their families into the suburbs. Today, the Nationalities Services Center estimates 6,000 Chinese-Americans in Greater Cleveland.
CZECHS AND SLOVAKS by Michael Norman
A small Czech community existed in the Flats prior to 1850, but most Czech migration to Cleveland occurred from 1870 to 1914. Instead of following the traditional pattern of settling in the inner city, Czechs built communities on the outskirts of town. The best known of these was “Little Bohemia”, an enclave that extended along Broadway from East 37th Street to Union Avenue. From 1870 until the end of World War I, it was the largest Czech settlement in Cleveland. Czech immigrants were predominantly Catholic. Today, there are several Czech Catholic churches in the Greater Cleveland area, including St. Wenceslas Church in Maple Heights and Our Lady of Lourdes, St. John Nepomucene Church and Holy Family Roman Catholic Church in Cleveland. Czechs were among the best educated of the immigrant groups, and literacy rates within the community were above the U.S. national average. As a result, many Czech immigrants immediately found work as skilled craftsmen and tradesmen. Today, the Czechs are one of the largest ethnic groups in Greater Cleveland, with an estimated population of 80,000, according to the Nationalities Services Center. Slovak immigration closely paralleled that of the Czech community, but Slovaks tended to settle in their own ethnic enclaves. At the turn of the century, a large Slovak community stretched along Buckeye Road from E. 78th Street to Woodhill Rd. Another neighborhood grew up around E. 116th Street and Woodland Avenue, where the immigrants built St. Andrew Abbey and Benedictine High School. It is said that during the early 1900s, Cleveland was home to more Slovaks than any city in the world. Exact population figures are unavailable because most Slovaks were listed on immigration rolls as Austro-Hungarians (the Austro-Hungarian Empire ruled Czechoslovakia before World War I) or as Czechoslovakians. But today, the Nationalities Services Center estimates 48,000 people of Slovak ancestry live in Greater Cleveland.
THE GERMANS by William F. Miller
The lure of jobs and the desire for freedom from despotic rulers brought most Germans to Cleveland. These work-hungry, ambitious immigrants, who spoke a guttural-sounding language and had strong backs and minds, came by the tens of thousands in the last decades of the 19th century. By 1890, the German-speaking immigrants, including Austrians and Germans who came from Eastern Europe, had become a major force in Cleveland, outnumbering the earlier English and other foreign-born settlers. These immigrants were a hearty and diverse mixture. Some were failed revolutionaries who had to escape Germany or face a firing squad; others were farmers who had read grandiose stories in their newspapers about cheap, rich land in the Western Reserve. Many of the intellectuals who first came to Cleveland in the late 1880s had to do manual labor to earn their food before they learned English and moved on to the professions. Many found work on the German-owned farms in Parma, Brooklyn, and Independence. They were nicknamed “Latin farmers” because, while doing farm chores, they often spoke Latin and Greek to show off their fancy European educations, according to Robert E. Ward, president of the German-American Historical Society of Cuyahoga County. Ward, who is writing a history of Cleveland’s Germans, says the earliest immigrants to Cleveland in the 1830s were craftsmen, farmers and people who opened small businesses, including construction firms and taverns. The early German cabinetmakers who made coffins as a sideline later cut out the middleman and also became funeral directors. These immigrants settled along Lorain Street in Brooklyn and along Superior Avenue and Garden Avenue, now Central Avenue, according to John R. Sinnema, professor emeritus of history at Baldwin-Wallace College. As the city grew in the 19th century, succeeding generations moved east, west and south and fused with the general population. By rights, the city should have been named for David Zeisberger, or his assistant, John Heckewelder, Germans who were the first white men to settle here.Zeisberger and Heckewelder had planted their boots on Cleveland soil 10 years before Moses Cleaveland’s scouting party founded the city in 1796. Moravian missionaries of German descent, they established a settlement called Pilgerruh (Pilgrims’ Rest) in what is now Valley View. They sought refuge in Valley View after 96 Christian Indians of Gnadenhutten, Ohio, were massacred by white settlers in the area while the two men were away. When cautious New England investors, who had purchased thousands of acres of land in Northeast Ohio, learned that these brazen Germans and their Indian friends were building a Christian settlement on their land, they sent a messenger to tell them aufwiedersehen. Before leaving, Heckewelder, who showed he knew something about real estate, said: “It (Cleveland) will hereafter be a place of great importance.” Although Germans were among the first settlers here, their number at first grew slowly. A rare glimpse of early German settlers was provided by a reporter for the Cleveland Gazette and Commercial Register, who wrote on August 18, 1818: “Four or five families of immigrants from Germany passed through the village. They traveled on foot, the women carrying large bags on their heads. Their condition appeared miserable but their countenance bespoke health and contentment.” Later, the Ohio and Erie Canal opened up the former wilderness and the multitudes came to the village on Lake Erie. The German-speaking Austrians and the ethnic Germans, who had lived for years in Yugoslavia, Hungary and other parts of the former Hapsburg Empire, also came to Cleveland. These include the Danube Swabians, Saxons and Gottscheers. German immigrants made up one-third of city residents when their population jumped from 6,000 to 10,000 between 1840 and 1860. By 1900 there were more than 40,000 Germans residing in Cleveland, out of a total population of 381,768. Ward contends that independent studies show that as much as 40% of the city was made up of German-speaking immigrants. The Germans formed singing societies, concert orchestras, art guilds, gymnastic societies and ethnic newspapers. Germans founded what is now Lutheran Medical Center in 1896 and Fairview General Hospital in 1898. Fairview was called German Hospital until World War I. (German was also taught in Cleveland’s schools until World War I). The ethnic newspapers were a vital form of communication for immigrants who had not yet learned English. The Waechter und Anzeiger, which became a daily newspaper, was the longest lived. Its publisher, Stefan Deubel, ceased publication in April 1989 after 136 years. The Germans, who hated slavery as much as Abraham Lincoln, flocked to the Union banner when the Civil War began. One-fourth of the Union Troops from Cuyahoga County were German, and their names are listed in the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Public Square. But, the two world wars devastated German cultural interests. Hatred of Germans was so great that, according to Ward, streets with German names were changed during World War I to other, more-American-sounding names by decree of City Council. In both wars most German-Americans rallied to the Stars and Stripes and fought their own people in the trenches of Europe. Many Germans quickly assimilated into the melting pot of Cleveland and after a generation or two forgot their German heritage, but some continue to preserve the language and other cultural traditions through German social organizations, clubs and festivals. The Nationalities Services Center estimates there are 233,000 residents of German descent in Greater Cleveland today. For many, their heritage still lives through their German last names, even though most have no idea when or from what part of Germany their adventurous ancestors came seeking a dream on the banks of the Cuyahoga.
GREEKS by Michael Norman
Greek cultural and social life in Greater Cleveland today is centered around four Greek Orthodox churches: Annunciation Church in Cleveland, Sts. Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Cleveland Heights, St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Rocky River and St. Paul Greek Orthodox Church in North Royalton. The Greek population in Greater Cleveland has been estimated at 10,000 to 20,000. The community was established in two waves: the first by immigrants seeking economic opportunities in the early 1900s, and the second by refugees from post-World War II Europe. Greek culture is kept alive today by the churches and their Greek schools, which provide instruction in Greek language and history.
HISPANICS by Michael Norman
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that about 17,000 Hispanics live in Cleveland, but community leaders believe the number is between 30,000 and 40,000. More than 80% of the city’s Spanish-speaking residents are Puerto Ricans, a group that began settling here in the early 1950s. Today, most Hispanics live on the West Side around W. 25th and Lorain Avenue, although a sizable community exists in Lorain. The major Hispanic churches include San Juan Bautista Catholic Church and San Miquel Parroquia, both in Cleveland. As the only ethnic group in Cleveland with a growing population, they are gaining influence in the city’s civic, business and political activities. The mayor’s special assistant on Hispanic affairs, Sandra Wood, holds cabinet rank and acts as a liaison between city officials and the community.
HUNGARIANS by Michael Norman
For more than a century, Cleveland was home to the largest concentration of Hungarians outside of Hungary. Their migration to Cleveland took place in three waves: 1880-1924, Post-World War II, and after the failed 1956 Hungarian Revolution. The most important and formative influx was the first. Hungarians arriving in the city during that period established a large, vibrant neighborhood on Buckeye Road and E. 116th St.Over the years, the Buckeye Road community prospered and grew. By 1920, more than 43,000 Hungarian immigrants lived in the city. Hungarian churches include First Hungarian Reformed Church and St. Elizabeth’s Church, both in Cleveland. The Buckeye community began to decline after World War II, as second-generation Hungarians found better jobs and moved to the suburbs. Today, an estimated 70,000 Hungarian-Americans live in Greater Cleveland.
IRISH by Michael Norman
Cleveland didn’t give rise to the kind of Irish political machines seen in other large American cities, but Irish involvement in public affairs has a long history in Northeast Ohio. The community has given Cleveland five mayors – Robert E. McKisson, John H. Farley, William S. Fitzgerald, Ray T. Miller and Thomas A. Burke – and a host of other prominent politicians. Names like Corrigan, Feighan and Hagan still command respect at the polls. Cleveland’s Irish community dates to the 1820s, when Irish laborers migrated here to work on the Ohio and Erie Canal. By 1880, about 10% of Cleveland’s population was of Irish descent. Most of the early immigrants settled in the Flats and on the Near West Side, where they built a thriving community centered around two Catholic Churches: St. Patrick’s on Bridge Avenue and St. Malachi’s on West 25th, near Detroit. Another Irish community evolved on the East Side of the Cuyahoga River, around Holy Name Church on Broadway Avenue, near a steel mill that employed many of the parishioners. Today, an estimated 100,000 people of Irish descent live in Greater Cleveland.
THE ITALIANS AND THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD by Michael Norman
While most of Cleveland’s old-line immigrant neighborhoods disappeared long ago, the Italian enclave of Little Italy has managed to retain a good measure of its ethnic charm and color. Today, the tiny East Side community is arguably Cleveland’s most recognizable ethnic neighborhood, thanks to the Italian shops and restaurants that line its main thoroughfare, Mayfield Road, and the Feast of the Assumption celebration that’s sponsored each August by Holy Rosary Church. As the most enduring of the Italian neighborhoods in Cleveland, Little Italy also has come to symbolize the larger Italian community of Northeast Ohio. There were Italian settlers in Cleveland as early as 1850, and during peak immigration periods there were six other sizable Italian settlements in Cleveland. But Little Italy has always been the social and cultural focal point of the community. Its development closely mirrors the history of Italian settlement here. “For people in the Italian community, Little Italy is the root,” says the Rev. Philip Racco, pastor of Holy Rosary Church.“People come back here to get recharged, to get reconnected. We all need to know where we come from.” Founded in 1885 by immigrants from the small mountain town of Ripolimosani in the Compobasso province of Southern Italy, the neighborhood took shape during the immigration heyday of turn-of-the-century Cleveland. The original settlers were later joined by fellow contadini (peasants) from other towns and villages in Southern Italy, including Madrice and San Giovanni. A large contingent also arrived from Sicily. The early Italians were similar to the Slovenians, Croatians, Serbians, Russians, Czechs and Slovaks, who came to Cleveland only for a year or two to save enough money to return to the homeland to buy farmland or a small business. In 1870, Frank Catalano Sr. leader of a fishing colony in Termini Iemere, Sicily, brought 50 fishermen of his village to build railroads around Cleveland. Catalano and most of the men liked Cleveland so much that they stayed and ended up in the produce business. Catalano introduced Clevelanders to oranges, olive oil, figs, anchovies and other then-exotic foods. Richard Catalano, who owns Catalano’s Stop-N-Shop, on Wilson Mills Road in Highland Heights, is distantly related to the early produce king. By 1910, Little Italy’s population had swelled to about 10,000 people. Because of its relative isolation, it served as a cultural island for the immigrants. Some of the early immigrants worked on the nearby railways or as stonecutters at Lake View Cemetery. Many of the stonecutters worked for Joseph Carabelli, who came to the area in the late 1800s and built a marble works next to the cemetery. At its peak, the neighborhood had its own stores, shops, taverns, and recreation halls. The main-street atmosphere on Mayfield Road was typical of the small towns in Southern Italy. As in the old country, life revolved around a centrally located church, in this case, Holy Rosary, founded in 1892. Alta House was a focal point too. Located near Holy Rosary, the community center was founded in 1895 with financial help from John D. Rockefeller. As with other ethnic enclaves, Little Italy began to decline after Congress cut back European immigration in the early 1920s. The post-World War Ii exodus to the suburbs added to the decline of the area, as the immigrants and their children left for better homes and employment. By 1971, only 2,800 of the 3,800 people living in Little Italy were of Italian descent. Holy Rosary Church lost 600 families between 1960 and 1970. Those who remained fought a successful battle against urban renewal in the 1960s, saving much of Little Italy’s housing stock from the wrecking ball. Cleveland City Council declared Little Italy a historic landmark in 1984.
FOR JEWS, A SAFE HAVEN by Michael Norman
Jews came to America and to Cleveland for the same reasons other immigrants did. They wanted jobs. They wanted freedom. They wanted the chance to own a home, buy a piece of land, start a business. For Jews, though, America also represented something else – something more important. It was a place to feel safe. For a people who have been persecuted for hundreds of years – who were killed by the thousands in czarist pogroms and then by the millions in the Holocaust – this factor cannot be underestimated. Until Israel’s creation in 1948, there was virtually no place on earth – aside from the United States – where a Jew could truly feel safe. “America in general, and Cleveland specifically, represented the answer to the question: Where can we go where we can just be people, where we can stay or not stay according to our own needs and not the dictates of our neighbors or of the government?” says Ori Soltes, an adjunct professor at the Cleveland College of Jewish Studies. “This was particularly true for the Jews that came to Cleveland from 1881-1924, the big period of immigration here. As much as they were coming for their present, they were also coming for the future of their children. As much as they were coming for economic and social comfort, they were also coming for a sense of security.”
LITHUANIANS by Michael Norman
One of the best-organized and most active of Cleveland’s ethnic groups, the Lithuanian community was established here around the turn of the century by immigrants who fled their homeland for economic reasons.They settled first in an area around Superior Avenue and E. 65th and built St. George’s Lithuanian Church on Superior. A second wave of immigration, occurring after the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States in 1940 and the end of World War II, added an estimated 4,000 immigrants to the community. Among them was Antanas Smetona, the last president of free Lithuania, who came here during the war and died in a fire in 1944. Today, more than 16,000 people of Lithuanian ancestry live in Greater Cleveland. Lithuanian culture is celebrated and preserved by a wide variety of social, civic and community groups, including the Cleveland chapters of the Lithuanian Community of the U.S.A., the World Lithuanian Community, the Lithuanian Alliance of America and the Lithuanian American Citizens Club.
POLES by Michael Norman
One of the city’s most influential and high-profile ethnic groups, the Poles, played a major role in the economic growth and development of Cleveland during the Industrial Age. The greatest influx of Polish immigrants to Cleveland occurred from 1900 to 1914. By 1930, census figures showed a population of more than 36,000 foreign-born Poles in the city. Polish neighborhoods developed around the industrial areas and steel mills where immigrants found employment. The largest of these settlements was known as Warszawa (today’s Slavic Village) and was located around Fleet Avenue and East. 65th Street. Religion was an important part of life in all of Cleveland’s Polish communities and the cultural center of Warszawa was St. Stanislaus Church, 3649 East 65th St. The predominantly Catholic immigrants built churches in several other neighborhoods, including St. Barbara’s on Denison Avenue, St. Josaphat on E. 33rd St. and St. Casimir on Sowinski Avenue. Despite a new wave of immigration before and after World War II, and in the 1980s during the Communist crackdown on Solidarity, the Cleveland community has shrunk considerably. The Nationalities Services Center estimates 103,000 people of Polish descent live in Greater Cleveland today. The community’s influence can still be felt in the suburbs, and through numerous social, fraternal and cultural groups, including the Alliance of Poles in America, the Polish Falcons of America, the Polish National Alliance, the Union of Poles in America and the Polish Women’s Alliance of America. Efforts to revitalize the Slavic Village area have helped spur interest in Polish culture and local Polish history.
ROMANIANS by Michael Norman
Romanians were among Cleveland’s early Eastern European immigrants. St. Mary’s Romanian Orthodox Church in Cleveland, built in 1904, was the first Romanian Orthodox Church in America. In addition, Greater Cleveland is the national headquarters for many of the Romanian organizations in the United States and Canada. The Union & League of Romanian Societies is located on Lorain Road. Most of Cleveland’s Romanian immigrants trace their roots to the province of Transylvania. Early arrivals built a community in the area of Detroit Avenue, between West 45th and West 65th Streets. Today, the Nationalities Services Center estimates 10,000 Romanian-Americans live in Greater Cleveland. Various societies and churches preserve Romanian culture by sponsoring lectures, plays, folk-dance exhibitions and other events.
RUSSIANS by Michael Norman
Americans always have had a difficult time figuring out exactly what it means to be Russian. In the early days of immigration, anyone who lived under the rule of the czar – Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Armenians, Georgians, etc. – was listed as a Russian, whether he or she liked it or not. (Most did not.) The confusion persisted after czarist Russia became the Soviet Union. For example, Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians who immigrated to Cleveland after World War II were sometimes identified as Russians. Cleveland does have a Russian community, however. It dates to the early 1900s, when ethnic Russian immigrants first settled on Woodland Avenue around E. 30th. Today, the surviving immigrants and their descendants – who number about 20,000 – live throughout Northeast Ohio. St. Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Cleveland is their religious and e\cultural center.
SERBS, CROATIANS AND SLOVENIANS by Michael Norman
The three ethnic groups that make up the modern nation of Yugoslavia have a strong presence in Greater Cleveland. The first Serbs arrived here during the pre-World War I immigration boom, settling in neighborhoods around St. Clair and Superior avenues between East 20th and East 30th Streets. As these immigrants prospered, they moved to the suburbs, particularly Parma, where they built St. Sava’s Serbian Orthodox Cathedral. A second wave of Serbian immigration to Cleveland was sparked by political refugees fleeing post-World War II Europe. These new arrivals settled in the southern suburbs and built St. Sava Serbian Eastern Orthodox Cathedral in Broadview heights. With a population of about 15,000, Cleveland’s Croatian community is the fourth largest in the United States. Concentrated in the eastern suburbs and in Lake County, the community includes political refugees who fled Europe after World War II. Their churches include St. Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church and St. Paul Croatian Church, both in Cleveland. The Slovenian Community – one of the largest ethnic groups in Greater Cleveland, with a population of 46,000 – also is centered in the eastern suburbs. They’ve built St. Vitus, St. Lawrence and St. Mary of Czestochowa, all in Cleveland, and St. Christine’s in Euclid. In the early 1900s, there were more Slovenians in Cleveland than in their capital city of Ljubjana. Today, the community in Cleveland remains the largest concentration of Slovenians outside of Yugoslavia.
VIETNAMESE by Michael Norman
Established by refugees fleeing Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975, Cleveland’s small Vietnamese community is concentrated in several neighborhoods on the West Side. Community leaders have estimated the population at about 1,600. The Vietnamese Buddhist Association of Cleveland opened a new community center and Buddhist temple on Franklin Blvd. in 1987.
THE NEW IMMIGRANTS by William F. Miller
With Europe and Asia in ruins from the devastation of World War II, millions of refugees and others looked for a new life in the United States. People in Greater Cleveland, with its large, active ethnic communities and efficient network of social agencies, opened their hearts, purses and homes to thousands of post-World War Ii refugees and immigrants. As revolutions and social upheaval later shook other parts of the world, Congress and Clevelanders responded again. These upheavals included the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which brought 12,000 Hungarian refugees to Cleveland. Cleveland was a magnet, with the greatest Hungarian population outside of Budapest. When Fidel Castro marched into Havana in 1959 and thousands of Cubans fled to the United States, the Nationalities Services Center in Cleveland flew 270 Cubans into Cleveland for resettlement. The Czechoslovakian revolution of 1968 sent 2,000 to Cleveland, where the nationalities center, church groups and others found them homes and jobs. When the war was lost in Vietnam, some 780 Vietnamese refugees found new lives here. In 1980, it was some 200 Cuban and Haitian boat people. The newest immigrants fleeing religious and political persecution and coming to Cleveland are nearly 1,500 Soviet Jewish refugees who are being resettled by the Jewish Family Service Assn. Pentecostal Christians from the Soviet Union also have arrived in Cleveland since 1989. Mexicans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Asian Indians, Arabs and Nicaraguans seeking new economic lives or fleeing civil wars have come to Cleveland in recent years. Increased Asian immigration, which for many years was restricted, has had a positive impact on Greater Cleveland. Newer immigrants from Hong Kong and Taiwan have settled along Superior and Payne Avenues, from East 30th to E. 40th. More Hispanics, including many Puerto Ricans and Latin Americans, have come to Cleveland for jobs since World War II.
CHRONOLOGY OF CLEVELAND FROM THE 1951 CITY DIRECTORY
1786 - A cabin was built near the Cuyahoga by fur traders
1795 - Moses Cleaveland's surveying party laid out a city. Three persons remained here during the winter.
1797 - The Carters, Kingsburys, Hawleys and Chapmans settled. The second survey was made. First white baby was born. First wedding took place.
1798 - Lorenzo Carter built a pretentious two-room house.
1799 - Lorenzo Carter built a ferry boat.
1800 - First school classes held.
1801 - Lorenzo Carter built a tavern
1802 - The first town meeting was held.
1804 - Two distilleries were put into operation.
1806 - The first school house was built. The first sermon was preached. First militia training held. Cuyahoga County organized with Cleveland as county seat.
1810 - Cuyahoga had its own court. A doctor and lawyer settled here.
1812 - There was a scare abouta British and Indian raid that did not materialize.
1813 - Part of the British fleet was driven away from the Cuyahoga River by a sudden squall.
1814 - A lot courthouse was built and Cleveland was incorporated as a village.
1816 - First religious organization by Episcopal Church formed.
1818 - The Walk-In-The-Water arrived. The third survey was made. The first newspaper was issued.
1819 - First cabin built on west side of river by Josiah Barber.
1820 - Rev. Randolph Stone devoted a third of his time to his congregation. A stage coach route began.
1823 - Shade trees were cared for by special taxation.
1824 - The first steam vessel was launched.
1827 - The Ohio Canal opened as far as Akron.
1828 - The first church was built. The Franklin House opened. A new courthouse supplanted the log structure.
1830 - The first fire engine was purchased.
1833 - Black Hawk visited Cleveland.
1834 - The first railroad train (horse-drawn) came into the square.
1835 - During this year, 1,901 vesselts put into port
1836 - Cleveland received its charter as a city.
1837 - Grammar schools were founded in the free system. First City Directory published. The famous Bridge War occurred. There was a financial panic.
1841 - The Plain Dealer newspaper was started.
1843 - Superior St. was paved.
1847 - Steam railroads first ran into Cleveland
1853 - A modern water system was installed
1854 - Ohio City and Cleveland were united
1856 - The market on Ontario St. was established
1857 - There was a second financial panic. Courthouse moved to Rockwell St.
1859 - The Board of Education was aroused by the capture of a runaway slave girl in Cleveland. Lincoln visited the city.
1864 - A fire alarm telegraph was installed
1865 - Lincoln's body lay in state in Public Square
1870 - The Standard Oil Co. was formed. A breakwater was begun.
1875 - The Old Opera House was opened.
1877 - Central Publishing House was incorporated.
1878 - The first viaduct across the Flats, now supplanted by the High-Level Bridge, was constructed.
1879 - The first electric lamp, the invention of a Clevelander, glowed in Public Square
1882 - Western Reserve College moved from Hudston to Cleveland, where it became known as Adelbert College. Wade Park was donated.
1889 - The Arcade was built
1893 - Gordon Park was donated.
1894 - The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument was erected
1896 - The Centennial Anniversary was elaborately celebrated.
1898 - Rockefeller Park was donated. The Colonial Arcade was erected.
1899 - A Street railway strike, with dynamite features, presented difficulties theretofore not experienced in the transportation problem.
1902 - "The Group Plan" was conceived and work on the new Civic Center began.
1904 - A new plan for a council to control school affairs was adopted.
1908 - A second less serious street railway strike occurred. The Federal Govt. began work on a second breakwater outside the former one.
1916 - The Museum of Art new edifice in Wade Park was completed.
1921 - The 125th anniversary of Cleveland was celebrated.
1923 - City manager plan of government took effect
1924 - Public Library completed. Excavation for the new Union Terminal began.
1925 - Baldwin Filtration Plant and Reservoir completed at a cost of $7,000,000.
1926 - Bus service installed throughout the city. New Central Police Station replaced the old structure built in 1894.
1927 - Rising in downtown Cleeland, the headquarters building of the Ohio Bell Telephone Co. at 750 Huron Road.
1928 - The Terminal Tower Building completed.
1929 - National Air Races and Aeronautical Exposition held here.
1930 - Greater Cleveland dedicated on June 23, its New Union Terminal. - cost - $150,000,000.
1931 - This, the 135th anniversary year, brought many conventions of national and international importance to the city. The new Municipal Stadium on the lake front completed.
1932 - The new Charter re-establishing the Mayor as chief executive), became effective February 20. Two new bridges, the Lorain-Carnegie and the Fulton Road, completed.
1934 - The new Post Office was dedicated.
1936 - The Great Lakes Exposition
1937 - Cleveland's first three "Government Housing Projects" namely, "Cedar-Central Apartments", "Lake View Terrace" and "Outhwait Homes" were built.
1938 - On July 2, the opening of the "Lakefront Road" (now Cleveland Memorial Shoreway) was celebrated. Running along Lake Erie's shore from E. 9th to Gordon Park.
1939 - Main Avenue Bridge was completed. Total length, 8,000 feet, or 1 1/2 miles. Height above the river, 120 feet. Cost, $7,200,000.
1940 - U.S. Veteran's Hospital located in nearby Brecksville, completed.
1941 - Greater Cleveland's quota of more than 10,000 draftees from 51 local draft boards marked a year of "all-out" preparedness.
1944 - Crile General Hospital completed in 1944, now is known as Veterans hospital after being taken over by the U.S. Veterans Administration.