American Warsaw

Written by a preeminent historian of Chicago and prominent historian of Polonia, American Warsaw attempts the daunting task of explaining the long and intricate history of Polish Chicago within the limited confines of a single volume of only 267 pages of text. Nevertheless, it succeeds admirably.Unlike more insular parochial studies of ethnic communities that focus inwardly on the group and its development, Pacyga recognizes that these neighborhoods do not exist in a vacuum and takes a much broader approach to his topic. He adeptly weaves the continuing evolution of this distinct community into the developing historical context of the city, the nation, and the group's ancestral homeland. Each of these influenced in one way or another the character and progress of Polish Chicago, and in each case the author provides very insightful interpretations of the interactions and results of these complex forces.Chapter 1 begins with the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893 and the Galicia fair organized in Lviv (then Lwów) in 1894. While this may at first appear an odd place to begin, it reflects one of the work's strengths because this gives the author an opportunity to immediately demonstrate the complex interactions involved in both of these events: internal Polonia political divisions, interactions with the city and the Columbia Exposition organizers, mutually sought after collaborations between the diaspora and the homeland with their differing motivations, and the resulting opportunities to showcase Poland and Polish Americans to the U.S. audience and the diaspora community to Poles back in the Old Country. The author explains this labyrinthian web concisely yet with substance, clarity, and nuance.From the two exhibitions, Pacyga uses a flashback technique to briefly provide a historical background leading up to the 1890s, then proceeds through chronologically arranged chapters whose major topics include the differing waves of Polish immigration, religion, employment/economics, neighborhood life, community organization, internal ethnic factionalism, education, gender roles, celebrations and other public cultural expressions, relations with other urban groups, diaspora interactions with and support of Poland, and international influences. Of particular interest will be the final chapter, “A New Polonia,” that chronicles and explains the new challenges and adaptations of Polish Chicago in the generation following the election of Pope John Paul II and the fall of communism in Poland.A native of Chicago and the Polish neighborhood in Back-of-the-Yards, Pacyga's intimate knowledge and passion both come through in his prose, although not to the point where they obscure objective scholarship. An example of this is that he includes discussions of some of the more unsavory aspects of the ethnic community, topics such as intragroup arguments and fights, crime, juvenile delinquency, participation in riots, and so on. Each of these cases is tackled with objectivity and scholarly substantiation. For example, in discussing the problem of juvenile delinquency Pacyga cites such excellent period studies as Mabel Carter Rhoades's work on the Chicago juvenile court records (1907) and Evelina Belden's study of the Chicago boys court (1915), both of which appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, as well as the original case records of the Northwestern University Settlement Association.American Warsaw is firmly grounded throughout in a breadth of primary and academic secondary sources, including Chicago's Polish-language newspapers. Its illustrations are linked to the text and include city maps with areas mentioned in the text located so that people unfamiliar with Chicago geography may still understand the spatial relationships to which the author refers. Overall, Pacyga's study of Polish Chicago is an exceptionally clear, well-written, and insightful interpretation of the complex forces, both internal and external, that shaped the development of this influential community over the generations from the mid-nineteenth century to the current day. Although very well documented through copious endnotes, academics will rue the absence of a bibliography. They may also find fault with a general lack of theoretical background. Professional historians are used to writing for each other rather than the general public, thus limiting them to a narrow audience of specialists; or, conversely, if they pen generalized works these often offer nothing to scholarly readers. Pacyga has fashioned one of those rare books that will be interesting and instructive to both scholars and the public.Much of what makes American Warsaw a success is absent from Poles in Illinois. Although its title promises to provide a statewide study of the Polish experience in Illinois—posing in its 224 pages a challenge much like that facing American Warsaw—it is very much Chicago-centric. Most other communities, including many that are actually Chicago suburbs, receive only brief references and there is no attempt to identify similarities or differences in the development of ethnic communities in smaller towns or farming areas vis-à-vis the Chicago experience. Likewise, scholars will be disappointed that the balance of the book is largely a descriptive narrative lacking in analysis or depth. Only in rare places is there an attempt to provide a Chicago context for what is being described or to explain how international events might affect Polonia.In their preface, the authors explain that their work is “written for a broad audience” and that it “focuses on the lived experiences of Polish Americans in Illinois rather than on historiographic interpretations of Polish American history” (p. xi). This is a perfectly valid approach to writing history, but there also needs to be some context to enable an understanding or what it all means. For example, a two-page section containing five paragraphs under the subheading “Business and Professionals” contains a statement that “Poles were slower to open businesses than their Italian or Jewish counterparts” (p. 101), but offers no data to support this and does not cite any source. In the following paragraph we are told that in 1920 “one Chicago directory listed 17 Polish community banks and 120 savings and loan associations” (p. 102). How did this compare on a per capita basis with other large Chicago ethnic groups? We are not told, consequently there is no way to know if this was above or below average, or perhaps simply average. Without context such statements lack meaning. The source is listed as The Second Largest Polish City in the World. Presumably, this refers to a business directory published by the Alliance Daily Zgoda in 1930. Since it includes only Polish businesses, it would have been much more meaningful to review a general business directory to obtain some perspective on Polish vs. non-Polish businesses or for comparisons between ethnic-owned businesses.Use of the Polish directory above highlights another problem regarding sources. The volume makes good use of quotations from Polish language newspapers, but some material, including quotations, goes without citations and other references are not particularly helpful for readers or researchers desiring more information since they lead only to secondary or tertiary sources. In discussing juvenile crime (pp. 114–15) some data on Polish gangs is given along with raw numbers for other groups, but without an attempt to correlate them to population levels that would give the raw data comparative context. Five sources are listed for this section including one article from the newspaper Naród Polski [Polish nation] from 1911, but the other four all cite a single speech given by one of the authors rather than any original source material. Perhaps because of the shallowness of sources, occasional errors creep into the text such as the claim (p. 111) that 25,000 Chicago Poles volunteered for the Blue Army during World War I. Actual data from the Chicago Polish recruiting centers list only 5,740. Overall, 38,108 volunteered with 22,395 meeting the requirements for acceptance, but these were from all over the United States and Canada, not Chicago alone. The book also repeats the myth that Chicago was the second largest “Polish” city in the world. Like American Warsaw, it lacks a bibliography and reference to theoretical background.Poles in Illinois is a general and limited descriptive overview of the Polish presence in the state with heavy emphasis on Chicago and the period from roughly 1900 to 1950. General readers may find it of interest, but academics will be disappointed

Ancient history · Political science · History · Polish Historical and Cultural Studies · Polish-Jewish Holocaust Memory Studies