Wheeling's Polonia: Reconstructing Polish Community in a West Virginia Steel Town

Abstract

In Wheeling's Polonia: Reconstructing Polish Community in a West Virginia Steel Town, William H. Gorby brings to life the history of the Polish immigrants who settled in Wheeling during the early part of the twentieth century. Polonia, by definition, are people of Polish descent living outside of Poland. With over a decade of research, Gorby paints a vivid picture of the Polish immigrants who established a vibrant, prosperous Polish American community in the heart of the upper Ohio Valley steel and coal industry. He develops a comprehensive look into the past and how these individuals came together to found a long-standing tradition of working together for the common good and building a community that would stand the test of time. The plentiful jobs available in steel factories and coal mines originally encouraged the immigration of Polish people to the Wheeling area. Once in Wheeling, they worked together to foster a firm sense of community and reached out to already established immigrant groups. Gorby eloquently describes shared events that helped shape the Polish community in Wheeling as they worked to find stability while navigating the “Americanization” of their people. Importantly, the St. Ladislaus Church emerged as the epicenter of Polish life in Wheeling. Most events were held in or around the church, where weddings, funerals, community meetings, union meetings, and festivals often took place. One such event was the annual “May Processions.” Gorby writes that “children joyously marched around the school and neighborhood in white dresses carrying flowers to crown a statue of the Virgin Mary and a May queen while celebrating the Lenten and spring seasons” (85). This event, the author points out, was a means for the Poles to publicly demonstrate their “religious-ethnic identity” (85).When the United States ended its neutrality position in World War I, Wheeling felt the impact immediately. The Catholic Church refused to place American flags in any churches. The diocese claimed that “the church is a universal organization and does not allow any flag of any nation on inside walls” (124). The church was such a fundamental and integral part of the Polish community that immigrants faced tensions related to the expectations of conforming to the ideals of “civic nationalism,” prompted as they were, in Gorby's view, to “promote the greatness of American political ideals and the benefits of citizenship” (125). In Wheeling, the Poles used various cultural displays and public activities such as street parades and Polish Catholic events that presented a “strong pro-war loyalty” (125). Through these events, their “Polishness,” and their willingness to publicly “fight for America,” the immigrants could be thought of as good Americans and good Poles at the same time (126).Gorby addresses labor and economic issues that affected the Polish immigrant community. For instance, the children in the Polish families usually remained in their household longer than children in other Wheeling families, and the Polish children were also expected to forgo schooling to earn income and help care for aging family members at home. Gorby also elaborates on the growing employment of women in factory jobs and their involvement in the labor and union movement. Although the number of women working in cigar, tobacco, and glass factories had been high since the 1880s, “by the 1920s they moved into new types of jobs in metal and steel fabricating” (163). The numbers grew from 355 in 1930 to 1,643 a decade later.The subject of women in organized labor unions could have been addressed more fully. Although Gorby acknowledges that women often formed the front lines of the labor movement, he does not explore in greater detail how that support took form and developed over time, outside of two sentences noting that Polish girls at the Forty-Eighth Street Wheeling Can Factory plant were instrumental in the 1915 strike for union recognition and that union leaders responded that they “would not give ear to grievances expressed by younger members” (164). He limits himself to brief descriptions of women working in the factories, noting that in 1938, girls between sixteen and eighteen years old made up almost 50 percent of the female workforce, which is significant. They earned from $10.50 to $12.00 a week, well below the $15.00 per week considered a living wage at that time.All the same, Wheeling's Polonia offers more than just an account of an ethnic immigrant group's past; it should also encourage readers in the region to know more about their own ancestry. Previous scholarship on Polish immigrants has focused on larger city populations, but this book explains the importance of smaller urban communities. In Gorby's view, “overemphasizing larger metropolitan centers downplays factors distinct to each place,” such as “the cultural values of particular groups living in a city, the economic character of specific communities, or the distinctive political cultures of localities” (4). He also notes that more research should be done on smaller cities in order to offer a more “intimate assessment of the lived experience of working-class people while not relying on abstract samples of a couple blocks of metropolitan immigrant neighborhoods” (5). In this regard, Gorby's work is a welcome addition to studies of ethnic communities living in Appalachia.