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Economic Opportunities and Some Pilgrims' Progress: Jewish Immigrants from Eastern Europe in the U.S., 1890–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Arcadius Kahan
Arcadius Kahan
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

The purpose of the following essay is to evaluate the existing economic opportunities for Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and to indicate the pace of their economic progress during the period 1890–1914. This purpose can best be achieved by viewing the mass migration of these European Jews in the proper perspective, that is, in terms of the dynamics of their situation at the places of original habitat; second, by differentiating successive cohorts of immigrants in terms of their skill composition, literacy, and degree of experienced urbanization, all elements important for the adaptability to and utilization of existing economic opportunities; third, by analyzing the structure of the U.S. industries that provided employment opportunities to the East European Jewish immigrants; fourth, by assuming the income level and standard of living of the native-born labor force as the yardstick for measuring the economic progress of the immigrants. Such an approach may broaden our understanding of the mechanism of adjustment that enabled the Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe both to take advantage of existing economic opportunities and to create new ones.

Type
Papers Presented at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , March 1978 , pp. 235 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1978

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References

1 The decision to concentrate upon the period until 1914 was dictated by this author's conclusion that it is difficult to treat the changing economic position of the Jewish immigrants as a continuum. World War I signified not only the virtual end of mass migration of the Eastern European Jews to the U.S. but, equally important, it caused a major shift within the immigrant community away from wage labor and into self-employment. The impact of such developments makes it impossible to treat the pre-World War I and inter-war periods as a continuum.

2 In addition to the older literature on this subject, one would like to mention the brilliant essay by Kuznets, Simon: “Immigration of Russian Jews to the United States: Background and Structure,” Perspectives in American History, 9, 1975, 35–126Google Scholar.

3 During 1881–1914 about 2 million Eastern European Jews entered the U.S., and at least 300,000 migrated to Western Europe, South America, Palestine and South Africa. About 1–1.2 million were involved in inter-regional migration within Eastern Europe (a very conservative estimate).

4 See Simon Kuznets, “Immigration of Russian Jews to the United States,” and Arcadius Kahan, “Toward a Socio-Economic Model of the Eastern European Jews” (unpublished paper).

5 See Arcadius Kalian, “Toward a Socio-Economic Model of the Eastern European Jews.”

6 The sums of money per capita of Jewish immigrants which were reported to the immigration authorities during 1899–1914 ranged from an average of $7.31 in 1901/1902 to $24.69 in 1911/1912.

7 Serious reservations include the underreporting of employment in commerce and exaggeration of the categories of unskilled laborers and servants. For males, a misrepresentation of those formerly employed in commerce as laborers is possible, while for females the exaggeration of the category of servants was due to a “transfer” of those without occupations or skills into the category of servants. Those biases in reporting were due to the immigrants' anticipation of what the priorities of the U.S. immigration authorities might have been. The various inquiries conducted not at the time of entry into the U.S. but years later, reveal that the share of those gainfully employed in commerce prior to their arrival in the U.S. varied between 20–30 percent of the total employed.

8 No allowances are made for the return of immigrants and the gross figure is treated as equal to the net immigration figure.

9 The percentage of Jews among the tailors was even higher, reaching 68.4 percent.

10 One can assume as a basis for retirement the size of the labor force in the industry of about 240,000 in 1879, which would give 12,000 as a yearly replenishment, but a 15,000 yearly figure would certainly be more realistic even for the minimum assumptions of labor mobility.

11 It is difficult to assess the psychological value of being able to control when one worked— as was the case with labor in the home; clearly, this would be important in such cases as the observance of the Sabbath and religious holidays. It is relevant to note, however, that the majority of Jewish immigrants familiar with the work in clothing production came from a craft and putting out system in Eastern Europe rather than from a factory background.

12 Eventually, under the team-work system, hiring in home industry and in the smaller shops was often left to the workers themselves.

13 The level of wages in the clothing industry was related not only to the labor supply, but also to the rapid and significant degree of technological change within the industry during this period. The Census data for 1889 suggest that the average wage in the clothing industry rose from 83.8 percent in 1889 to 90.6 percent of the average wage in total manufacturing in 1909, decreasing to 85.9 percent in 1914. The nature of the labor market in the clothing industry is perceived as a fragmented one, in which the costs of information for the immigrant workers were relatively high, while the costs of search and training for the entrepreneurs were relatively low. These characteristics of the labor market which the immigrants faced perhaps help to explain the role of unionism among the workers in the clothing industries.

The unions were probably aware of their weaknesses in view of the continuing immigration and the relative futility in attempting to drive up the average market wage. Thus, much attention was paid to combat the fragmentation in the labor market and to bring the wages of those employed in the sweatshops and smaller establishments in line with the rest of the industry. This emphasis, in addition to the experience of some immigrant groups in the countries of previous habitat, helps to explain both the high percentage of unionization and the radicalism of a segment of the Jewish immigrant labor force. Unionization on a massive scale took place during the latter part of the period, when “bread and butter” unionism substituted for much of the spontaneous strike activity which was characteristic of the early period of the immigrants' residence in the U.S.

14 The above list can be extended to include such urban centers as St. Louis (Mo.) and Minneapolis-St. Paul to mention just a few in which the interdependence between the location of the clothing industry, employment of Jewish immigrants and concentration of Jewish immigrants was apparent.

15 The case is well-known in the history of American labor and was discussed on numerous occasions in the literature. For our purposes, however, a few features are of interest since they throw some light on the general process of adjustment by immigrants to their new economic environment.

16 The earnings of Jewish male family heads in 1909 was $391 vs. $426 for all foreignborn. U.S. Immigration Commission, Immigrants in Industries, Part 6, Clothing Manufacturing (Washington, D.C., 1911)Google Scholar.

17 The Jewish bricklayers had to establish their own union local to defend themselves from discrimination on the part of the general union local, in New York.

18 All the Jewish union locals in New York were chartered with the prefix “alterations,” i.e. alteration painters, alteration carpenters, et cetera.

19 Wright, Carroll D., The Slums of Baltimore, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia, Seventh Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor (Washington, 1894)Google Scholar.

20 Report of the Mayor's Push-Cart Commission (New York, 1906).

21 The number of employed increased from 1,825,000 in 1890, to 2,460,000 in 1900 and 3,366,000 in 1910. The average earnings per week increased from $10.69 in 1890 to $12.33 in 1910.

22 The increase of professionals resulted both from the increased immigration of such, and because young immigrants with a longer residence in the U.S. had educational opportunities to become professionals.

23 The report on the clothing industry of 1909, for example, indicates that among Jewish male immigrants from Russia, the earnings varied with their length of residence in the U.S. as follows:

24 The 1890 original census data were destroyed and the subsequent censuses were not available when the research for this essay was conducted.

25 The Baron Hirsch Foundation collected some data in 1890 among the East European immigrants in the 7th, 10th and 13th wards on Manhattan's East Side. Their canvass included 111,690 Jews of an estimated 135,000 Eastern European Jewish immigrants residing in New York City. They found a total of 28,801 household units and 60,257 of the total population were classified as children. The children were divided in the following age groups: below 6 years–23,405; between 6 and 14 years of age—21,285; above 14 years old–15,567. They counted 22,402 employed heads of households distributed as follows for the major employment categories: