Destination Holyoke: Immigration and Migration into Holyoke

Wistariahurst's historical exhibits and programming in the years 2006 and 2007 will focus on Holyoke as a gateway city for immigrants and migrants, beginning in the 1840s to just fifty years ago. There were many stresses and aspirations that drove immigrants and migrants to America and they are still at work today, including poverty, religious and political oppression, the desire for education, and a better life. However, there is no typical immigrant or migrant. Each group of people who emigrated to Holyoke varies in the country of origin, time of coming, age, sex, health and class. These individual stories make up Holyoke's mosaic identity. Please check back with this page. Throughout the Fall and Winter, it will be changing!

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"…we all are in this strange country": Immigration and Migration to Holyoke
Exhibit One: November 4 - December 31, 2006
Opening Saturday November 4, 2006

There is an early and continuing importance of immigration and migration to Holyoke. By the 1880s, Holyoke, known as The Paper City, was a booming industrial center. Immigrants from Europe and Canada and migrants from Puerto Rico came to work and made the city their home. As each group of people arrived - Irish, French Canadians, Italians, Germans, Poles and Puerto Ricans - an adjustment resulted as newcomers joined the competition for jobs and housing. Holyoke's history holds a powerful story of the development of a mill town into a booming industry. It is also a story of the immigrants and migrants who contributed to a fluid and complex set of new and established cultural patterns. Their impact on the social and cultural identity of the community is reflected in Holyoke today.

This exhibit examines the reasons people emigrated from Ireland, Canada, Poland, Italy, Germany and Puerto Rico to Holyoke, Massachusetts. It also features an introduction to ethnic enclaves created when immigrants and migrants moved into the city. Finally, the exhibit addresses some struggles and stereotypes as seen in Holyoke, past and present.

"We did not come to this country to starve": Laboring for Holyoke's Industries
Exhibit Two: March 3 - April 30, 2007
Opening Saturday, March 3, 2007
       

Holyoke's industries were built from entrepreneurship using immigrant and migrant labor. By the 1880s, Holyoke, known as the Paper City, was a booming industrial center. Not only did immigrant labor from Ireland contribute to the booming paper industry, but groups like the French Canadians, Polish and Germans worked in textile factories producing cotton, wool and silk. This exhibit examines industries in Holyoke, including paper and textile factories, as well as the immigrant and migrant work force that kept them running until the decline of industry in New England. It also features a look at some interesting labor forces at work in America and Holyoke.

"s'instruire at s'amuser": Holyoke's Social Diversions
Exhibit Three June 2 - July 30, 2007
Opening Saturday, June 2, 2007

The world of the Holyoke's working class embraced more than the workplace. Outside the mill existed church, family, benevolent societies, and other institutions which enriched working class life and the culture of Holyoke. Within these institutions workers defined themselves and created a number of distinct cultural worlds. One cultural world was a world of responsibility based on the duty to family inculcated from an early age. Here young workers developed the means and values necessary to maintain families of their own. Before entering this world, some even lingered for a time in the raucous, hard drinking world of saloon culture. The immigrant and migrant impact was particularly strong in contributing to the social and cultural character of the community, reflected in much of Holyoke today.

"Connection… and Isolation": Cultural Identities in Holyoke
Exhibit Four November 3 - December 31, 2007
Opening Saturday, November 3, 2007

Holyoke's history holds an even more powerful story than the development of a mill town. It is a story of the immigrants and migrants of varied ethnic groups arriving in a new city with no previously established cultural patterns. Their impact was particularly strong in contributing to the social and cultural character of the community, reflected in much of Holyoke today. Holyoke's identity is made up of the identities and cultures of all the migrant and immigrant groups that have settled or passed through her boarders.

Many Americans who come from immigrant ancestors no longer identify with a particular ethnic group - others strongly identify with their ethnic heritage. There are an increasing number of people of mixed ethnic and racial parentage who define their identity primarily from their occupation, consumer habits, generation, residential location and cultural lifestyle as social mobility and inter-group acculturation reduced ethnic ties.