Immigrants, Nativists, and the Making of Chicago, 1835-1893
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Immigrants, Nativists, and the Making of Chicago, 1835-1893 Author: Mimi Cowan Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:104929 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2015 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Boston College The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Department of History IMMIGRANTS, NATIVISTS, AND THE MAKING OF CHICAGO, 1835-1893 a dissertation by MIMI COWAN Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2015 ©copyright by MIMI I. COWAN 2015 Immigrants, Nativists, and the Making of Chicago, 1835-1893 Mimi Cowan Advisor, Dr. Kevin Kenny Between 1835 and 1893, the majority of immigrants who settled in Chicago were of Irish or German birth. Even though the city’s economic leaders’ plans to transform Chicago into a center of international trade required the labor of these immigrants, Irish and German Chicagoans were still the targets of nativism. They were not, however, merely objects of nativism; instead, they were able to challenge nativist-inspired policies and assumptions about the inability of immigrants to become loyal Americans. They demonstrated their allegiance to the U. S. through service in independent ethnic militias and challenged policies that they felt unfairly targeted them, such as temperance laws in the 1850s, militia laws in the 1870s, and educational policy in the 1880s. But after 1865, as Chicago industrialized, labor conflict grew. As a result, the success of immigrants’ efforts to demonstrate their allegiance or combat nativist-inspired policies relied on their willingness to distance themselves from radicalism. While pre-1860 immigrant groups had banded together based on ethnicity, and often courted the support of and shared membership with ethnic labor organizations, by the end of the 1880s the class issues that were dividing the city also divided Irish and German ethnic organizations. After an unknown assailant threw a bomb during a labor rally in 1886, causing widespread fear of social revolution, Irish- and German-American ethnic leaders made clear their rejection of radicalism in order to continue to demonstrate their allegiance to the U. S. and their embrace of social and political views acceptable to the city’s elite. Their rejection of radicalism was in one sense a retreat, but it also assured that they would continue to be part of the process of constructing modern Chicago. Table of Contents Introduction 1 Historiography Chapter Outline Chapter One: Immigrants, Nativists, and the Growth of Chicago, 1833-1860 11 Immigrants and the Building of Antebellum Chicago Controlling the Impact of Immigrants Chapter Two: The Battle for Lager Beer and the Defeat of Prohibition 47 Temperance, Immigrants, and Nativists in Chicago, 1840s-1855 Democratic Participation: Peaceful Assembly and Petitioning Democratic Participation: Using the Judicial System Citizens Protesting The Seventh Ward and Prohibition: Voter Fraud or Voter Mobilization? Chapter Three: Ethnic Militias and Irish-American Nationalism, 1842-1864 90 Demonstrating Allegiance Ethnic Militias as Public Space Peace Keepers Ethnic Alliances and Political Appointments Transforming Irish Militias into Irish-American Nationalism Chapter Four: Cross-Ethnic Alliances and Educational Policy, 1872-1893 125 Education, Democracy, and Immigrants Removing the King James Bible Compulsory Education Laws Reaction to the Edwards Law Chapter Five: Industrialization and the 1879 Illinois Militia Law 162 Immigration and Labor 1867-1886 Postbellum Labor Conflict Chicago’s Independent Volunteer Militias in the 1870s Passing the 1879 Illinois Militia Law Class Conflict and Violence Chapter Six: Post-Haymarket 202 Irish Nationalist “Anarchists” Post-Haymarket Irish-American Nationalism The Post-Haymarket German Community Conclusion 243 Appendices 246 Bibliography 294 Introduction On June 26, 1893, Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld pardoned Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe, and Michael Schwab, ending their life sentences. He based his pardon on five points: the jury was packed in order to obtain convictions; according to the law, the jurors were incompetent, therefore resulting in an illegal trial; the prosecution had not proven that the defendants were guilty of the crime; the prosecuting attorney had admitted that the case against Neebe was ineffectual; and the judge was utterly and completely biased.1 These men were the remaining three defendants from the Haymarket trial. On May 4, 1886, Chicago anarchists held a rally in Haymarket Square to denounce the killing of workers by the city police when workers had gone on strike for an eight-hour workday. None other than the mayor of Chicago attended the rally, and he deemed the meeting to be peaceful and left early when it started to rain. Despite the mayor having told the local police captain, John Bonfield, to send his men home because the meeting was peaceful, Bonfield ordered his men to march on the meeting. Their phalanx arrived on the scene and Bonfield commanded the meeting to disperse, an unknown person threw a homemade pipe bomb, which exploded and killed at least one police officer. The police opened fire as the crowd fled. In the aftermath of the Haymarket meeting, eight men, including Fielden, Neebe, and Schwab, were indicted for the murder of police officer Michael Deegan. No one to date has discovered the identity of the person who threw the bomb, but these men were 1 John P. Altgeld, Governor of Illinois, “Reasons for pardoning Fielden, Neebe and Schwab,” (Chicago, 1893) Chicago History Museum. 2 arrested because they were anarchists who had advised the laboring classes to arm themselves against police brutality. Among the other defendants, one, Louis Lingg, committed suicide in his jail cell and four others, Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engle, and Adolf Fischer were executed by hanging. The Haymarket events unleashed a wave of both anti-radical sentiment and also, because most of the defendants were German, anti-German sentiment, in Chicago. As the Illinois Staats Zeitung explained, “nothing has hurt the Germans more in the United States in the eyes of its other population elements than the shocking agitation of the anarchists.”2 Six years later, in 1892, John Altgeld was elected as governor of Illinois. He was the first Democrat elected as governor since before the Civil War, the first governor elected from Chicago, and the first elected foreign-born governor.3 Trained as a lawyer, one of his first objectives as governor was to fully examine the Haymarket case. The pardons were the result of his examination and the decision elicited widespread outrage in the press. The Illinois Staats Zeitung reported “a large number of English-American newspapers and some German-American ones display an insane exasperation over Altgeld’s executive clemency to Neebe, Schwab, and Fielden.” But, the newspaper pointed out, “They completely pass over in silence Governor Altgeld’s denunciation and definite condemnation of anarchism; his threat of relentless prosecution whenever this 2 Illinois Staats Zeitung, September 4, 1886. Newberry Library http://flps.newberry.org/article/5418474_3_1_0748/. 3 Francis Hoffmann, a German-born Chicagoan, served as governor for a short time in his duties as Lieutenant Governor when the current governor Richard Yates was called away for military service during the Civil War. 3 doctrine should assert itself and become an actuality.”4 The newspaper went on to quote “the bigoted little preacher,” M.L. Gates who said that “‘Illinois stands discredited with the threefold A…Altgeld, Aliens, and Anarchists!’” The paper shamed Gates for “[confusing] a handful of Chicago anarchists with the large number of immigrants from Europe.”5 Similarly, the Chicago Tribune also opposed Altgeld’s decision, commenting, “The anarchists believed that he was not merely an alien by birth, but an alien by temperament and sympathies, and they were right.” The paper went on: “He has apparently not a drop of true American blood in his veins. He does not reason like an American, nor feel like one, and consequently does not behave like one.”6 Nativists believed that radicalism was a non-American ideology and so, even though Albert Parsons, one of the executed and a leader of anarchism in Chicago, was born in the U.S. of American parents, anti-radical nativism was nearly synonymous with anti-foreign nativism. Altgeld himself spoke openly about anti-foreign nativism. During his bid for the governorship, he touched upon the subject in many of his campaign speeches. He claimed that nativists “disregard the development of those states entirely which have progressed solely on account of ambitious immigrants,” and told how “those who defended our flag in bygone years – nearly half of them were foreign-born or had European parents.”7 4 Illinois Staats Zeitung, July 4, 1893. Newberry Library http://flps.newberry.org/article/5418474_3_1_0596/. 5 Illinois Staats Zeitung, July 4, 1893. Newberry Library http://flps.newberry.org/article/5418474_3_1_0596/. 6 Chicago Tribune, June 27, 1893. See also Chicago Tribune, June 28, 1893. 7 Illinois Staats Zeitung, September 14, 1892. Newberry Library http://flps.newberry.org/article/5418474_4_1084/. 4 Altgeld did not have patience for those who conflated immigrants with unruly and lawless behavior and he was unafraid of coming afoul of critics like the Tribune when defending what he felt was judicial inequality.8 So, nativism existed, but it did not stop Altgeld from winning the governor’s office, nor did it stop him from making an unpopular decision that resulted in his detractors referring to him as a radical. Altgeld’s experience mirrors the central theme of this dissertation: nativism existed in nineteenth-century Chicago, and it affected immigrants’ lives, but it did not prohibit immigrants from participating in American social and political life. At the outset of this story immigrants had little if any political control in Chicago. As time wore on, however, they gained a political voice through challenging nativist policies and laws.