and the parish school. This parish-based structure and clerical leadership supplied the community with internal cohesion, religious and civic leaders, and space in which to practice and preserve old-country beliefs and traditions. Parish schools perpetuated these traditions in the education and upbringing of the American-born generations. Family structure adhered to the traditional bonds of extended family. Families were units whose economic survival was the responsibility of each family member. Males were the main breadwinners in the marketplace, but women and children also substantially contributed to the family budget. Moreover, women were charged with the duty of preserving the traditional values and customs within the family and passing them along to the next generation.
The neighborhoods within the parish structure became important self-sustaining areas, where small businesses and services catered to the immigrant clientele. They also housed local mutual aid and insurance organizations that later gave rise to the establishment of large Polish-American fraternals, uniting thousands of immigrants under their auspices and defining Polonia’s ethnic identity. These fraternals fulfilled multiple and complex economic, social, and cultural roles. While their initial goal was to provide death benefit insurance and to cover funeral expenses, they also carried out fund raising for community purposes or the homeland. By offering participants a number of positions and functions, the organizations contributed to status competition within the community and gave an opportunity for the civic involvement of the immigrants. Fraternals also advanced the vigorous development of Poloniarun press and publishing houses that tied separate communities into a lively national network.10
Polish Americans, the majority of whom were employed in industry, rapidly adjusted to the demands of working-class life. Together with other blue-collar industrial workers, Poles felt the impact of economic depressions, decreasing wages, and tense labor relations. The image, held by some, of a docile Slavic worker proved unfounded. Poles participated in collective labor actions during the 1880s and the 1890s and continued their involvement in strikes during the volatile first two decades of the twentieth century.11
The outbreak of World War I became a test of commitment to the ideals of a free Poland for American Polonia. In an enthusiastic show of support, Polish communities developed wide-ranging humanitarian aid programs and sponsored diplomatic and political actions, led by the famous Polish pianist and statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski. They also raised about twenty-four thousand volunteers for the Polish Army in France, of whom nearly twenty thousand went overseas under the command of General Józef Haller to participate directly in the fight for an independent Poland. By the end of the war, approximately two hundred fifteen thousand Polish Americans had served in the U.S. armed forces.12 Polonia’s financial contribution to the cause of an independent Poland proved to be no less impressive. According to some reports, Polonia raised more than $50 million for the cause, while purchasing $67 million in American Liberty Bonds and earmarking another $1.5 million specifically for the Polish Army in France. All of these funds came, as one scholar noted, from “committed immigrants, most of whom held low-paying, unskilled jobs.”13
After the Polish state was reestablished in 1918, American Polonia had to redefine many of the goals that previously had been tightly tied to the struggle for Polish independence. Although some American Poles returned to Poland following the war, the vast majority remained in the United States. Those who returned often came back disappointed with the economic and social conditions of the country as well as its political instability. In the meantime, new immigration restrictions decreased the flow of immigrants into Polish-American communities to a trickle of about six thousand a year. Polonia increasingly turned toward its own internal affairs and developed a more domestic focus. Membership in fraternals increased significantly, and the Polonia press flourished. As Polish immigrants participated in the post-war economic boom, their communities began developing a middle class based on ethnic businesses and professional enterprises. Social mobility and the acquisition of consumer goods facilitated a growing assimilation. The newspapers gradually introduced English into their pages. The immigrants deplored the Americanization of the second generation and showed concern for the growing gap between themselves and their children. Polish-American historian Karol Wachtl best expressed those anxieties over the need to redefine an ethnic identity: “We lost our way into the future. Before, all here knew where they were going: toward free Poland! But Poland went her way and we—in a different country, in an entirely different society, have to go along different routes. And what are these routes? Not entirely Polish and not quite American.”14 As James S. Pula put it, in the 1920s the signs of assimilation were unmistakable while the “mantel [sic] of leadership passed from the immigrant to the second generation.”15
Community leaders initiated a debate on the role of American Polonia in order to find its place in a changed international political situation as well as to face the challenges of assimilation. Their response became a slogan adopted in the 1920s with the broad support of the immigrant masses: wychodźstwo dla wychodźstwa (emigrants for themselves), which indicated a drastic shift in focus for Polish Americans.16 At the same time, the creation of cultural organizations, such as the Kosciuszko Foundation, the Polish Museum of America, and the first Polish Arts Clubs, attested to increased efforts to preserve not only Polish cultural heritage, but that of Polonia as well.17
In the 1920s Poles in Poland faced a multitude of problems stemming from the difficult task of overcoming the grim legacy of the partitions. These problems included the unification and reconstruction of the Polish economy, the building of a democratic political system, the establishment of relations with all neighboring countries, and a variety of social and educational reforms. The 1921 census showed that 25 percent of the Polish population lived in towns, and 75 percent in the countryside. Peasants constituted 64 percent of the population, and an additional 10 percent were landless agricultural laborers. Gradual industrialization resulted in a decrease of 5 percent in the rural population between 1921 and 1938. The industrial proletariat accounted for 17 percent of the population; 5 percent were professionals and intelligentsia; 2 percent were entrepreneurs; and less than 1 percent were owners of large estates.18 In 1931 ethnic Poles constituted 69 percent of the total population; Ukrainian, Jewish, Belorussian, German, Lithuanian, and Czech minorities formed the remaining part of society.19
Polish society changed dramatically during the interwar decades. Perhaps the most noticeable transformations took place in the rural population, which, despite the economic hardships, showed an increased radicalization and political involvement, particularly in the southern provinces. Land reform in 1919 and 1920, limited though it was, increased land ownership among peasants. Both rural areas and towns benefited from the reorganization of the educational system, one of the most sweeping reforms in interwar Poland. The number of schools rose considerably, and illiteracy was substantially reduced.
The Polish economy eventually revived, too, albeit after a long period of struggle to integrate the infrastructures, currencies, tax systems, and financial institutions of the three partitions. During the 1920s a series of reforms supervised by Władysław Grabski introduced the złoty (zloty) currency, established the Bank Polski (Bank of Poland), and initiated government investments in public works and rural improvements. In the next decade the electrification campaign, construction of the seaport in Gdynia, and establishment of the foundations for the Centralny Okręg Przemysłowy (Central Industrial Region) were among the brightest achievements of the period. Although in the late 1930s Poland was still an underdeveloped country, its economy showed strong signs of improvement.20
After decades of suppression by the partitioning powers, intellectual and cultural life in Poland flourished with extraordinary intensity. The twenty years between the two world wars were filled with scholarly and scientific achievements, as universities became vigorous centers of intellectual life. Talented intellectuals contributed to the expansion of journalism, book publishing, theater, film, and art exhibits, which in turn received strong support from the Polish public.
The Polish intelligentsia (inteligencja) led the way in the development of national culture. The intelligentsia represented a specific
