The Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants of Pennsylvania's steel mills (1880-1920)

Graduation Date

2006

Document Type

Thesis

Program

Other

Program

Thesis (M.A.)--Humboldt State University, Social Science, Emphasis, Teaching American History, 2006.

Committee Chair Name

Delores Nason McBroome

Committee Chair Affiliation

HSU Faculty or Staff

Keywords

Immigrants, Carpatho-Rusyn, Humboldt State University -- Theses -- Teaching American History, Humboldt State University -- Theses -- Social Science, Pennsylvania, Steel mills

Abstract

This thesis is comprised of two parts. The first part is a historiography concerning Carpatho-Rusyns in Europe and Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants in the steel mill towns and cities of Pennsylvania (1880-1920). The second part is a collection of several weeks of lesson plans concerning immigration in general, with applications to the primary grade classroom. Until the mid-1970s very few historical studies addressed the topic of East Central European immigrants and their experiences in America. However, over the last twenty-five to thirty years there has been a slight increase in the number of studies involving these "second boat" immigrants. Early accounts stereotypically perceived them to be poor, ignorant, religiously different, shiftless, alcoholic and dull. Using relatively recent studies, this historiography will give a more accurate, three-dimensional, complex and humane picture of these unique and noteworthy people. Although East Central European immigrants will be addressed to some degree in generalities, this paper will narrow the larger group of East Central European immigrants down to a more specific group of about 250,000 people called Carpatho-Rusyns who immigrated primarily to Pennsylvania. Carpatho-Rusyns were an ethnically and linguistically distinct people from the Carpathian Mountain region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire district of Galicia. The Rusyns will be examined in their homeland and then studied as they worked and lived their lives in the steel mill towns and cities of Pennsylvania from 1880 to 1920. The lesson plans will be more general in terms of immigration, although particularly involving the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, non-European (and Native American) immigration, local history, and individual student immigrant ancestors.

https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/concern/theses/z890rw556

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