Morawska 1989

Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History
Labor Migrations of Poles in the Atlantic World Economy, 1880-1914

Author(s): Ewa Morawska
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Apr., 1989), pp. 237-272
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Labor Migrations of Poles in the
Atlantic World Economy, 1880-1914
EWA MORAWSKA
Universityof Pennsylvania
The recent influx to the United Statesof a new large wave of immigrantsfrom
HispanicAmericaand Asia has reinvigoratedimmigrationand ethnic studies,
including those devoted to the analysis of the origins and process of interna-
tional migrations.The accumulationof researchin this field in the last fifteen
years has brought about a shift in the theoreticalparadigmdesigned to in-
terpretthese movements. The classical approachexplains the mass flow into
North America of immigrants(from Southern and Eastern Europe, in the
period 1880 to 1914), as an internationalmigrationinterpretedin terms of
push and pull forces. Demographicand economic conditions promptedindi-
viduals to move from places with a surplusof population, little capital, and
underemployment,to areas where labor was scarce and wages were higher
(Jerome, 1926; Thomas, 1973; Piore, 1979;Gould, 1979). This interpretation
views individualdecisions and actions as the outcome of a rationaleconomic
calculation of the costs and benefits of migration.Recent studies of interna-
tional population movements have reconceptualizedthis problem, recasting
the unit(s) of analysis from separatenation-states,linked by one-way transfer
of migrantsbetween two unequallydevelopedeconomies, to a comprehensive
economic system composed of a dominantcore and a dependentperiphery
a world system that forms a complex networkof supranationalexchanges of
technology, capital, and labor (Castells, 1975; Cardoso and Faletto, 1979;
Kritz, 1983; Sassen-Koob, 1980; Portes, 1978; Portes and Walton, 1981;
Wood, 1982). In this conceptualization,the developmentof the core and the
underdevelopmentof the peripheralsocieties are seen not as two distinct
phenomena,but as two aspects of the same process-the expandingcapitalist
world system, explained in terms of each other. Generatedby the economic
imbalances and social dislocations resulting from the incorporationof the
peripheriesinto the orbit of the core, internationallabor migrationsbetween
the developing and industrializedregions are viewed as part of a global
circulation of resources within a single system of world economy. This in-
terpretationshifts the centralemphasis from the individual(and his/her deci-
sions) to the broad structuraldeterminantsof human migrations within a
global economic system.
0010-4175/89/2376-2582 $5.00 ? 1989 Society for ComparativeStudy of Society and History
237
238 EWA MORAWSKA
In the sociological literatureof immigration,the global system and depen-

dency theories have been applied predominantlyto the analysis of current
population flow from Third World countries. Most of the recent historical
studies of the turn-of-the-centurymass migrationsfrom Southernand Eastern
Europe are conducted within a refined push-and-pullconceptual framework
that views individual and social group-embeddeddecisions and actions in
generatingand sustainingmigrationsas important,but as played out within
the constrainingcontext of structuralforces from both sides of the process (cf.
Bade, 1985; Bodnar, 1985; Bobifiska and Pilch, 1975; Ekmecic, 1980;
Hoerder, 1985; Puskas, 1982; Rosoli, 1978). These studies acknowledge the
impacton individualmovementsof capitalisttransformationsoccurringwith-
in the economies and societies of the Southernand Easternperipheriesbe-
tween 1870 and 1914, and of the volume of labordemandin the industrialized
West Europeanand Americancore, but they do not fully articulatethe multi-
ple reciprocallinks connecting the two in a single Atlantic world-economy.
This paper offers an interpretationof mass labor migrationsof Poles to
WesternEuropeand the United States between 1880 and 1914, by extending
the historical-comparativescope of sociological analysis of immigrationand
integratingthe competing macro- and micro- explanatoryframeworks:first,
in terms of the circularpush-and-pullforces that operatedwithin the expand-
ing Atlantic economic system of reciprocalexchanges of goods, capital, and
labor;and second, within this structuralcontext, in terms of the local condi-
tions from which millions of people from all corers of the Polish countryside
were set in motion.
Thrice partitionedbetween 1772 and 1795 among Russia, Prussia, and
Austria, Poland as a political entity disappearedfrom the map of Eastern
Europe for six generationsuntil it regained state sovereignty in 1918. With
western regions incorporatedinto Prussia(Germanysince 1870/71), central
andeasternportionsinto Russia, andthe southernsection into Austria(Austro-
Hungarysince 1867), the subjugatedPolish territorieswere part of the state
systems and the economies of these three powers. Between 1870 and 1914,
over two million Poles had permanentlyleft the country in continental and
overseas emigration,while 100,000 to 200,000 per annumtowardthe end of
the nineteenth century, and 300,000 to 600,000 in the last decade prior to
WorldWarI participatedin seasonallabormigrationsto WesternEurope.The
remainderof this paperoutlinesthe processof incorporationof EasternEurope
into the Atlantic capitalisteconomy duringthe last decades of the nineteenth
and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. Then, it discusses a "double-
dependent"economic developmentin Poland,resultingfromher partitionand
political subordination.Withinthis context, it presentsthe mechanisms,gener-
al directions and volume of Polish labor migrations, with major focus on
movements that carried the greatest numbers of people to Germany and
America. In the last part, the discussion moves to the migrantsthemselves:to
LABOR MIGRATIONS OF POLES 239
the villages and the immediatesocioculturalenvironmentin which they made

theirdecisions to go andseek wages in WesternEuropeandacrossthe Atlantic.
INCORPORATION OF EASTERN EUROPEAN PERIPHERY INTO THE

ATLANTIC WORLD-ECONOMY
Through the eighteenth century, European societies were largely self-

sustaining. Internationaltradeplayed a supplementary,ratherthan determin-
ative role in their economic growth (Wallerstein, 1980; Berend and Ranki,
1982). In the nineteenthcentury, as the rapid urbanizationand industrializa-
tion of WesternEurope generatedincreasingdemand for foodstuffs and raw
materialsto supply the domestic economies, and for externalmarketsto sell
accumulating manufacturedproducts and capital, the southern and eastern
partsof the Europeancontinent, as well as more remote regions of the globe,
were drawninto the orbit of the expandingcapitalist economy. Gaining mo-
mentum since the beginning of the century, the process of globalization of
capitalist economy had greatly accelerated after 1860 (Pollard, 1973). Be-
tween 1870 and 1910, the combined industrial output of Great Britain,
France, and Germanynearly tripled (that of the United States increased six-
fold). By the outbreakof World WarI, it accountedfor over 70 percentof the
continentaltotal (Berend and Ranki, 1974:130-31; Chirot, 1986:90). Until
the 1860s, Western Europe was self-supporting in foodstuffs, but its per
capitafood importsgrew by more than40 percentbetween 1870 and 1913. At
the turnof the century, the share of WesternEuropeanimportsof foodstuffs
and raw materials in the global world trade was 65 percent (74 percent
includingthe United States). The increasedneed of the industrializedWestern
economy for outside supply of foodstuffs and raw materialswas matchedby
its growing demandfor new marketsin which to sell manufacturedgoods and
to invest capital. By 1910, manufacturedproducts formed 60 percent of its
combined exports, while the volume of foreign capital investments had in-
creasednearlyeightfold since 1850 (Berend and Ranki, 1982:21-24, 74-75,
114).
Convenientlyclose, vast, and "underused"marketsof Russia and Austro-
Hungaryin EasternEuropewere a naturaltargetfor Westernpenetration;they
also opened the way towardthe OttomanEmpireand Asia. The Russian and
Austro-Hungarianimperial states, with strong ambitions for political lead-
ership and militaryprowess, but with backwardunderdevelopedeconomies,
welcomed this interest because it promised the stimulationof sluggish eco-
nomic growth and the strengtheningof their military standing. The Eastern
Europeanperipheryreceived aboutone-fifth of all the capitalinvested outside
by the Western core during the four decades preceding World War I. The
leading exporters were France, Belgium, and Germany, with U.S. capital
playing an increasing(thoughmuch less forceful) role concentratingpredomi-
nantly in the oil and electrical industryand in agriculturalmachineryproduc-
240 EWA MORAWSKA
tion. British capital for the most part was committed in its colonies, and in
North and South America. Thus, around1910, 66 percentof the total French
capitalexportsin Europewere investedin Russiaand Austro-Hungary,and 71
percentof the Germanforeigninvestmentson the Continentwentto the Austro-
HungarianMonarchy(Berendand Ranki, 1982, 72-88). By mutualdesire of
the investorsandthe receiver-states,the greatestshare-50 percent-of West-
ern capitalin EasternEuropewas investedin railways(state-controlledin both
Russia and Austro-Hungary),to facilitatethe transportof goods and, if need
be, of armies.Another15 percentwent into industries,mostly mining, ironand
steel, oil, agriculturalproductionand machinery.This pronouncedconcentra-
tion of Westerninvestmentsin the EasternEuropeanperipherywas particularly
spectacularin Russia, where, in the firstdecade of this century,foreigncapital
carried 75 percent of the costs of railway construction, 85 percent of the
productionof iron and steel andof mining, and 55 percentof all new industrial
investments(Berendand Ranki, 1982:79-86; Trebilcock, 1981:233, 244-46;
cf. Brandt, 1901; Gefter, 1950; Gerschenkron,1966). In addition to direct
investmentsin transportation andindustry,Westerncapitalowned a substantial
shareof the assets in EasternEuropeanbanksthatwereproliferatingtowardthe
end of the century.In 1900, 35 percentof the total sharesandsecuritiesheld by
the banks in the HabsburgMonarchy were in Western hands, as were 45
percentof the capital assets of the ten largestbanksin TsaristRussia (Berend
and Ranki, 1974:97;Trebilcock, 1981:278-80).
Strong pull exerted on the EasternEuropeaneconomies by the increasing
Western demand for foodstuffs and raw materialsand massive local invest-
ment of foreign capital, pushed along by energetic interventionistpolicies of
the Russian and Austro-Hungarianstates, had indeed stimulatedeconomic
developmentof the region. The transportation network(in railwaykilometers)
expandedby 150 percentbetween 1880 and 1910. This, in turn, had greatly
aided the movement of goods, so that by 1910 the East Europeanperiphery
providedaboutone-fifth of the world exportsof foodstuffs and raw materials
(directedalmost in toto to marketsin westernpartsof the Continent).Between
1860 and 1910, the gross nationalproductof the HabsburgMonarchymore
thandoubled, while thatof the Tsaristempiregrew threefold.Throughoutthis
period, both countries showed respectable average annual Gross National
Product (GNP) growth rates of 3.5 percent and 5 percent respectively, as
compared with the U.S. rate of 4.4 percent (Berend and Ranki, 1974:136;
1982:25, 157; Chirot, 1986:87;Treblicock, 1981:235, 300-1, 351). Western
investments in Eastern Europeanindustrycontributedsignificantly to rapid
growth in the numberof factories and industrialmanpower. During the last
decade of the nineteenth century, they increased by 75 percent in Austro-
Hungary and by 67 percent in Russia. By 1913, industrial production
amountedto 28 percent of the nationalincome of Russia, which had already
replacedFrance as the fourth-rankingworld producerof iron and the fifth in
the manufactureof steel. In the same year in Austro-Hungary,primaryand

light industry's share in the national income was a high 60 percent (Berend
and Ranki, 1974:118-120, 128-35; Trebilcock, 1981:233, 358-59).
Chaperonedfrom above by the strong centralized states interestedin the
enhancementof theirdomestic and internationalposition, the incorporationof
EasternEuropeinto the orbit of world capitalisteconomy throughthe expan-
sion of transport,trade, and Westerninvestments,producedsome "spin-off"
or "multiplier" effects in the form of diversificationof local economic pro-
duction and the development of native autonomousindustries. These were
most visible in the HabsburgMonarchy, with its more central location and
long-establishedpolitical and culturalties with the Western core. The vast-
ness of Russia and its more pronouncedeconomic and social backwardness
considerablyhinderedthis process. However, the economic developmentthat
took place in Eastern Europe at the turn of the century had a peripheral
charactersubstantiallytied to, sustainedby, anddependenton the needs of the
Westerncore. The proportionof the populationin EasternEuropeemployed
in agricultureat the beginning of the centurywas much larger(65 percentin
Austro-Hungaryand 78 percent in Russia) than the Westerncore countries,
includingGreatBritain,9 percent;France,4.3 percent;Germany,34 percent;
and the United States, 37 percent. Foodstuffs, primarygoods, and raw mate-
rials remained the dominant exports of both Russia and Austro-Hungary
throughoutthe whole period of acceleratedeconomic growth(1870 to 1914),
accounting for about three-quartersof their internationaltrade (Berend and
Ranki, 1974:135-137; 1982:25, 159; Chirot, 1986:102-3; Historical Statis-
tics of the UnitedStates, 1962:74). Startingfrom a low base, the value of the
industrial output of these two Eastern Europeanempires increased an im-
pressive fourfold in Austro-Hungary, and eightfold in Russia between 1880
and 1910. Still, at the beginning of this century, their average per capita
industrialproductionwas only abouta thirdof thatof the Westerncore, which
had the advantagesof an earlier start and largely independentdevelopment
(Berend and Ranki, 1974:119, 128, 132; 1982:144). While at the beginning
of the nineteenthcentury,per capitaGNP of EasternEuropewas 65 percentof
that producedin the West, by 1860 this proportionhad droppedto 61 percent
and by 1910 to 58 percent (calculatedfrom Berend and Ranki, 1982:15-16,
158). As the capitalisteconomy spreadfartherout from its center, absorbing
new territoriesduringthe centurybefore WorldWarI, the dependentadvance
of the peripheralpartsof the system was accompaniedby the perpetuationand
accentuationof disparitiesbetween them and the dominantcore.
DOUBLE-DEPENDENCY OF POLAND'S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Divided among the three partitioner-statesthat ruled EasternEurope, Poland

shared the basic characteristicsof the economic developmentof the region.
Although there existed some significant differences in the situationof Prus-
242 EWA MORAWSKA
sian, Russian, and Austriansegments, resulting from the specific economic

structuresof the partitioner-statesand their particularpolicies toward the
conquered Polish territories(see the discussion below), the underlying so-
cioeconomic processes were similar in all three sections.
The abolitionof serfdomand the alienationof noble estates and communal
lands, (1807 in Prussian, 1848 in Austrian, and 1864 in Russian sections of
Poland) producedcumulativelong-termeffects on Polish ruraleconomy. On
the one hand, within twenty-five to thirty years from the implementation
of emancipationlaws, it broughtabout an increaseof 10 to 25 percentin the
total acreage owned by the peasantry.On the other, it intensifiedthe process
of internaleconomic and social diversificationof the peasantry.One effect of
this was the gradual consolidation of land and the formationof a group of
peasants owning medium-sized holdings. Another, much faster and more
significant consequence was the systematic fragmentationof peasant land-
holdings as the land was divided and subdividedamong theirprogeny. At the
turn of the century, no less than 72 percent of landowningpeasantryin the
combined Polish territorieswere dwarf- and small-holders(up to 5 hectares).
The thirdlong-termconsequence of the enfranchisementof the peasantrywas
the creation of a large ruralproletariat.The land reformsof 1807, 1848, and
1864 left thousandsof peasants as landless as they had been previously, and
the continuingfragmentationof landholdingsamong the landowningpeasant-
ry addednew membersto the landless each year. Between 1860 and 1910, the
Polish population(in the threepartitionscombined)increasedby 117 percent,
as compared with 70 percent average for all of Europe. This demographic
boom, resultingfrom a decreasein deathrates, combinedwith an explosion in
birthsfollowing emancipationof the peasantry,greatlyfosteredthe numerical
increase of the agrarianproletariat. At the beginning of the century, the
proportionof landless, wage-dependentpeasantsin the ruralpopulationof all
Polish territorieswas 33 percent, or about 3.5 million people-an increaseof
more than 500 percent over the past 40 years (Polish Encyclopaedia, 1922,
II:128-146; Ibid., 111:52-3,55-7, 250, 404; Kieniewicz, 1969:180-89; Kor-
manova et al., 1963:111,Pt. 1:108-9, 193-95, 377, 494, 502, 531-34, 562-
67, 601; Kostrowickaet al., 1978:175, 237; Morawska, 1985:26-27).
Although Poland remainedpredominantlyan agrariansociety, with about
two-thirdsof its populationstill employed in agricultureat the beginning of
this centuryit was subjectto capitalisttransformations,similarto those affect-
ing the rest of EasternEuropeduringthe four decadesprecedingWorldWarI.
A number of industries, heavily financed by Western investors, providing
from 40 percent to 95 percent of the capital, were launchedand developed.
They were predominantlyconcentratedin the sectors of extracting(Russian
and Austrianpartitions, and PrussianUpper Silesia), textiles (Russian parti-
tion), and agriculturalproduction(Prussianand Austrianpartitions).With the
development of industry, the combined labor force employed in mining and
manufacturing in the three sections of Poland increased fourfold from

320,000 to 1,200,000 between 1870 and 1913. By World War I, the overall
proportionof Poles occupied in industrialproductionhad reached 18 percent.
Concurrentwith the growth of the factories and the industrialworkforce, the
urbanpopulation increased 75 percentbetween 1880/90 and 1910. The pro-
portion of city dwellers in the total population grew from 19 percent to 32
percent (calculated from Kormanowaet al, 1963, III, Pt. 1:217-21, 406,
641-52; Polish Encyclopaedia, 1922, 1I11:108,114-15, 263, 377, 418-19,
539; Zarnowska, 1964:17-20, 33, 48; Ihnatowiczet al., 1979:459-60; Mor-
awska, 1985:32-4; Jasiczek, 1959:77-93; Ibid., 1960:91-113).
As capitalismexpandedwith EasternEuropeat its periphery,the dependent
natureof Poland's developmentwas made even more pronouncedby her lack
of political sovereignty and by the deliberateeconomic and nationalpolicies
of the partitioner-states,that treated the annexed Polish territoriesas their
"colonies" and the Poles as a "hostile element" and potential rebels. (In
nationaluprisingsin 1830 and 1861, the Poles twice tried, both times unsuc-
cessfully, to regain independence.) Although it affected each sector, this
double-dependenceof Poland varied in degree and form in Prussian,Russian
and Austrianpartitions.
Germany(Poland's western partitioner,politically unified in one centralist
empire only in 1870/71 and a relative latecomer to capitalist development)
quickly became the "wonder of Europe," as it transformeditself from a
largelyagr,rianto an urban-industrialsociety and a world power, within three
and one-half decades. Characteristicof Germany'srapidcapitalist expansion
were the leading roles played by state interventionistpolicies and a regional
split of the economy into a highly industrializedarea located in the western
and central regions of the country, and an agriculturalhinterland-literally,
internalperiphery-in the east, consisting largely of the territoriesannexed
from Poland by Prussia at the end of the eighteenth century. This eastern
Germanhinterland,particularlyits Polish part, was to serve (with the excep-
tion of the industrializedenclave in Upper Silesia) in the state programof
economic development strongly supportedby the politically influentialPrus-
sian junkers (landowners), mostly as the producerof primaryand manufac-
tured foodstuffs and as a huge granaryfor western partsof the country. The
hinterland'spopulation was to provide the reservoirof labor for local agri-
cultureand, from the turnof the century, for the expandingGermanindustries
in the west. Systematic actions, paired with the policy of economic pe-
ripheralizationof Polish territories,were aimed at Germanizationof the con-
quered land. These were carriedout by specially organizedbodies, like the
Zentralstelle fur Forderung industrieller Unternehmungen in den ostlichen
Provinzen (1900), whose function, supported by the German Ostbank
(Eastern Bank for Commerce and Industry), was to take control of Polish
enterprisesand to initiateGermanones; and the Kulturkampf-an unrelenting
244 EWA MORAWSKA
administrativecampaign to eradicate "Polishness" from local institutions

(Polish Encyclopaedia, 111:107, 126, 130-39, 201-4; Kormanowa et al.,
1963, II, Pt. 1:207-9, 213, 227; Treblicock, 1981:50, 251).
The situation in the Russian section of Poland was different. It was a
politically subordinate semiperiphery of the periphery. In comparison with the
Tsarist Empire, where the highly concentratedindustrialenclaves were sur-
rounded by vast agrariantracts, the Polish part, most westward, was more
advancedin the process of capitalisttransformations.At the beginning of the
century, 17 percent of its population (comparedto less than 10 percent in
Russia) were employed in industry, and 33 percent (13 percent in Russia)
lived in the cities. Although it occupied only 3 percent of the Empire's
territory and made up about 9 percent of its population, the Polish part
contributed12 percentof Russia's gross nationalproduct.In 1913, the share
of industrialoutput in the GNP of Russian Poland was 49 percent, as com-
pared with 28 percentfor the whole of Russia (Berendand Ranki, 1974:137;
Brandt, 1901, III:144; Kormanowaet al., 1963, III, Pt. 1:551; Polish En-
cyclopaedia, 1922, 111:398).Textile manufacturing,selling predominantlyon
the Russian markets, accounted for almost half of Polish industrialproduc-
tion; mining and smelting of ore, mostly for domestic use, amountedto over
one-fifth. As semiperiphery,ratherthanhinterland,of the TsaristEmpire, the
Russian section of Poland did profit from the closeness of vast "hungry"
marketsof Russia, but the dependenceof Polish industryon Westerncapital
and Russian economic policies, and political powerlessness vis-a-vis the un-
friendly partitioner-state,did not permit her to take more substantialadvan-
tage of this relative superiority. At the beginning of the century, French,
Belgian, and Germanbanks and joint-stock companies investing in Russian
Poland owned 40 percent of all industrialcapital, 25 percentof all factories
(employing over one-half of the total numberof workers), and 60 percentof
the value of gross industrialproductionand total assets of majorPolish banks
(Berendand Ranki, 1974:133;Kormanowaet al., 1963, III, Pt. 2:53, 91-92,
118; Kostrowicka et al., 1978:194, 238). As its Western capital-directed
industrydeveloped, Polish economy needed increasingquantitiesof raw ma-
terials: cotton for textile factories, plus coke and iron ore, whose domestic
supply was not sufficient. Russian Polandwas increasinglyeastern-dependent
for these products, but suffered from unfavorableconditions of preferential
railway and customs tariffs, introducedbetween 1877 and 1896 by the Tsarist
government to protect the interests of the Russian industrialcenters in the
interior (Brandt, 1901, 111:73-74, 227-28; Polish Encyclopaedia, 1922,
111:390-91, 437-38, 555-71). Significantly, in the allocation of huge gov-
ernment orders for railway construction, including the works conducted in
RussianPoland (designed more for militarythan for economic purposes),the
latter'sinterestswere generallydisregardedby the Tsaristpartitioner-state.As
involved as it was in developing and protectingits own economy, the Tsarist
partitionerhad little interestin doing the same for the annexedPolish territo-
ries, especially if it meant competition for the Russian industry. From the
perspective of the Tsarist state, Russian Poland was to serve primarilyas an
advanced strategic bulwark to delay foreign invasion (the Tsars' constant
fear).
The double-dependenceof AustrianPoland, at the easternmostflanksof the
HabsburgMonarchy, was similarto thatof the Prussianpartition,but, owing
to the profoundsocioeconomic backwardnessof this region and to the way it
was treatedby the Austriancenter, its adverse effects were much more pro-
nounced. Like thatof Germany,the economy of Austro-Hungarywas region-
ally split into a western Austro-Bohemianpart that was industrializingat a
steady rate, and a vast eastern sector, covering the territoriesof southern
Poland, Slovakia, Bukovina, and Transylvania.If the Polish partof Germany
was periphery of the core, and that of Russia was semiperiphery of the
periphery, the segment annexed by Austriacould be called periphery of the
periphery. First, and most notably, it was very poor. With one-thirdof the
monarchy's total population, it received only one-twelfth of its income, and
its per capita production and consumption were both lower by nearly 40
percent than those in the Austrian part (Berend and Ranki, 1974:121-22;
Bujak, 1902, 1:392;Diamand, 1915:20). At the beginningof the century, 80
percentof the populationin AustrianPoland, as comparedwith 40 percentin
Austria, still lived in the countryside(Berendand Ranki, 1974:115). Further,
while they lived in it, they could hardlylive from it. Two-thirdsof the rural
populationof AustrianPoland-the landless agrarianproletariat(nearly one-
fifth of the total), and owners of minuscule holdings that could not provide
livelihood (about one-half of all peasantholdings)-had to rely wholly or in
parton wage labor. Industryin AustrianPoland, employingbarely 10 percent
of the population, could hardly provide a livelihood for them. Nearly 90
percent of the industrial establishments were of the handicrafttype, em-
ploying fewer than five persons and selling their productsfrom homes, or at
the local markets and fairs (Bujak, 1902, 11:239-62, 392; Polish En-
cyclopaedia, 1922, III:267, 294, 343). Of the remaining 10 percent, a few
large industrialenterprises(oil, coal, zinc, and salt extractors,and a smaller
textile center) scarcely employed more than 5,000-6,000 workers each.
There were no signs of any substantial future expansion in labor demand,
because the owners-practically all Austrianor Westerncore investors such
as StandardOil of the United States-preferred to transportextractedmate-
rials for processing outside of the region (Diamand, 1915:58-61; Polish
Encyclopaedia, 1922, 111:258-59; Schiper, 1937:446; Kormanowa et al.,
1963, III, Pt. 1: 631-38, 543-47; Pt. 2:168; Kostrowickaet al., 1978:195).
Of the three parts of the divided Poland, the economic situationof the Aus-
trian segment resembled most closely the classic colonial one, and it was
described as such by contemporaryobservers (Polish Encyclopaedia, 1922,
246 EWA MORAWSKA
111:263,258-59, 286-87, 289-91). The HabsburgMonarchy,itself a periph-

ery in the world capitalisteconomy at the turnof the century, assumed a role
of the core in relationto its easterndependencies.Like a truecore capitalist, it
exploited and plunderedthe naturalresources of the annexed Polish territo-
ries, using a varietyof means:protectiverail and customs tariffs, government
banks, and joint-stock companies with or without governmentparticipation.
All of these repeatedlyannihilatedlocal attemptsto createautonomousindus-
try (Polish Encyclopaedia, 1922, 111:258-59, 263; Kormanowa et al., 1963,
III, Pt. 2:164). As if concerned that the effects of its policies might be
revealed in harddata, the Austriangovernmentstubbornlyrefused the repre-
sentatives of the local diet permission to conduct an independenteconomic
census in the Polish part, a census that the Poles repeatedlyrequested(Polish
Encyclopaedia, 1922, 111:289-91). But raw and primarymaterials(of which,
besides some oil and much wood, grain and beets, AustrianPoland did not
reallypossess very many)were not of greatestinterestto the Austrianperiphery-
colonizer and its core partners.The Polish territories,like the surrounding
areas in the eastern sector, served chiefly as a vast easy marketfor Austrian
industry to dump increasing quantities of the famed Galizienwaren: low-
quality, cheap, manufacturedproductsfound at all town marketsand in the
village stores throughoutthe region (Polish Encyclopaedia, 1922, I1:263,
281; cf. Berend and Ranki, 1974:130). With her naturalresourcesplundered
by core Westerninvestorsand the internalcolonizer, with almost no industry
of her own, with agriculturefragmentedinto lilliputianholdings incapableof
sustainingthe majorityof the ruralpopulation,and with her marketsannually
flooded with all kinds of Galizienwaren,it was not surprisingthat, according
to the estimates of contemporaryPolish observers, the imports of Austrian
Polandwere more thandouble the amountof her exports. "Thereforeit is not
astonishing," concluded the authors, "that [the Polish partof the Habsburg
Monarchy],poor and debt-encumbered,can only balanceher accountsby the
exportationon a large scale of her own labour" (Polish Encyclopaedia, 1922,
111:293;see Diamand, 1915:101, for an estimationof a triple excess of trade
liabilities over assets.)
POLISH LABOR MIGRATIONS: MECHANISMS, DIRECTIONS, AND

VOLUME
Turn-of-the-centurycommentatorson the mass labor migrationsfrom Poland

seem to have better grasped the underlying mechanisms of this movement
than did developers of later classical theories of immigration at Western
universities. As the former saw it, the profound economic and social im-
balances of the region, resulting from its dependent pull into the foreign
economy (both directly, from alien domination, and indirectly, from eco-
nomic forces penetratingfrom the outside), were pushing out the domestic
labor to become part of this larger system. In the precedingpages, we have
shown the incorporationof EasternEuropean,and Polish peripherywithin it,

into the Atlantic world system throughthe exchange of capital and products.
The mobilizationandincreasinginternationalization of laborformedthe next
link in this process. At one pole of the system, the push mechanismswere the
consolidationin the countrysideof a middlegroupof capitalistfarmersand the
simultaneousrapid increase in numbersof the agrarianproletariatand semi-
proletariat. By the turn of the century, about two-thirds of the total rural
populationin bothPrussianandAustriandivisions of Polandandover one-third
in its Russian section had to seek outside wage labor as the sole basis, or the
necessarysupplement,of theirlivelihood. The proletarianization of the mass of
agrarian population in all three partitions of Poland was fostered by the
destructionof traditionalruralhandicrafts.These were increasinglyeliminated
by the developmentof transportation andthe penetrationonto Polish marketsof
manufacturedgoods produced by the Western core, or, in the case of the
Austrian partition, mainly by the periphery-colonizer,and by the industries
they created in the Polish cities (Bujak, 1914:68-73; Kaczytska, 1974:127-
29; Stomka, 1941:64. On similarprocesses in other partsof EasternEurope,
see Barton, 1982; Bodnar, 1985:31-33). At the other pole of the extended
system of resourcecirculation,the pull mechanismsof the mobilizationof the
Polish workforceand its incorporationinto the internationallabormarketwere
the increasedneeds for manpowerof the core economy in the industrialsectors
within Poland, where it invested its capital, and most of all, in its Western
centers, both in Europe and the United States. This issue will be developed
shortly, in the discussion of Polish labormigrationsto GermanyandAmerica.
Seasonal short- and middle-distanceharvestmigrationsof Polish peasantry
within the East Europeancountrysidewere alreadycommonplaceduringthe
1860s and 1870s. From the 1880s on, the back-and-fortheconomic migra-
tions of Poles (and of other East Europeansas well) assumed an unprece-
dented massive scale, as industrial employment was added to agricultural
wage labor and greatly widened in distance, scope, and directions,extending
into the growing cities in the region and fartherinto Western Europe and
across the Atlantic. Between 1860 and 1914, these multidirectionalmove-
ments (within the Polish countryside and to the cities, to other regions of
EasternEurope, to western partsof the Continent,and overseas to the United
States, Canada, Brazil, and Argentina)involved a total of about 10 million
people or roughly one-third of the population of 29 million.' In the first
According to contemporary(unverified) estimates, continental and permanentemigration

from all Polish territories before World War I took away nearly 50 percent of the natural
population growth (WtadystawGrabski, Matervayvw Sprawie WIoscianskiej,Warsaw:Nakdad
Gebethnerai Wolffa, 1907, I, 85-87). More recently, East Europeanhistorianshave estimated
the loss of naturalpopulationgrowth due to emigrationfor the whole Austro-HungarianEmpire
at the beginningof the centuryat 25 percent(Ivan BerendandGyorgy Ranki, EconomicDevelop-
ment in East Central Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries, New York: Columbia University
Press, 1974, 20-21).
248 EWA MORAWSKA
decade of this century, 25 percent of the combined Polish population (all three
partitions) depended directly or indirectly on economic migrations (estimated
from Kormanowa et al, 1963, II, Pt. 1:95-98, 102-8; Ihnatowicz et al,
1979:466; Pilch, 1984:9-11; Polish Encyclopaedia, 1922, 111:241).
A significant proportion of this movement-between one-fifth and one-
fourth of the total number of immigrants-was directed to growing Polish
cities. (Unfortunately, data on the relative shares of migrants from particular
partitions going to the cities, to Western Europe, and to America are not
available.) At the turn of the century, migrants ("unpermanent residents")
constituted about one-half of the population of the largest urban conglome-
rates on Polish territories. In the fastest growing centers of coal and iron
production, such as Upper Silesia and the D4browa Basin, they reached 60-
70 percent. On the average, between 1890 and 1914, about 30 percent of the
population of Polish cities was "migrant." Peasants who came to work in the
cities usually spent six to eight months a year there. In the spring and summer,
they abandoned their factory jobs and returned home to work in the fields
(Kaczynska, 1974:31-33, 119-21; Kormanowa et al., 1963, III, Pt. 1:221,
409; Zarnowska, 1974:111-14, 131;Bujak, 1903, II:65; Pawlowski, 1919:33;
Schofer, 1975:123-27; Turski, 1965, ch. 2).
Although Poland's industries grew as capitalism penetrated deeper into the
region, they were latecomers and, to a considerable degree, dependent on
foreign capital and economic priorities and not developing at a rate sufficient
to absorb all the superfluous rural population seeking wages. In increasing
volume toward the end of the century, Polish labor migrants were flowing
toward the core. Their movement was greatly facilitated by the network of
railways linking of Eastern Europe to western parts of the Continent and by
the improved and relatively cheap ocean transportation connecting Poland to
the United States on the other side of the Atlantic.
The central and western parts of Germany received 85-90 percent of Polish
laborers migrating to Western Europe, and the United States absorbed the
same proportion overseas (Pilch, 1984). Customary interpretations in Ameri-
can ethnic literature emphasize the uniqueness of the United States in attract-
ing the largest proportion of turn-of-the-century emigrants from Eastern Eu-
rope. In fact, the number of Poles migrating into the western part of the
Continent in the three-and-a-half decades preceding World War I was several
times larger than the number emigrating to America. Of the estimated total
numerical volume of all kinds of multidirectional migrations of Poles between
1880 and 1914, the United States received no more than 20 percent. If we
compare only the two destinations that attracted the largest proportions of
migrants: Germany and the United States, it turns out that, in numerical
volume, Polish migrations to America were only one-third of those to Ger-
many2 (see Table 1).3 While it was indeed only America that had a Great
2 The numerical volume of migration should be distinguished from its "composition": a third
Legend of the unmatchedriches awaitingimmigrants,the common expression

(still used idiomaticallyin present-dayPoland)was chodzic na saksv ("going
to Saxony"), referringto customaryseasonalemploymentin Germanyto earn
money that was needed to supplement chronically insufficient domestic
incomes.
The remainderof this section offers a closer inspectionof these two largest
migratorylabor flows from Polish territoriesto the core duringthe last dec-
ades of the nineteenthand the beginning of the twentiethcenturies, leaving
aside minor streamsto other countriesin WesternEurope,Canada,and South
America. They occurredsimultaneously, and their underlyingpush-and-pull
mechanismswere the same, but therewere also differencesbetween these two
migrations.
In the period of rapidtransformationinto urban-industrialsociety between
1850 and 1900, Germanylost 4.5 million of her populationin emigrationto
the United States. Within the two decades afterthe unificationof the country
in 1870/71, nearly 2.5 million left for America, and only after 1895 did this
massive outflow eventually abate (Kollmann and Marschalk, 1973:518;
Willcox and Ferenczi, 1929, 11:316-336). Concomitantwith this movement,
and gaining momentum since the 1870s, was an equally massive internal
migrationfrom the northernand easternagriculturalregions of the countryto
the industrializingwest, the Ostflucht(flight from the East) and Landflucht
(flight from agriculture),that involved over 4 million people from the eastern
provinces alone. By the 1900s, one-half of the labor force in the industrial
centers of Rhineland-Westphaliain westernGermanywas migrantsfrom the
eastern parts of the country (Bade, 1985:123-25; Trebilcock, 1981:54). To-
gether, American emigrationand the flight from agricultureresulted, by the
1880s, in an acute shortageof agriculturallaborin the northeasternregions of
Germany. In the west, the quickly growing industrieswere also in need of
more manpower,especially unskilledlaborfor the coalmines and steel facto-
ries in the Ruhrregion, into which it was difficult to attractthe native German
went to the United States in terms of numbers, compared to seasonal migrations to nearby
Germanythat actually involved a large proportionof the same people going thereyear afteryear.
For comparison,of approximately14 million emigrantsfrom Italy from 1876 to 1915, only 30
percent went to the United States, while 44 percentmigratedto the Europeancountries, and 27
percent to other overseas destinationsin Canada, South America, and Africa (Luigi Favero and
Graziano Tassello, "Cent'anni di Emigrazione Italiana, 1876--1976," in Un Secolo di Emi-
grazione Italiana, 1876-1976, GianfaustoRosoli, ed. (Rome: CentroStudi Emigrazione, 1980),
19).
3 Compiled from: ZannaKormanowaet al., Historia Polski, Vol. III:1850/1864-1918 (War-
saw: Patistwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1963), Pt. 2, 777-78; Andrzej Brozek, Polonia
Amervkaniska,1854-1939 (Warsaw:Interpress,1977), 227; AndrzejPilch, "Emigracjaz Ziem
Zaboru Austriackiego(Od Potowy XIXw do 1918)," in AndrzejPilch, ed., Emigracja z Ziem
Polskich w Czasach Nowozytnichi Najnowszych(Warsaw:PanistwoweWydawnictwoNaukowe,
1940), 282; Krzysztof Groniowski, "Emigracja z Ziem Zaboru Rosyjskiego," in Pilch,
Emigracja z Ziem Polskich, 213-19; Willcox and Ferenczi, InternationalMigrations, I, 423,
477-78, 480, 488--89, 496; Klaus Bade, "Migrationand Foreign Labourin ImperialGermany
250 EWA MORAWSKA
TABLE 1
Polish Migration Flows to Germany and the United States, 1886-1913(N)
Seasonal Migrations to
Germanyfrom Russian To the United States U.S. Unemployment
and AustrianPoland" (from all 3 partitions) Rate (%)
1886 20,839
1885 27,428
1888 27,626
1889 24,822
1890 \ 29,573 4
1891 20,000 annually (est.)
44,497 5
1892 58,436 3
1893 27,428 12
1894 20,041 18
1895 60,230 9,422 14
1896 67,405 14,676 14
1897 12,132 14
1898 18,846 12
1899 28,466 7
1900 154,284 46,938 5
1901 174,664 43,617 4
1902 177,389 69,620 4
1903 183,875 82,343 4
1904 196,601 67,757 5
1905b 306,000 102,437 4
1906 315,876 95,835 2
1907 347,876 138,033 3
1908 393,074 68,105 8
1909 525,702 77,500 5
1910 525,441 128,300 5
1911 556,561 71,450 7
1912 607,838 85,000 5
1913 643,415 174,300 4
aThe figures include only seasonal migrantworkersfrom the RussianandAustrianpartitions.For

PrussianPoles, not evidenced in the Germanstatistics, the existing Polish data are only fragmen-
tary, indicating67,000 seasonal migrantsin 1889, 90,000 in 1891, 97,000 in 1892, and43,000 in
1902. By 1910, there resided also in the western industrialregion of the Ruhr400,000-500,000
Poles from the Prussianpartition.
bThe surge in the volume of migrationsto Germanyand the United States in 1905, a relatively
good period in terms of labor marketconditions in both countries, was most likely the effect of
the political upheavaland the resultingeconomic distrubancesthat took place that year in Russia
and Poland.
SOURCES:The informationused for this table is found in footnote 3.
and WeimarGermany," paperdelivered at the conference, 'A Centuryof EuropeanMigrations,

1830-1930: ComparativePerspectives," ImmigrationHistoryResearchCenter, St. Paul, Minn.,
November 6-9, 1986; Historical Statistics of the United States. Colonial Times to 1970
(Washington:U.S. GovernmentPrintingOffice, 1971).
Ostfuchters. Towardthe turnof the century,Germanyherself had become an

importerof immigrantworkers drawn from the Southernand EasternEuro-
pean peripheries, while still supplying her own emigrantlaborersto the ex-
panding American economy.
To secure much-needed labor, agents were sent to different regions of
Southern and Eastern Europe to recruit workers for German industry and
agriculture.(On the role of employment agents in the recruitmentof Polish
laborto Germanyfrom all threepartitions,see Klessman, 1986:101;Schofer,
1975:73; Spencer, 1984:40-43; Groniowski, 1984:216;Bade, 1980:313-20;
Pilch, 1984a:286; Nowosz, 1976:110; Caro, 1914:262-71.) In the first dec-
ade of this century, there were over one million foreign migrantworkers in
Germany, with an approximatelyequal proportionemployed in industryand
in agriculture. Of these, Poles from Russia and Austro-Hungarywere the
largest group (about 40 percent), followed by the Italians and other East
Europeans.In addition, over 400,000 Poles from the Prussianpartitionresid-
ed in westernGermany, not counted as foreignersin Germanstatistics(Bade,
1984:140-43; Schofer, 1975:60; Willcox and Ferenczi, 1929, II, 378-79).
As needed as the willig und billig (eager and cheap) Polish migrantlaborers
were for the Germany economy, the prospect of their eventual permanent
settlement was definitely against the declaredpolitical interestsand national
policy of the German state that intended to eradicatePolishness or, in any
case, to preventthe mingling of Poles from Russia and Austro-Hungarywith
those from the Prussianpartition.The Germanauthoritiesfearedsuch contact
could easily lead to a renewed upsurgeof Polonismus (Polish nationalagita-
tion and a possible rebellion). As a result, special regulations(issued in 1886,
1891, and 1907) prohibitedthe employmentof foreign (that is, Russian-and
Austrian-partition)Polish migrantlaborersin west Germanindustriesin the
Ruhr region, where there existed a large colony of PrussianPoles, and re-
quired that migrants arrive without families, register in the Deutsche Ar-
beiterzentrale(GermanWorkersAgency), and, most of all, returneach year
to their countries for the Karenzzeit(the "waiting period" from December
until March). Thus restricted,Polish labor migrationsto Germany, although
they grew steadily from about 60,000 in 1895 to 150,000 in 1900 to over
600,000 in 1913, had an enforced seasonal character, peaking during the
summerseason and droppingsharplyin the winter months(Bade, 1984:140-
46; Kormanowaet al, 1963, Pt. 1:107; Pt. 2:777-78; Willcox and Ferenczi,
1929, 1:789; 11:380;Groniowski, 1984:214-19).
In the decade before WorldWar I, each year over 800,000 Poles workedin
Germany, includingthose from its easternterritorieslaboringin west German
industries. Among Polish migrants from Austro-Hungaryand Russia, the
overwhelming majority (80-90 percent) were employed on the farms and
estates in the northeasternand central parts of Germany, where they con-
stituted two-thirds of all agriculturalworkers. Clearly, by the turn of the
252 EWA MORAWSKA
century the agriculturalcapacity of these German provinces had become

directly dependent on Polish migrant labor. As the German administration
reluctantlyadmitted, its elimination "would almost mean the death knell for
agriculture" (cited after Bade, 1985:133. See also Bade, 1986:8; Caro,
1914:260; Polish Encyclopaedia, 1922, 11:96-97, 220; Kormanowa et al.,
1963, III, Pt. 2:764). To a lesser but significant degree, the same was also
true for the German mining industry in the Rhenish-Westphalian (Ruhr)
region, where PrussianPoles, constitutingone-tenthof all workersemployed,
made up nearly 40 percent of all miners, and their proportionreached 75
percent in some factories (Klessman, 1978:262, 265; 1985:259; Spencer,
1984:44).
The dependenceof the Americaneconomy on immigrantmanpoweris well
known and does not require belaboring. Briefly, between 1860 and 1914,
Europesentnearlyone-fourthof its laborforce to the UnitedStates, and, during
the last fourdecadesprecedingWorldWarI, aboutone-thirdof the increasein
the Americanlaborforce came from immigration(Gould, 1979:633;William-
son, 1974:331). By 1910, immigrantsrepresentedone-fifth of the U.S. work-
force: two-thirdsof non-farmlaborers,and one-thirdof industrialoperatives
(Wool and Phillips, 1976:45-54). As the nineteenthcenturywas coming to a
close, SouthernandEasternEuropeansprovidedincreasinglylargeproportions
of immigrantsto America:from 5 percentin the decade 1870 to 1880, to 33
percent between 1891 and 1900. By 1914, they made up 66 percent of all
arrivals(Berendand Ranki, 1974:20-21). Among them, Poles constituted20
percentand40 percentof all Slavic arrivals.Between 1870 and 1914, 1.8 to 2.0
million of themcame to the UnitedStates4(Balch, 1910:265, 460-61; Willcox
and Ferenczi, 1929, I: 418-39; Pilch, 1984:9-11).
The arrivalof Southernand EasternEuropeansat the turn of the century
coincided with the restructuringof the American economy that shifted to
heavy industryand constructionrequiringlarge quantitiesof low-skilled man-
power. With the decrease in the supply of immigrantsfrom WesternEurope,
resulting from the rapid industrializationthere, the United States, like Ger-
many, drew the necessarylaborresourcesfrom the peripheriesat the southern
and eastern corers of the Continent. Before 1885, when contractinglabor
became officially outlawed by the U.S. government, agents of American
employers regularly traveled to Europe to recruitworkers (Piore, 1979:23-
25, 152-53). Accordingto the local authoritiesin Lvov (AustrianPoland), in
the spring of 1884, "throughthe agents' mediationthere arrivedweekly in
Hamburg[one of the mainportsof departurefor the United States] 200 to 300
Polish emigrants,as well as Hungarians"(cited afterPilch, 1984a:260).After
1885, the agents of steamshipcompaniesin Hamburg,Antwerp,and Bremen
4 Polish estimates are considerably higher-up to 3-3.5 million, but they often include
Rusyns (Ukrainians) and Jews. (For a discussion of these, see Andrzej Brozek, Polonia
Amerykatska, 1854-1939, Warsaw:Interpress,1977, 35.)
took over the solicitationof potentialmigrants.(On the role of transportation

agents in instigating emigration to America from Polish countryside, see
Caro, 1914:82-95.)
This advertising and solicitation of transportationagencies performed a
function, in the words of a contemporaryobserver, of "opening up new
regions [of EasternEurope] which are ripe for emigration [due to the local
conditions] and in setting the ball rolling. [They hasten]the startingand make
smooth the avalanche" (Balch, 1910:52-53). As in case of seasonal migra-
tions to Germany,once initiatedby the interactionof pull-and-pushimpulses,
travels from the Polish countryside to America in search of wages soon
became self-sustaining:the more people migrated,the largerthe flow grew.
(On the precipitatingfunction of "previous migration" as a variable in the
economic models of immigrationto the United States, see Gould, 1979:654-
62). During the 1880s, about 100,000 Poles arrived in America, but the
annual total grew from 30,000 in 1890, to 50,000 in 1900, to 130,000 in
1910, and to 175,000 in 1913. Altogether, consideringthat country-dwellers
constituted over 80 percent of the arrivals, migrationto America between
1880 and 1914 involved about 7 to 8 percent of the ruralpopulationof the
three Polish partitionscombined (Balch, 1910:133; Brozek, 1977:224; Gro-
niowski, 1984:203; Szawleski, 1924:15-17; Willcox and Ferenczi, 1929,
I:480-83).5 The majorityof emigrants,approximatelytwo-thirds,were land-
less peasantsand the agrarianproletariat;the remainingthirdwere owners of
small- and medium-size holdings (Abstracts of the Reports of the Immigration
Commission, 1911, 1:358; Grabski, 1907, 111:83-84;Kaczyiska, 1974:145;
Polish Encyclopaedia, 1922, II:150; Okolowicz, 1920:25;Pilch, 1984a:271).
Unlike Poles who earned wages in Germany,60 percentof whom worked
in agricultureand only 40 percent were in industry, those in America were
predominantly(95 percent) employed in the factories as low-skilled labor,
with three-quartersof (male) immigrantsconcentratedin threemajorbranches
of industry:coal, steel and metal, and slaughteringand meat packing. Also,
unlike the migrantsto Germany, who, with the exception of PrussianPoles
in the industrial region of Ruhr, worked in small groups dispersed across
German provinces, the Poles in America formed large residential clusters
in the cities where they found employment. Thus, at the beginning of the
century, over one-half of the Polish-American immigrantsresided in seven
industrialcities: Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh,Cleveland, Milwaukee, New
York, and Buffalo, with anotherone-fifth in the coal-miningtowns in eastern
and western Pennsylvania (Balch, 1910:263-64; Brozek, 1977:38-40; Ab-
stracts of the Reports of the Immigration Commission, 1911, 1:364).
The majority of Poles migrating to the United States at the turn of the
5 The estimatedproportionsfor the Russian, Prussian,and Austrianpartitionsare 8 percent, 5

percent, and 7 percent respectively.
254 EWA MORAWSKA
century went there as laborers,not as permanentsettlers. Their intendedstay

in America was to be temporary.Although longer than a six- to eight-month
seasonal sojourn into Germany, it was, however, not to exceed a few years.
According to the reportof the WarsawStatisticalCommitteecompiled at the
beginning of the century, only 30 to 40 percentof Polish emigrantsfrom the
Russianpartitionwho left for Americain 1904, and 1909 to 1913 (the datafor
other years are not available) declared their departureas permanent(calcu-
lated from Willcox and Ferenczi, 1929, 1:787-88). The U.S. figures for
reemigrationare availableonly from 1908 on, but fragmentaryPolish sources
indicatethat, in the first phase of labormigrationsto America(the 1880s and
1890s), 60 to 70 percent of emigrantsdid indeed returnafter two or three
years [Groniowski, 1984:202; Polish Encyclopaedia, 1922, III:241).6 As
more immigrantsarrived, and their social embeddednessin the Polish colo-
nies in American cities increased, the returnflow gradually abated. Still,
estimates show considerableproportionof about30 to 35 percentreturneesin
the total numberof Poles who went to the United Statespriorto World WarI
(Grabski, 1907, 1:87-88; Gould, 1980; Price, 1980; Hoerder, 1982).7 In
furthersupportof the interpretationof these labormigrationsas circularrather
than unidirectional,the dataon the overseas travelsof Poles at the turnof the
century indicate that many made several trips. According to the U.S. immi-
gration statistics, in 1906 alone, 6 percent of the Polish arrivalsadmittedto
previous visits in America, and the contemporaryPolish sources reportedthat
up to 40 percentof returneesin differentpartsof the countrymade such repeat
journeys (Balch, 1910:464; Morawska, 1985:39).
American labor market conditions significantly affected the volume and
directionof the migrationflows. Calculatedfor the period 1890 to 1916, the
6 M. Simon estimatesthe proportionof all immigrantdeparturesfrom the United States in that

period as 45 percent(M. Simon, "The U.S. Balance of Payments, 1861-1900," Trends in the
AmericanEconomyin the NineteenthCentury,NationalBureauof Economic ResearchStudies in
Income and Wealth, No. 24 (New York: Ballinger, 1960), 664-666, 690.
7 Interestingly,returnsto the much poorerAustriansection of Polandwere considerablymore
frequent (40 percent) than to the more economically developed Russian partition(25 percent).
(Wiadystaw Grabski, Materyalyw Sprawie WLoscianiskiej,I, 87-88; WalterWillcox and Imre
Ferenczi, InternationalMigrations, New York:NationalBureauof EconomicResearch, 1929, I,
423, 477, 483, 488). This might have been because in Russian Poland there were more wholly
landless peasantswho did not have anythingto returnto, whereas in the Austriansection dwarf-
and small-holderspredominated,still strongly attached to the land that the migrants returning
with savings wanted to keep and enlarge. It could also have been that peasants from the more
economicallybackwardAustrianPolandwere more stronglytraditionalin theiroutlooks, and that
theiradaptationto Americawas thereforemore difficult than for the immigrantsfrom the Russian
and Prussiansections. Unfortunately,there are no studies in the Polish-Americanliteraturethat
investigatethis interestingproblem. There exists, however, some information(John E. Bodnar,
et al., Lives of TheirOwn, Urbana:Universityof Illinois Press, 1982) indicatingthat immigrants
fromPrussianPolandadaptedmore successfully thanothers. They also had the lowest returnrates
as reportedin Americanstatisticsfrom 1908 on, but then, since they were the first to arrive(most
of the PrussianPoles came to the United States duringthe 1870s and 1880s in the wave of mass
Germanimmigration),they had alreadybeen in this country for several years.
correlationbetween the contemporaryrates of unemploymentin the United

Sates and the total annual volume of immigrationshows a strong inverse
relationshipof -.61: the higherthe unemploymentin a given year, the lower
the immigration(Portes and Balch, 1985:32-34). Not surprisingly,the pat-
tern of Polish immigrationreflected this relationship.Table 1 shows strongly
depressingeffects of the economic crises in the United States in 1893 to 1898
and 1908 and the impact of industrialrecession in 1911 on the inflow of
immigrantsfrom Poland. The average volume decreased 70 percent for the
years 1893 to 1898, as comparedto 1892; and was about 50 percent in 1908
and 1911, as compared with 1907 and 1910 respectively. The same table
shows the volume of seasonal migrations to Germany from the combined
Russian and Austrian partitions, indicating, as noted earlier, much larger
numericalflows thanthose directedto the United States. As the figures show,
Polish seasonal migrationsto Germanyincreasedsystematicallyeach year, as
well as duringthe periodsof economic crises in Europein the 1890s (only the
figures for 1895 and 1896 are available), 1900 to 1903, and 1908. A particu-
larly sharpincrease (34 percent)in the numberof migrantlaborersin 1909, in
comparisonwith the preceding year, correspondsto a substantialdrop in the
immigrationto America during 1908 and 1909. Seasonal migrationto Ger-
many, where most Russian and Austrian Poles worked in agriculture-a
sector not directly affected by the industrialdepression-could have served as
a safety valve for some of those laid-off from the Americanfactories, as well
as for those who were planningto go to the United States, but, hearingabout
widespreadunemployment, went instead to seek wages closer by. (Unfortu-
nately, no data is availableon the origins and numbersof Polish migrantswho
shifted in their wage-seeking travels between Germany and the United
States.) This multidirectionalinternationalmigratoryflow reinforcesthe argu-
ment for the treatmentof labor migrations as part of the global economic
system extending across the Atlantic, ratherthan as an exchange between
separatepairs of countries.
VILLAGE COMMUNITIES AS SENDERS AND RECEIVERS IN THE

LABOR MIGRATION PROCESS
We have been moving down what Ferand Braudelcalled the multi-storied

historical structures:from the top levels of the operationof world-capitalism
traversingthe globe in "seven-league boots," to the intermediatelevels of
trade in products and labor, and now to the lowest local "structures of
everyday life" of the people (Braudel, 1981). While the configurationand
pressureof forces at the upper structurallayers set the limits of the possible
and the impossible within which people moved, it was at the level of their
close, immediate surroundingsthat individualsmade decisions, defined pur-
poses, and undertookactions. This last part of the paper looks at the local
256 EWA MORAWSKA
social environmentfrom which Polish migrantlaborersventuredout at the

turn of the century.
While the conventionalinterpretationof moder migrationsposits a direct
correlationbetweenthe demographicandeconomic pressureand mass popula-
tion movement, global system/dependencytheories view this relationshipas
mediatedby the incorporationof the regions in question into the orbit of the
expanding capitalist economy. Earlier in this paper, we have shown the
structuralramificationsof this process, as it took place at the turnof the cen-
tury, on the territoriesof partitionedPoland. For the inhabitantsof the Polish
countryside,this incorporationmeant, first, large-scalerailwayconstructionin
the area, then the trainscoming and going, and with them, swarms of labor
recruitmentagents from afar. "The ocean [ships] and railways are [for the
peasants] the bridge linking the two worlds," wrote F. Bujak, a Polish
ethnographerand student of emigration from Maszkienice, a village in the
centralpartof AustrianPoland(Bujak, 1914:106. On the role of the railwaysin
bringingPolish villages "into the world", see also Duda-Dziewierz,1938:27).
By 1900, Maszkienice, like othervillages in this region, was ripe for emigra-
tion. Unable to sustain themselves from the soil, over one-half of its land-
owning peasant households were forced to seek supplementarywages else-
where. A quarterof the total number of inhabitantswas landless, relying
completely on wage labor. Since the 1870s, the local ruralpopulation had
participateden masse in the constructionof railwaysto link Vienna, Krakow,
and Lvov and in the building of cement factories in Przemysl, a town in the
southeast(Bujak, 1901:17-25, 45-47; 1903:62-63). Fromthe 1880s on, this
region was also regularlyvisited by the recruitmentagents, first from the coal
mines in the AustrianOstrava-Karvindistrictand then from the transatlantic
steamshipcompanies and the agriculturalestates in Germany.The lattersent
hundredsof such deputies every year to the villages in all three sections of
Poland. A contemporaryobserverdescribeda typical recruitingcampaignin
the 1890s: "As early as January,'recruitingSergeants'come to hire labourfor
the western [German] provinces. . . . The agent hands out cigars, beer,
schnappsto the workers,andeach recruitreceives one Markin earnestmoney,
and after contractsare signed the managerorganizes a general dance" (cited
afterKlessman, 1986:101). Indeed,when Bujakcame to Maszkienicein 1899,
no less than 40 percentof all young adults were temporarilyabsent from the
village, employed mostly in Austria and Germany, with a few in America
(Bujak, 1901:46, 54). When he visited Maszkienice again in 1911, Bujak
found the numberof seasonal labormigrantshad increasedby more thanhalf
andthatto the UnitedStateshadgrownfourteenfold(Bujak, 1914:76-77, 86).
In comparison, villages in the Polesie region in the remote eastern part of
Russian Poland, and in the Horodio county in even more southeastern
Podolia-demographically and economically similar, if not more emigration-
prone-had continuedto rely on traditionalshort-andmiddle-distanceharvest
migrations within their respective regions, and did not send laborersto the
Western core until World War I. Both these geographicallyisolated regions
were located at a considerable distance from the railroads and "about
[recruitment]agents no one heard" there(Przybystawski,1933:1-12; 60-67;
Obr9bski, 1976, 29-30, 39-40, 50-56). Without the experience of direct
contact with the messengers from the outside capitalisteconomy (i.e., trans-
portation, employment, and steamship agents, and earlier local migrantsto
serve as mobilizers), "unincorporated"Polesie and Horodio peasants had
remainedin place.
The classical push-and-pullmodel of labor migrationspredictsthe move-
ment of people from places where wages are lower, to those offering higher
remuneration, as the aggregate outcome of individual rational, cost-and-
benefit economic calculations. Table 2 shows the average wage earningsand
typical seasonal/annualsavings in agriculturaland industrialsectors for the
three partitionsof Poland, the rest of East Europe, Germany,and the United
States at the beginning of the century.8As the figures indicate, agricultural
wages (for men) in Poland were on the average40 to 50 percentlower than
those obtained in Germany. Although about 50 percent higher than local
agriculturalwages, Polish industrialwages were nevertheless35 to 40 percent
lower than those in Germany,and 65 to 70 percent lower than in the United
States. German industrial wages, in turn, were, on the average, only 60
percent of those received in the United States. The disproportionin wage-
derived savings showed a similar patternas one moved from the east to the
west of the Continentand across the Atlantic. If purely economic advantage
were indeed the sole considerationin the decisions of Polish ruralmigrantsat
the turn of the century, once they had become incorporatedinto the Atlantic
world-economyand learnedaboutits wage conditions, therewould have been
no continuinglabor migrationswithin the Polish countrysideand into Polish
cities, Germany would also have been abandonedas a destination, and the
immense volume would have flowed to the United States. However, instead
of "rationally" following higher wages and abandoningplaces that offered
lower remuneration,labormigrantsfrom Polish villages had moved in several
8 Compiled for Table 2

(page 258) from: Elzbieta Kaczyiska, Spoleczenstwoi Gospodarka
Ziem P6lnocno-WschodnichKrolestwa Polskiego w Okresie RozkwituKapitalizmu(Warsaw:
WydawnictwaUniwersytetuWarszawskiego, 1974), 109;Jozef Okolowicz, Wvchodzstuwo i Osad-
nictwo Polskie Przed WojnqSwiatowq (Warsaw:Nakt. Urzedu Emigracyjnego, 1920), ch. 21;
Maria Misinska, "Podhale Dawne i Wsp6oczesne," Prace i Materialy MuzeumArcheologii i
Etnografiiw Lodzi 13 (1971), 20; IrenaLechowa, "TradycjeEmigracyjnew Klonowej," Prace i
Materia\y MuzeumArcheologii i Etnografii w Lodzi 3 (1961), 51; Pilch, "Emigracjaz Ziem
Polskich ZaboruAustriackiego," 282; Ewa Morawska,For Bread withButter:Lifeworldsof East
Central Europeans in Johnstown,Pennsylvania, 1890-1940 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity
Press, 1985), 45-47; Abstractsof theReportsof theImmigrationCommission(Washington,D.C.:
U.S. GovernmentPrintingOffice, 1911), I, 367; Polish Encyclopaedia(Geneva:AtarLtd., 1922),
III, 95, 217, 220, 537-43; Kormanowa,Historia Polski, III, Pt. 1, 225, 564-66, 643.
TABLE 2
Approximate Average Wages and Seasonal Savings of Farm Laborers and Industrial W
Germany, and the United States at the Beginning of the Century (U.S
Polanda
Elsewherein
Prussian Russian Austrian EasternEurope Germany
Mb W M W M W M W M W
38ce - 32c 21c 25c - 28-37c 20-23c 50-60c 28-40c
$20-30 $15-25 $50-60 $25-40
$200 $217 $100-170 $340 $500

$160
$180
$200-260 $370
($1.30
$40 $100
(factorylabor)
$200
aPolandis divided into the three regions discussed:PrussianPoland, RussianPoland, AustrianPoland.

bEachof the categoriesis subdividedinto columns for men and women in each area.
cAmountsless than$1 are shown as "c" (cents).
SOURCES: The sourcesfor this table are found in footnote 8 (page 257).
differentdirections, at the turnof the centuryand until WorldWar I. Thus, in

1890, from a small county of Rypin in RussianPoland, 593 migrantstraveled
to America, 858 went northinto West Prussiato work on agriculturalestates,
and an unspecified numbermoved in the opposite southerndirection to the
factories in Warsaw(Groniowski, 1984:199-202, 213-14). In 1899, 70 per-
cent of the 116 Maszkienicans who left the village for the season, went to
work in the coal mines in the Austrian Ostrava-Karvindistrict, while 25
percent found employment in different cities in the region. Even though
people from nearby villages had alreadybeen travelingto America for quite
some time, and their earnings there were known in the area, most Mas-
zkienicans repeatedeach year theirjourneys within Austria(Bujak, 1901:46,
54). In 1911, already20 percentof all laboremigrantsfrom Maszkienicewere
in the United States, another 20 percent (including many young women)
worked in the fields in Germany,and 28 percentwere in the AustrianOstrava
coal mines, with the remainderdispersed in small groups in different cities
within Austrian Poland. From ten surroundinghamlets, 27 percent of all
migrantswent that year to America, 38 percentworked on the estates and in
the cities within the region, 10 percent dug coal in Ostrava, 15 percentdug
beets in the fields of Prussia, and another 10 percent(mostly young women)
went to Denmark as agriculturallaborers (Bujak, 1914:86, 88-91). From
southernmostPodhale on the Carpathianslopes, migrant laborers went in
about equal proportionto Hungary(some to work on the farms and some to
the Budapestfactories), to Germany,and to America(Misiniska,1971:32-40;
44-45).
The basic economic need of the majorityof Polish rural households was
survival. Beyond this, farm animals were needed. At the beginning of the
century, a cow cost $24-30, dependingon the region;a pig, $12-15; a pairof
oxen, $50-70. A hectare of land could be purchasedfor $200-$500, the
prices varying with the region and the quality of soil. The average cost of a
house and farm buildings needed by newly marriedcouples varied between
$120-200, depending again on the size and the region. Young girls needed
dowries. A customarydowry for a girl from a well-off peasantfamily did not
fall far below $400 (landless peasantsand dwarf-holdersgave their daughters
approximately$25-30). The oldest sons, first in line to inheritland, needed
money to buy out their siblings; the averageamountper family varied from a
few hundreddollarsfor large farmsto $25-30 for dwarf-holdings.Therewere
also debts to be paid that, in all threesections of Polandat the beginningof the
century, commonly amountedto $60-100 per peasanthousehold. Finally, if
one or more members of the family were planning a voyage to America,
money had to be earned for a steamship ticket (about $25 one-way at the
beginning of the century) and for relatedtravel expenditures(about $15-20)
(Misitiska, 1971:36; Morawska, 1985:65; Pilch, 1984a:286).
Several sociocultural factors mediated between the economic needs of
wage-dependentruralhouseholds and the directionsof migratorymovement
260 EWA MORAWSKA
of their members. Village custom and local public opinion played an impor-
tant role in their decisions regardingwhere to go in searchof wages. So, for
instance, peasantswith a long-establishedtraditionof agriculturalmigrations
to Prussia dating back to the middle of the nineteenth century, from the
counties of Kolno, Lipno, Miawa, and Ostrolekain the northernpart of the
Russian partitionalong the borderwith east Prussiaand from the counties of
Wielun and Sieradz in its western region along the borderwith the Poznan
district of the Prussiansection of Poland, continuedto go there until World
WarI, ratherthanto America. It was a well-triedand socially approvedroute,
the geographic proximity allowed several trips home during the season, in-
cluding a returntrip to bring additionalfamily membersto work or if new
householdneeds unexpectedlyappeared(Milczarek, 1977:141-44; Lechowa,
1961:44-47; Kaczyfska, 1974:140). In Maszkienice (Austrian Poland), it
took the villagers well over a decade to begin migrationsto America, because,
as Bujak observed in 1899, "Maszkienicans are fearful of alien unknown
places and they do not like adventure . . . so every spring they return to
familiar Ostrava [in Austria], content with mediocre wages that they find
there and do not thirst for much higher earnings in America" (Bujak,
1901:54). In the nearby hamlets of Debny and Wola Dembienska, German
agriculturalestates, ratherthan Ostravacoal mines, were the most preferred
foreign destination, attractinguntil World War I the majorityof annual mi-
grants(Ibid., 89). Not far away, in Zmi~ca, wherethe village opinion accept-
ed travels to Germany and to America, but strongly condemned those to
Ostrava because of their supposedly demoralizingeffects on the migrants,
only about 10 percent of all Zmi4can laborers had gone there during the
decade 1890 to 1901; the rest headedto more socially acceptabledestinations
(Bujak, 1903:99-100).
Migrationsof Polish ruralworkersat the turn of the century were not an
individual, but a collective movement. The social networks created in this
process played a very significant role in channeling, building up, and then
sustaining these ventures out of the villages. Particularlyimportantwere
networks of informationabout prospective employment. "[Rural] laborers
workingin the country,and in Austriaand Germany,"remarkedBujakon the
basis of his studies of the migrationmovementin several villages in Austrian
Poland at the beginning of the century, "constituteamong themselves a kind
of employment agency, remainingin constantcontact with each other either
personally or through correspondence. . . . From one or a few [who had gone
earlier] they receive . . . information about the [employment] prospects in a
given area, so that most often they leave with a conviction that even though
they do not have work contracts, they will find jobs in the course of a few
days. Returning from work in the fall they learn in advance [from their
employers] whether they will need them in the following year" (Bujak,
1914:93-94). Having thus establishedcontact, at the beginning of each sea-
son migrant laborers set off from their villages in groups: the Maszkienice
LABOR MIGRATIONS OF POLES 26I
women to Denmark(the original groupof seventeen in 1899 had increasedto

about fifty by 1911), the men (at the turnof the centurya contingentof eighty,
and a decade latersixty-three)to Ostrava,the Podhalansto Hungaryin groups
of twenty to forty men and a similar numberof women. They boardedand
worked together throughthe season, and then returnedhome together in the
fall, to leave again the following spring.The majorityof men migratedthus za
zarobkiem (after wages) for 15 to 20 years in a row, and young women
usually for two to five years, until they got married(Bujak, 1901:50-55;
1914:93, 96-98; Misinska, 1971:30-37).
Migrations across the Atlantic followed a similar pattern of network-
building. In Babica, anothervillage in the Austriansection of Poland, the first
emigrant (not a native Babican and a socially peripheralmember of the
community) left in 1883 because he lost the court suit against his neighbor
about a cow. He settled in Detroit. After three years he returned,then went
back to Detroit in 1888, taking with him a groupof five relatives and neigh-
bors. After that, more Babicansfollowed, so thatby 1900, there were seven-
teen of them togetherin Detroit (Duda-Dziewierz, 1938:23-28). Transatlan-
tic migrations from Maszkienice developed only after a seed-group of the
local people had formed in America. In 1898, the first pioneer, persuadedby
an acquaintancefrom the neighboringvillage, gave up his accustomedtravels
to Ostravaand accompaniedhim insteadto dig coal in Pennsylvania.After a
year, he brought over two of his relatives; more Maszkienicans followed,
"always going, men as well as women, to relatives and friends, and, if
possible, journeying in the company of the local people" (Bujak, 1901:54;
1914:94). Intense circulationof internationalmail-over five million letters
were sent between 1900 and 1906 from the United Statesto Europe,and three
million arrived-greatly supported the operation of personal networks in
brining laborers to America. "The most effective method of distributing
immigrant labor in the United States . . . is the [international and domestic]
mail service," concluded a report,preparedfor the U.S. Bureauof Laborat
the beginning of the century, on Southernand Eastern Europeanunskilled
workersin Americanfactories(Sheridan,1907:407-8). As social networksof
information, as well as travel and employment assistance, directed the in-
creasing flow of immigrantsto places where the original colonies of settlers
had formed, the village communitieswere partiallyreestablishedin American
cities. "We have here now the second Babica," wrote an immigrantfrom
Detroit in his letterhome several years afterthe first Babicanarrivedthere in
1883 (Duda-Dziewierz, 1938:57). Maszkienicansconcentratedin four places:
Chicago, and Pleasant, Somerset, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In Pitts-
burgh, 150 emigrants from nearby Moczarka had also settled and worked
togetherin the same factory(Bujak, 1914:87-88; 1903:100). Over 80 percent
of the 174 migrantsfrom Kurzyny, who left for America between 1890 and
1914, lived in St. Louis, Missouri;Oil City, Pennsylvania;and Youngstown,
Ohio; but most migrants from the village Skrzypne landed in Chicago.
262 EWA MORAWSKA
Podgaje, split by a long-standing feud between two groups over the local
pasture, transplantedthis division across the Atlantic: the left side of the
village, following its own social network, migratedto Elizabeth, N.J., and
the right side followed a differentone, to Detroit (Gusciora, 1929:74;Gliwi-
c6wna, 1937:507-9).
The partialtransplantationof village communitiesfrom Europeto Ameri-
can cities, and a continuousback-and-forthflow of migrants,via social net-
works linking the two worlds, created an extended transatlanticsystem of
social control and long-distance managementof family and local public af-
fairs. Lettersto and from the United States, compiled and analyzedby Thom-
as and Znaniecki, in the five-volume The Polish Peasant in Europe and
America (1918-20), and other similar collections (Kula et al., 1973, 1986;
Drozdowski, 1977), plus contemporarystudies of Polish migrations in the
period 1880-1914 quotedelsewhere in this paper,provideample documenta-
tion of this two-way social process. "You went with piglets to Rzeszow and
Niebylec," wrote an immigrantin Detroitto his wife in Babica, "but you did
not sell them, did you? Because I know every movementin the village." In a
follow-up letter, commentingon some unpleasantgossip he heard about his
wife, from someone who just arrived, "Every movement in Babica I know,
because I live here among the Babicans, and I hope it is not all true [what I
have been told about you]" (Duda-Dziewierz, 1938:61). A wife in Poland
wrote to her husbandin America, "Now, dear husband, I write to you for
advice [about] what to do with this house which is for sale. . . . Now people
give for it 500 renski [$200]. It seems to me too expensive, but if you order
so, I will buy" (Thomas and Znaniecki, 1918-20, 2:300). Another Babican
wrote to his family home: "Wojtek wants to return[to Poland], but he does
not have much [to come] with. When we get work [i.e., save some money]
we'll both come back in the fall. [So now] tell me whetheryou left clover in
the fields and whether you plowed .... Buy rye how[ever] much you
need. . . . And those plum trees that were planted in the spring [tell me]
whetherthey all have takenroot or some withered.Nothing more of interestI
have to say. ..'' (Duda-Dziewierz, 1938:95). A son fromMassachusetts,to
his mother in Poland, "Tell me how is the weather, the crops, and how big
the harvest. . . . Buy potatoes and you may also buy a pig" (Kula et al.,
1973, Introduction:57).Similarmessages, sent in lettersand carriedin person
by traveling migrants, crossed the Atlantic by the thousands. Evidence of
these complex networks of communication, travel, and employment as-
sistance, social control and householdmanagement-extending bothforward
from the immigrants'place of origin in Europe into the United States, and
backwardsfrom America in a home-bounddirection,and parallelingthe two-
way populationflow thatthey partlyservicedand partlycreated-provides an
additional,sociological argumentfor the interpretationof overseas migrations
within the frameworkof the global system of interrelatedparts.
We have been concerned thus far with the village communities as the
sendersof migrantlaborersinto the extendedsocioeconomic system of capital
and labor circulation. Let us now, before closing, briefly look at them as the
receivers of the returneesand their wage-savings.
If they moved within the region, migrantlaborersreturnedto their villages
every few weeks or monthsduringthe season. Those who went fartheraway,
to Western Europe, came back after six to eight months for the winter, but
they stayed longer in America. Those who came back before World War I-
as indicatedearlier, aboutone-thirdof the total numberof Poles who went to
the United States during the period of mass labor migration-had usually
spent two to five years there. Of the numberwho had gone to America from
Bronisz6w (in the Austrian section of Poland), 35 percent had returnedby
1914; in Zmirca, in the same region, the proportionwas 42 percent. Even
more American migrants53 percent returnedto Babica in the same period,
and no less than one-third of them had crossed the Atlantic several times
before the final trip home (Duda-Dziewierz, 1938:27-28, 69; Fierich,
1929:53-57; Wierzbicki, 1963:67).
While away, migrantlaborerssent home remittancesin money orders and
letters. When they returned,they brought materialgoods and savings with
them. Returningfrom seasonal labor in western parts of the Continent, they
usually carriedsupplies of bacon, sausages, and sugar(raritieson the peasant
tables in the Polish countryside, where the staples of daily diet were gruel,
cabbage, and potatoes). In addition, they also brought hand tools, irons,
pieces of city furnitureand clothing, watches with chains, brimmed hats,
rubbergaiters, and other materialobjects of Westerncivilization.
Most important,they broughttheir savings. Internationalizationof labor,
paralleling the operations of "grand capitalism" at the upper levels of the
Atlantic world-economy, generated its own transmissioncircuit of wage-
derived capital. This capital circulationat the base can be construedas yet
another dimension of the incorporationof the peripheryinto the extended
economic system-an aspect to which macrostructuralglobal system/depen-
dency theories have not paid very much attention.(On this issue, see Kirtzet
al, 1983, Introduction.)Taken together, the amount of money flowing into
the Polish countrysideduringthe period of mass labor migrationswas huge.
For instance, in the five years between 1902 and 1906, money orders alone
amounted to $70 million, from the United States to Austro-Hungaryand
Russia (Balch, 1910:471-72). Using just one year of 1902 as an illustration,
Polish emigrants sent American money orders in the sum of about $3.5
million (not counting small bills enclosed in correspondence, a common
practice), to the Austriansection, and in that same year, an additionalsum of
$4 million was brought in by the returnees(Grabski, 1907, 111:91).In that
same year (1902), 42,000 Poles from the Austriansection traveled to Ger-
many in seasonal migration. The figures for their remittancesare not avail-
264 EWA MORAWSKA
able, but, assumingthatthey amassedcapitalsimilarto the amountof savings

of their compatriotsfrom the Russian partition (for which data exist), an
additionalsum of over $1 million also came (in 1902) to this partof Poland.
In that same year (1902), seasonal migrantsbroughtback fromGermany$4.2
million to the Russian section, and sent money ordersfor about $3.5 million
from America (Okolowicz, 1920:280; Balch, 1910:471-72). Adding the
sums brought home by workers returningfrom the United States to those
arrivingin letters, the figure reaches about $12 million. In one year, Polish
ruralhouseholds (in the Russian and Austrianpartitions)accrueda sum of no
less than $20 million from the export of labor to these two most popular
destinations-Germany and America-equaling or adding slightly over 5
percent of the value of the combined export revenues of these two sec-
tions($373 million in 1910). In particulargubernyas(provinces)of the Rus-
sian section, the wage-derivedcapital transmittedhome by the migrantsem-
ployed in the western core rangedfrom $0.5 to $2.3 million. In the powiaty
(counties) of AustrianPoland, whose ruralpopulationparticipatedin interna-
tional labor migrations, the amount of money that came in during 1902,
ranged from $70,000 to $200,000 (Caro, 1914:77; Hupka, 1911:192-225;
Okolowicz, 1920:280).9
Even at the county level, these were staggering sums of money, never
previously handledby local Polish postoffices; but they became much smaller
when divided among individualhouseholds. And so, for instance, from their
season's earnings in Germany and Austria in 1899, the Maszkienicanshad
saved, on average, 60 to 70 percent, bringinga total of $5,600, exceeding the
total net income from village farmproductionin that year by one-fifth. It was
about $50 per "migrantcapita" (seven persons or 6 percentof the 116 who
went out to work came back with no savings). A decade later, in 1911, about
200 continental seasonal laborers(men and women) broughtsavings of ap-
proximately$100 per capita to Maszkienice (Bujak, 1901:49-50; 1914:102-
5). It was a significant sum, consideringthat the value of the farms of more
than a half of the landowninghouseholds in the area averaged$200-250. It
would carry the family through the winter and suffice for the purchase of
clothing or a pairof animalsfor the farm, for paying off currentdebts or for a
steamship ticket to America and related travel expenses. Yet it was not
enough to buy an additionalhectareof land or build a new house with farm
9 Of course, labor-migrationcapital also flew in the opposite direction-out of the sending
societies, as the emigrants purchased tickets to travel and took money with them for their
journeys. Generally, however, the balance was positive on the incoming side. For instance, in
that same year 1902, the total amountof money that came from labormigrationsto the Austrian
partof the Habsburgmonarchyequaled $28 million, and the capital exportedby emigrantswas
$13 million, leaving a balanceof $15 million (Leopold Caro, Emigracjai PolitykaEmigracyjna,
Poznari:SW. Wojciech, 1914, 69-72; Grabski, Matervayvw Sprawie Wlosciatnskiej,III, 91).
Similarly, in 1903, emigrantsfrom the Austrianpartof Polandtook out $2.5 million, but sent or
broughtback $7.5 million (Pilch, "Emigracjaz Ziem ZaboruAustriackiego," 276-77).
buildings, needs particularlypressing for young newlyweds setting up house-

holds. A series of annualmigrationswas needed to save for these; even this
was not always sufficient, if other needs took away earnings. In Klonowa, a
village in Russian Poland (near the Prussianborder),with a long traditionof
seasonal labor in the fields of the Bauers on the other side, the savings of
fifty-two such seasonal repeaterspriorto WorldWar I (not countingexpendi-
tures on household operations,clothing, and recreation)permitted56 percent
to purchaseor build a new house; 27 percentspentthem to pay off family and
other debts and on dowries for daughters.The remaining 17 percentused up
their money to survive and on other unspecified needs (Lechowa, 1961:65).
Savings from work in America were more substantial. In the county of
Ropczyce in the centralpartof AustrianPoland,the averagesum sentby money
orders(to seven villages between 1902 and 1907) was $140 per householdper
year, rangingfrom $70 to $300. In Bronisz6win thatsame period, it was $119
(Hupka, 1911:210; Fierich, 1933:55-56). In Maszkienicefor 1911, the com-
bined postal remittancesandpersonalsavings of thirteenreturneesfrom Amer-
ica averaged $850 per capita, ranging from $180 to $2,200. The average
number of years spent in the United States was 3.5 (Bujak, 1914:101-5).
Greatersavings permittedmoreconsiderableinvestmentsandimprovementsin
lifestyle. Thus, one-halfof the forty-sixreturneesto BabicabeforeWorldWarI
bought land (usually sections of 1 to 4 hectares)and built or purchasedbrick
houses and farming equipment. Still, the savings of 13 percent had to be
dispensed for debts and needs of daily living. Thirty-sevenpercent of the
returneesbroughtback no savings at all, except for city clothing and various
Americangadgets for householduse (Duda-Dziewierz,79-86). Clearly, with
all its great promise, America was not evenly generous, and those who went
thereperceivedthis quite acutely. "Americais not the same for everyone," an
immigrantadvised his cousins in Poland, who intendedto join him for a few
years. "For one person it is better;for another,worse. I am here almost two
years, and I have only saved $150 [plus]I sent 50 rublesto the old country.And
one person who came with me from the district of Rypin . . . sent home almost
500 rubles [$250]" (Kula et al./Wtulich, 1986:350). Americaindeed meanta
fortuneif their laboringsojournwas lucky, thatis, if they found a good job-
paying $2.00 to $2.50 a day for unskilled foreigners(priorto World War I),
instead of a customary$1.00-1.50-and if they workedwithoutinterruption
or lay-off from slumps in industrial activity. "When . . . after a few years in
America, WalentyPodlasekreturned[to southernPoland]and with the dollars
he broughtwith him purchaseda dozen or so hectaresand startedto build one
house in Wierzchostawiceand one in Tarn6w,the people went wild fromenvy
and desire" (Witos, 1964, I:188). But if theirstay in Americawas plaguedby
recurrentunemployment, sickness, or other adverse events, it was a bitter
disappointmentand shame as they returnedempty-handedfrom the Golden
Land. "No, no more America for me . . . I am going back a beggar." The
266 EWA MORAWSKA
immigrant-returneestraveling on a ship from New York to Hamburgwith

Edward Steiner, a U.S. immigrationspecialist on his way to investigate the
emigrationconditions in EasternEurope,rangedfrom failuresto successes-
perhapsin almost equal distribution(Steiner, 1969:340).
Polish migrations prior to World War I issued from and returnedto a
socioeconomic environment still heavily encumbered by remnants of the
feudal past, and articulated into the world system largely by exogenous
forces. All in all, internationallabor migrationsof Poles had not become a
foundationfor self-sustainedcapitalistdevelopmentof the Polish countryside.
Besides the inflow of consumergoods producedby the urban-industrial econ-
omy, these migrations made for the increased monetizationof rural house-
holds as a rapidly growing proportionwas becoming dependenton incomes
derived from outside. However considerablein global amounts, the interna-
tional capital brought annually to the villages by thousandsof migrant la-
borers was fragmentedamong individual households, their shares predomi-
nantly sufficient to subsidize subsistence production, to carry the family
through the year, until the next wage-seekingjourney. At best, when larger
amounts were acquiredfrom longer successful work in America, they were
used to enlarge diminishing landholdingsand to accumulateprivate material
possessions. Of crucial importanceto the individual households and their
daily existence-the rewardfor their incorporationinto the world-economic
system-this lower circuit of internationalcapital investmentby Polish mi-
grant laborersdid not transformthe structureof their peripheralsociety, but
ratherrepairedit somewhat at the base, perpetuatingthe status quo.
CONCLUSION
The massive flow to the United States of immigrantsfrom Southern and
EasternEuropein the period 1880-1914 has traditionallybeen interpretedin
American historiography within a conventional push-and-pull theoretical
model that views the movementof people between two unequallydeveloped
economies as an aggregateoutcome of individualdecisions and actions. More
recent historical studies of this immigrationare conductedwithin a modified
push-and-pullframeworkthat acknowledges the impact of structuralforces,
from both the push and the pull side of the process, but does not fully
articulatethe multiplereciprocallinks connectingthe two into a single system
of world economy. The aim of this paperhas been twofold. First, it tries out a
newer, global system/dependencytheoreticalmodel (applied thus far mostly
to the analyses of the post-WorldWar II internationalpopulationmovement
originatingfrom the thirdworld) in the interpretationof mass labormigrations
of Poles from the East Europeanperipheryto the core Western countries
between 1880 and 1914, as partof the circularexchange of capital and labor
within the expanding Atlantic world-economicsystem. Second, it integrates
the competing macro- and micro-explanatoryframeworks of international
migrations, by presenting the mediating role of local conditions and so-

cioculturalenvironmentfrom which Polish migrantlaborersventuredinto the
outside world.
The interpretationof turn-of-the-centuryPolish labormigrations,within the
model of core-peripheryinterdependence,seems indeed to expandour under-
standingconsiderablyof both the global ramificationsand the macrostructural
factors (economic as well as political) acting as the inducementsfor this mass
movement from all parts of Poland. Unavoidably, the discussion presented
has left unanswereda number of relevant more specific questions. A few
interestingones can be mentioned.Lack of reliablecomparativedatadoes not
permit, for instance, an assessment of the relative proportionsof migrants
who traveledto growing Polish urban-industrialcenters, to WesternEurope,
and to America from particularpartitionsand their subregionswith differing
demographicand economic characteristics;nor to ascertainto what extent, for
which particulargroups and under what circumstances,these wage-seeking
journeys were interchangeableor took a sequentialpattern.One other issue
has remained underinterpretedfor the same reason. Existing evidence on
effects of capital inflow into the Polish countrysidefrom internationallabor
migrationsof its inhabitantssupportsthe general conclusion presentedhere:
that in structuralterms this capital played a predominantlypreserving,rather
thantransformingrole. Yet thereexist some data, unfortunatelyvery little and
fragmentary,indicating that such transforminginitiatives were occasionally
undertakenby the more enterprisingreturneeswith largeramountsof capital,
and it would be interestingto know more about these actions: Whetherand
how they affected the behaviorof others in a similar situation, and why and
how these attemptseventuallyfailed (as most of them seemed to have). Given
the absence of systematiccontemporaryevidence, the only way to pursuethis
investigation would be through interviews with the surviving returneesand
their families, and, as a matter of fact, such research is being presently
conducted in Poland in certainareas in southernpartsof the countrythat had
high reemigrationfrom America.
The last section of the paper is aimed at demonstratingnot only that it is
possible to integrate the macro- and micro-explanatoryframeworks in the
interpretationof internationallabor migrations(traditionallyapplied as alter-
natives), but also to show that social-historicalanalysis at the lowest, commu-
nity/individual level can significantly contribute to our knowledge of the
directions and mechanisms of labor migrationmovement. These purposes, I
believe, this essay has also been able to accomplish, if only in a preliminary
fashion, by demonstratinghow the local conditions-the situationin particu-
lar villages, with their customs and public opinion, social networks built by
the migrants, and the concrete results of their ventures (as seen by the resi-
dents)-played an importantmediatingrole in shaping the patternsof these
migrationsinduced by higher-level structuralforces.
268 EWA MORAWSKA
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Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History

Labor Migrations of Poles in the Atlantic World Economy, 1880-1914

0010-4175/89/2376-2582 $5.00 ? 1989 Society for ComparativeStudy of Society and History

In the sociological literatureof immigration,the global system and depen-

the villages and the immediatesocioculturalenvironmentin which they made

INCORPORATION OF EASTERN EUROPEAN PERIPHERY INTO THE

Through the eighteenth century, European societies were largely self-

the manufactureof steel. In the same year in Austro-Hungary,primaryand

DOUBLE-DEPENDENCY OF POLAND'S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Divided among the three partitioner-statesthat ruled EasternEurope, Poland

sian, Russian, and Austriansegments, resulting from the specific economic

manufacturing in the three sections of Poland increased fourfold from

administrativecampaign to eradicate "Polishness" from local institutions

111:263,258-59, 286-87, 289-91). The HabsburgMonarchy,itself a periph-

POLISH LABOR MIGRATIONS: MECHANISMS, DIRECTIONS, AND

Turn-of-the-centurycommentatorson the mass labor migrationsfrom Poland

shown the incorporationof EasternEuropean,and Polish peripherywithin it,

According to contemporary(unverified) estimates, continental and permanentemigration

Legend of the unmatchedriches awaitingimmigrants,the common expression

aThe figures include only seasonal migrantworkersfrom the RussianandAustrianpartitions.For

and WeimarGermany," paperdelivered at the conference, 'A Centuryof EuropeanMigrations,

Ostfuchters. Towardthe turnof the century,Germanyherself had become an

century the agriculturalcapacity of these German provinces had become

took over the solicitationof potentialmigrants.(On the role of transportation

5 The estimatedproportionsfor the Russian, Prussian,and Austrianpartitionsare 8 percent, 5

century went there as laborers,not as permanentsettlers. Their intendedstay

6 M. Simon estimatesthe proportionof all immigrantdeparturesfrom the United States in that

correlationbetween the contemporaryrates of unemploymentin the United

VILLAGE COMMUNITIES AS SENDERS AND RECEIVERS IN THE

We have been moving down what Ferand Braudelcalled the multi-storied

social environmentfrom which Polish migrantlaborersventuredout at the

8 Compiled for Table 2

38ce - 32c 21c 25c - 28-37c 20-23c 50-60c 28-40c

$20-30 $15-25 $50-60 $25-40

$200 $217 $100-170 $340 $500

aPolandis divided into the three regions discussed:PrussianPoland, RussianPoland, AustrianPoland.

differentdirections, at the turnof the centuryand until WorldWar I. Thus, in

women to Denmark(the original groupof seventeen in 1899 had increasedto

able, but, assumingthatthey amassedcapitalsimilarto the amountof savings

buildings, needs particularlypressing for young newlyweds setting up house-

immigrant-returneestraveling on a ship from New York to Hamburgwith

migrations, by presenting the mediating role of local conditions and so-

dency and Development in Latin America. Berkeley: University of California Press,

Jasiczek, Stanistaw. "Kapitat Francuskiw PrzemysleGofniczo-HutniczymZaglebia

Obrqbski, J6zef. The Changing Peasantry of Eastern Europe. Cambridge, Mass.:

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