An Immigrant's Arrival to Copper Country, Michigan: The 1912 Reminiscences of Petar

Stanković
Author(s): Translated and Edited by Stan Granic
Source: Michigan Historical Review , Vol. 40, No. 2 (Fall 2014), pp. 101-113
Published by: Central Michigan University
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5342/michhistrevi.40.2.0101

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 An Immigrant’s Arrival to Copper Country,
Michigan: The 1912 Reminiscences of Petar
Stanković
Translated and Edited by
Stan Granic

An estimated thirty-three million European immigrants chose the United States

as their destination between 1821 and 1924. Beginning in the mid-1880s, the
number of immigrants arriving from Southern and Eastern Europe began to overtake
those arriving from Northern and Western Europe. In 1912, sixteen-year-old Petar
Stanković, from Brinje, Lika region, Croatia, was one of them. Borrowing money for
the passage to the promised land, he began his new life in America by working in a
copper mine near Calumet, Michigan.
In the reminiscences that follow, Stanković describes his optimism for a better
future in America as he made his steamship passage across the Atlantic with his
fellow countrymen. This optimism would be somewhat dampened both by his
experiences in third class and by the treatment of immigrants at Ellis Island.
Although he did not have immediate family members waiting for him, news had
filtered back to his native village about the Croatian community in Copper Country
as this chain migration spread throughout the villages of the Old Country.
The success of the copper mining industry in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula
during the late 1800s and early 1900s attracted unskilled Croatian, Finnish,
Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Slovenian, and other immigrant laborers looking for a
better life. Many of these, like Stanković, frequently took work in the mines as
trammers. Often regarded as little more than human beasts of burden, the trammers’
job was to muck out the blasted rock, place it into their tram cars, and then push
their loads to the shaft. By working as a trammer, Stanković quickly came to
understand that unskilled immigrants had the low-end jobs. But, as he had borrowed
the money for his overseas voyage, he had no choice other than to stay and stick it out.
Like most South Slavic peasant immigrants, he left behind the small family
plots in his village only to be thrown into a completely unfamiliar setting. Though
language barriers in the mines made the transition much more difficult, the presence of
other experienced Slavic miners helped him adjust to his new work and surroundings.
These immigrant miners, usually single, often lived in boarding houses operated by
their fellow countrymen and their spouses. Here, with other immigrant laborers of the

The Michigan Historical Review 40:2 (Fall 2014): 101-113

©2014 Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686
All Rights Reserved

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102 The Michigan Historical Review

same ethnic origin, they found a social support structure that helped them adapt to
their new and unfamiliar surroundings.
Stanković started writing his reports while he was still in Calumet and they
appeared in the lively Croatian press active in the United States at the time. In the
aftermath of the violent and bitter strike of 1913–1914, many miners left Copper
Country; Stanković was one of them. He departed Calumet for Tonopah, Nevada,
and found work as a gold miner before traveling on to San Francisco, Los Angeles,
and Arizona. He then settled in Chicago in 1917. Following his stay in Chicago,
and then Pittsburgh, he returned to Croatia in 1925 and worked as a journalist.
There he began laying plans to immigrate to Canada and launch a newspaper that
would serve Croatian migrant laborers, as many were increasingly choosing Canada
as their preferred destination after the United States tightened its immigration quota
in 1921 and again in 1924. In 1928 he led a group of Croatian and South Slavic
laborers to Canada under the immigration and colonization scheme of the Canadian
Pacific Railway. The following year he launched the weekly “Kanadski glas”
(“Canadian Voice”) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, renaming it “Hrvatski glas”
(“Croatian Voice”) in 1933.1

Departure for America

It was during the stormy period of the Balkan War [of 1912] and
accompanying assassinations that I succeeded in crossing the border of
the former Austro-Hungarian Empire unnoticed.2 I laughed with delight

1 These reminiscences first appeared in the 1927 Christmas issue of Narodni val

(Zagreb) and were reprinted under the title “Pod zemljom: do novog svijeta – rad u
rudnicima – prvi Božić u Ameriku” (“Underground: To the New World, Work in the
Mines, First Christmas in America”), in Kalendar Hrvatski glas: za prestupnu godinu 1952, ed.
Petar Stanković (Winnipeg: Hrvatski glas, 1951), 110-114. The introduction, notes in
squared brackets in the main body of the translation, and footnotes were provided by
the translator. Stanković contributed to several Croatian language newspapers in the
United States under his name or various pseudonyms including: New York’s Hrvatski
svijet (Croatian World) and Novi Hrvat (New Croat), Chicago’s Novi svijet (New World), and
Pittsburgh’s Zajedničar (The Fraternalist). In 1919 he sided with the progressive
educationalists gathered around Chicago’s Znanje (Knowledge) and in 1922 he became
assistant editor and manager of Pittsburgh’s Neutralna seljačka republika Hrvatska (The
Neutral Croatian Peasant Republic). In Pittsburgh he attended night school classes during
the early 1920s and, following his return to Croatia in 1925, he served on the editorial
board of Narodni val (National Wave) and was later appointed to the Association of
Croatian Emigration Organizations in Zagreb. For more on Stanković’s life and his
editing and publishing of Hrvatski glas see Steve Melnyk, “Paper Marks Anniversary,” The
Winnipeg Tribune, April 4, 1959, 10; John Badovinac, “A Croatian Weekly Newspaper
Celebrates an Anniversary,” Zajedničar (Pittsburgh), March 13, 1974, 2.
2 The first Balkan War of 1912 pitted an alliance comprising Bulgaria, Greece,

Serbia, and Montenegro against the Ottoman Empire. Members of the Balkan alliance
desired to expand their territories and liberate their kinsman from the declining Ottoman

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An Immigrant’s Arrival to Copper Country 103

as I stepped onto free Swiss territory and turned toward Austria,

exclaiming to myself, “I’m finally rid of you, you monstrosity!”
An old French steamship filled its ungainly and ugly entrails with
several hundred of us new citizen candidates for America and the New
World.
The ocean was choppy. Waves the size of hills smashed up against
our feeble ship which despite its age held its own and repelled them
away. Probably from anger for not being able to injure the ship, the
broken waves would return again and again to attack our ship with ever
greater fury and new allies from all sides. At times it looked as though
they were not ocean waves, but a vast milky froth.
The old captain in charge of our steamship from the time of its
maiden voyage was known to stroll along the deck with a wide grin on
his face while the ship was being smashed by the largest of waves. He
was no doubt laughing within himself as the enraged waves attacked
hundreds of times at the veteran vessel to no avail, for the ship had
broken through countless waves over the years.
Those of us in third class slept in linen beds suspended from the
ceiling. And believe me we did not feel well in them at all. In a short
time we all felt as though our insides were in rebellion, our heads heavy
and our sight cloudy. We quickly ran up deck to inhale fresh air in an
effort to save ourselves from the catastrophe. But it came nonetheless.
. . . We must have appeared like sickly sheep to the beautiful blonde
girl from our coastal region who watched us from above, from second
class, as we fed the fish below with the expensive meals we ate and
which our unfortunate stomachs could no longer tolerate.
“Is she laughing at us,” I thought to myself as I looked up. “But no,
she couldn’t be so wicked.” I again cast a glance up to see if my
impression was correct. As we caught each other’s eyes, she smiled as
she chewed on something. Beside her stood an older man dressed in
American style common to the time. I later learned he was her uncle and
was returning to America, somewhere in Colorado where he owned a
tavern. She was accompanying him. This was a very pleasant experience
for her and she delighted in the thought of being able to see America.

Empire. On October 8, 1912, Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire and its
allies soon joined the conflict. The major European powers compelled the sides to end
the conflict and the Treaty of London was signed in December 1912 with Turkey
providing territorial concessions to the Balkan allies.

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104 The Michigan Historical Review

Immigrant miner Petar Stanković in Calumet, Michigan

(circa 1913)
Source: Personal collection of Helene Royes, daughter of Petar Stanković

When her uncle turned away, the blonde girl threw me a candy.
Despite all my clumsiness I somehow caught it. I nodded in thanks as
she continued to laugh. After that I was always on deck looking up to
second class. . . .
The closer we came to New York, the better we all began to feel.
There were all kinds of nationalities on our ship, but mostly Italians and
Croats. On the day we arrived in America, those who were sick had
already recuperated and everyone by this time had begun to make
preparations for disembarking. We were singing and cracking jokes, and
were overcome with joy.
Around four in the afternoon we caught a glimpse of New York. I
had the impression that we came to a place that was made by some
greater force and not by human hands. On this clear day, the massive
high-rise buildings left an impression on me that they touched the very

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An Immigrant’s Arrival to Copper Country 105

sky. From a distance we caught glimpse of the Statue of Liberty with its
hand stretched overhead pointing up into the distance and drawing our
attention to the “quarantine” which Americans called Ellis Island. The
Statue of Liberty seemed powerful and proud.
When we reached the dock, the first and second class passengers
were the first to disembark. They did not even have to stop by Ellis
Island since those who had money to pay for more expensive tickets for
the passage were considered impeccable and “clean”―they were free to
immigrate to the country. That is when I learned what it meant to be in
third class. . . .
Finally America! That same evening I took the train towards the
Canadian border. Riding through Canadian territory, I arrived on my
third day to the town of Calumet in northern Michigan. Calumet and
surrounding areas were then known for their massive copper mines.3

Work in the Mines

In Calumet I found many acquaintances and neighbors [from back
home].4 They assisted me in finding lodgings and food at a boarding
house. Providing accommodations and meals, the boarding house was
operated by one of my fellow villagers. He worked in the mine and his
industrious wife undertook all the work around the cooking, cleaning
and even the laundry.
I was in a hurry to find work. This was not easy. Many people were
unemployed at the time and would gather every day in front of a
different mine. One morning I too went among this group of workers
who every morning made the rounds from mine to mine to try their
luck.

3 For the mining, economic, social, community, and landscape history of

Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula see Larry Lankton, Hallowed Ground: Copper Mining and
Community Building on Lake Superior, 1840s–1990s (Detroit: Wayne State University Press,
2010); Arthur W. Thurner, Strangers and Sojourners: A History of Michigan’s Keweenaw
Peninsula (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994); Larry Lankton, Cradle to Grave:
Life, Work, and Death at the Lake Superior Copper Mines (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1991).
4 When Stanković arrived the population of the Croatian community in Calumet

and surrounding region was estimated at 10,000. George J. Prpic, The Croatian Immigrants
in America (New York: Philosophical Library, 1971), 121. For more on the community in
the region see Keweenaw Ethnic Groups: The Croatians (Houghton, MI: MTU Archives and
Copper Country Historical Collections, J. Robert Van Pelt Library, Michigan
Technological University, 2004-07), www.ethnicity.lib.mtu.edu/groups_croatians.html;
Daniel Cetinich, South Slavs in Michigan (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University
Press, 2003).

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106 The Michigan Historical Review

Painesdale, Michigan, miners pose for a photograph

(January 1912)

Source: Copper Range Company Photograph Collection, Michigan Technological University

Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections

The first day the manager of the mine did not notice me. He
probably did not look at the others either. He just waved his hand from
behind the window [of the office] and said that they did not need
workers that day. The same happened the second day.
On the third day I arrived a little earlier and only ten candidates for
work were in front of me, while maybe a hundred were behind me. As
soon as the manager opened the door to the office you could see right
away that this day he might hire someone. First he thoroughly cleaned
his glasses and then looked over all the candidates. Suddenly he pointed
his finger at a middle-aged Slovenian who was in front of me and
behind whom I was barely visible since he was so tall and strong. The
supervisor called this worker up and told him to report for work
tomorrow.
The manager again placed his glasses on and scanned across the
entire crowd. I looked directly into his eyes. When he noticed me he
immediately pointed at me. However, some others responded as they
thought that they were chosen.

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An Immigrant’s Arrival to Copper Country 107

“Not you, but the youngster next to you!” he said.

I guess the manager wanted me. With a sense of fear and
apprehension I walked up to the supervisor.
“What’s your name?” he asked me.
I began to mumble something in Croatian. . . .
“Oh yes!” he interrupted me, “you’re a green foreigner.”
And then he began to explain to me through gestures that I could
come tomorrow to work. Since I could not understand him, he called
over a Polish clerk from the office who explained to me in Polish what
the supervisor wanted.
There was a certain look of scorn on the face of the supervisor. His
nose was red and his eyes were murky. He handed me a form which I
had to fill out.
“Tomorrow, tomorrow, boy!” he said to me at the end of the
conversation.
And this meant that tomorrow at the crack of dawn, at six o’clock, I
had to be at the entrance to the mine where together with the other
miners I would be lowered for the first time into the bowels of the
earth.
“You’re strong boy!” were the last words that the supervisor who
was of English or Welsh origin said to me.
Just before saying these words he clutched my right arm and
grinned from ear to ear as he was likely pleased with the muscles of a
sixteen-year-old youngster. And muscle is what he was looking for and
nothing more! I had that in abundance and we easily came to an
agreement. . . .
That day the supervisor hired only the two of us. Many were
envious of me for my good fortune that ensued so quickly. I too was
surprised that he picked me while passing over other experienced
miners. Later it became clear why he wanted me. He wanted me because
he saw in me an untapped reservoir of strength, of youthful strength,
that needed to be taken advantage of―to squeeze it out of me like a
lemon. That was the way it was for others as well.
The following day I arrived before the mine and when the time
came we sat in a cage and in a second we began the descent at a great
speed right into the earth. Our cage was held by a thick cable braided
from metal wire. A strange odor and a warm steam sprang from the
bottom of the mine up towards the top. In a few minutes we reached
our destination.

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108 The Michigan Historical Review

The house in Seeberville, near Painesdale, where deputies killed

two immigrant Croatian miners and wounded two others on August
14, 1913, during the Copper Country strike. A typical boarding house
of the era, it was run by Croatian immigrants Joseph and Antonia
Putrich, who lived there with their four children, a hired girl, and
ten male boarders.

Source: Hanchette & Lawton Case Files on the Copper Miners’ Strike, Michigan Technological
University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections

I was partnered up with the same Slovenian fellow who was hired
with me the day before. I was pleased. At least with him I could chat
and ask for advice because a rookie miner needed lots of advice.
Off we went to the place where the ore was loaded up. It was a
heavy copper ore. We pushed the empty tram car ahead of us.
“Here we are,” said my partner as we arrived at the location where
thanks to blasting charges and other workers, a large pile of ore had
been pulverized into smaller and larger pieces.
The two of us had to load up twelve tram cars daily. While loading
up the second wagon I was already completely soaked in sweat from the
work and great heat that ruled in the depths of Mother Earth. I had
heavy shoes on my feet, some kind of a helmet with an attached
acetylene lamp on my head and only on my lower body did I change
into work pants, while I went without clothing on my upper torso. Usually

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An Immigrant’s Arrival to Copper Country 109

A shirtless trammer pushing his heavy load of copper ore at a

Calumet and Hecla mine (c. 1900–1913)
Source: Mining Engineering Photographic Collection, Michigan Technological University Archives
and Copper Country Historical Collections

I would throw away my shirt while loading the ore and only when I had
to push the tram car toward the surface where the minerals were
removed would I place it beneath my right shoulder to cushion it as I
pressed up against my corner of the wagon.
Every so often my Slovenian partner would remind me by saying:
“Come on boy, come on, push!” This was especially the case whenever
the tram car would come to a halt on an incline.
These were the awful days of my youth! It was a true hell. That first
day a stream of sweat poured from me and I drank more than ten litres
of water. I often even had to remove my shoes to empty the sweat. With
the greatest of effort I nevertheless succeeded in surviving the entire day
which was rarely the case for rookies. Usually rookie miners lasted only
a couple of hours and then asked to be taken above ground. By evening
I could barely stand on my feet and of the food that the boarding house

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110 The Michigan Historical Review

lady had prepared for me, I was only able to eat an apple and drink
some tea.
When I returned home that evening, everyone marvelled at my
having been able to last the whole day. I ate very little and immediately
went to bed and fell asleep as if someone had hit me over the head. I did
not turn once during the entire night.
And that is how little by little I adapted to the extremely hard and
awfully dangerous work in the copper mines. I worked twelve hour days;
one week on day shift and one week on night shift.5
Had I had the money for a return ticket, I would not have remained
long in America. However, not only did I not have any money for a
return ticket, I owed money which I borrowed for the trip to America.
Therefore, there was nothing to do but to endure and go on. That is
right, I had to go on like a beast of burden. The days went by slowly.
Nevertheless after about half a year I began to settle in. The hard
mining life became easier for me. My Slovenian co-worker no longer
had to remind me to push harder against my side of the tram car. I
acquired calluses the size of shoe soles and my right shoulder, with
which I pushed up against the wagon, hardened incredibly. Already then
I could speak a few dozen English words and phrases, but in all honesty
these were mostly the type of words found in the mine workers’
unwritten dictionary. . . .
Even the supervisor would often speak to me and every morning he
would typically say: “Good morning boy!”
“Good morning Mr. Captain!” would be my response.
When fall arrived, I purchased winter clothing, the first coat in my
entire life and a hat whose flaps would cover my ears and reach down to
the neck. This was because that part of America experienced cold
winters.
My friends and fellow boarders shaved off by force my adolescent
moustache which had just begun to grow. I would wear these wide pants

5 A US Senate report in the aftermath of the Michigan copper strike described the

“exhausting, muscle straining, back-breaking work” of trammers as “really work for

beasts of burden.” Workers loaded up blasted-out ore into heavy tram cars and used
their brute strength to push the loaded cars over rough tracks to shafts to be hauled to
the surface. Two trammers working together often pushed loads weighing between two
to four tons (4,800 to 8,000 pounds) over a distance of 1,000 to 1,500 feet a dozen times
each shift. “The Tramming Trouble,” in US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics (Walter B. Palmer, John B. Densmore, John A. Moffit, and Royal Meeker),
Michigan Copper District Strike, Senate Document No. 381, Sixty-Third Congress, Second
Session (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1914), 26-28.

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An Immigrant’s Arrival to Copper Country 111

The Croatian community’s St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic

Church of Calumet (formerly Red Jacket), established in 1901
Source: MTU Photographic Collection, Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper
Country Historical Collections

and shoes whose tips curled up toward the sky. In short, the more that
time went by, the more I adapted to life in the New World.

First Christmas in America

I had already spent eight months in America when Christmas
arrived. Much snow had fallen and it was extremely cold. I worked the
entire day on Christmas Eve and only on Christmas Day did we get a
holiday. Our hard-working landlady spent the entire week preparing for
the most important day in the year. The house was full of everything:
food, wine, beer, and spirits.
“Merry Christmas,” we all greeted each other on the day of Christ’s
birth.

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112 The Michigan Historical Review

The entire town celebrated this major holiday. This was a Christian
town even though un-Christian and greedy capital had the main word
and was the deciding factor. . . .
In front of our Croatian Catholic church more people gathered than
was normally the case.6 The priest was in a good mood. Prior to mass he
greeted people left and right. During mass he completed his official
duties with more spirit than normal and held a very moving sermon on
the Son of Nazareth who was born into the world in order to lead
people on the right path and to free them of sin. People were throwing
handfuls of coins and paper dollars into the alms-box to better fulfill
their duties and the priest was most pleased with this.
Back at the boarding house everything was cheerful. After lunch a
guest and countryman came by with his accordion and a little later a few
young ladies, and then a group of several other young ladies
accompanied by three tamburitzans arrived.7 All of us were

6 In 1892 Croatian immigrants living in Calumet established Lodge 8 (St. John

Society) of the Slovenian Croatian Society, a mutual benefit organization that by 1900
had 531 members. This was followed in 1895 with the establishment of Lodge 48 (St.
Jerome Society) of the National Croatian Society and by 1903 there were two other such
lodges. At the close of the 1800s, Rev. Josip Polić arrived from Senj, Croatia, and began
holding religious services for Croats in the local Slovenian church. By 1900 an estimated
1,200 to 1,500 Croats lived in Calumet and the following year they were in a position to
establish their own church named after St. John the Baptist. In 1906 the Croatian-
Slovenian Political Club was established to help organize the community during
municipal elections. By 1907 the mutual benefit National Croatian Society boasted the
following lodges in Copper Country: St. Jerome Lodge 48 in Calumet, Vinodol Lodge
153 in Calumet, St. Joseph Lodge 192 in Trimountain, Sts. Peter and Paul Lodge 233 in
Atlantic, Our Lady of Trsat Lodge 236 in Calumet, Our Lady of Bistrica Lodge 252 in
Victoria, Holy Trinity Lodge 262 in Hancock, and St. Florian Lodge 285 in Calumet. A
Calumet-based newspaper called Rodoljub (Patriot) was launched in 1902 and existed
under that name to 1905, when it was subsequently renamed the following: Hrvatski
radnik (Croatian Worker) from 1905–1912, Hrvatska sloboda (Croatian Liberty) from 1912–
1915, and Hrvatska (Croatia) from 1915–1928. Prpic, The Croatian Immigrants, 207-208;
Juraj Škrivanić, Povijest američkih Hrvata (History of the American Croats), ed. Ivan Čizmić
(manuscript 1909–1916; pub. Zagreb: Hrvatski svjetski kongres, 2011), 165, 192, 238,
287, 354; “Adresar odsjeka N.H.Z.” (“Directory of National Croatian Society Lodges”),
Zajedničar 26 (February 1907): 18-26; Luka Štefanac, “Hrvati u državi Michigan” (“Croats
in the State of Michigan”), in Hrvatski list and Danica Hrvatska koledar: za prostu godinu
1938, ed. Ivan Krešić (New York: Hrvatski Publishing Co., 1937), 151-153.
7 The tamburitza (tamburica in Croatian) is a stringed instrument of various sizes

that evolved from a solo instrument to one that is often played in small groups of three
to four players and also in much larger orchestras. Local chapters of Croatian
benevolent, social, workers, cultural, and religious organizations in the US often
established affiliated tamburitza orchestras that performed at various community events.
Some groups, such as the Elias Tamburitza Serenaders from Wisconsin, travelled and

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An Immigrant’s Arrival to Copper Country 113

acquaintances and friends. There were about twenty of us that gathered,

both male and female. We were from different regions of our Croatian
homeland. The host was a native of Lika and several of us were his
neighbors from back home. The landlady was born in Severin na Kupi.
There were also several people from Zagorje, Slavonia, one from
Dalmatia and two from Bosnia. Later on a neighbor who was a
Slovenian and my school chum, a Serb from Lika, also joined us.
The host watched over the table and made sure the glasses were full.
The hostess treated us with various pastries and fruits. There was
everything in abundance.
The tamburitzans who were from Gorski Kotar began to play and
sing and in a few moments the entire house shook from song and dance.
When the tamburtizans would stop the accordion would take over.
“Play the drmež,8 Janko!” yelled the Slavonian, who was well warmed
up by the wine and whose feet began bouncing. He wanted to show off
his artistry and it seemed mostly in an effort to woo the young ladies
who only a few months earlier had arrived from Delnica, doubtlessly
seeking marriage.
We drank, sang and danced in our home late into the night.
I retired to bed earlier than the others, but sleep did not come to me
for a long time. The memory of the previous Christmas I celebrated in
the homeland and in the company of my family came before my eyes. I
remembered Christmas Eve. I remembered the beautiful songs that the
youth sang throughout all the villages and in front of the church both
on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day. I even recalled the powerful
[celebratory] gunfire volleys into the sky. . . .
I was so absorbed by all these thoughts and in a moment I began to
feel as if I was held in a prison, far from a truly joyous Christmas like the
ones I previously celebrated in my impoverished Lika. A feeling of
loneliness, a fear and a strange pain crept into my heart and tears began
to flow from my eyes. . . .
It was very late by the time I finally fell asleep.

performed throughout the United States and Canada as part of the Chautauqua circuit
during the 1920s and 1930s, and later during World War II at USO events. Richard
March, The Tamburitza Tradition: From the Balkans to the American Midwest (Madison, WI:
University of Wisconsin Press, 2012).
8 The drmež (shaking dance) is a dance step common to the Slavonian region of

Croatia and is performed to the accompaniment of the tamburitza. It is one of the

primary dance steps taught to members of the many Croatian folk dance ensembles
active across the United States and Canada.

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