American Warsaw: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Polish Chicago

by Dominic A. Pacyga

A comprehensive and engaging history of a century of Polish immigration and influence in Chicago.

Every May, a sea of 250,000 people decked out in red and white head to Chicago’s Loop to celebrate the Polish Constitution Day Parade . In the city, you can tune in to not one but four different Polish-language radio stations or jam out to the Polkaholics. You can have lunch at pierogi food trucks or pick up pączkis at the grocery store. And if you’re lucky, you get to take off work for Casimir Pulaski Day. For more than a century, Chicago has been home to one of the largest Polish populations outside of Poland, and the group has had an enormous influence on the city’s culture and politics. Yet, until now, there has not been a comprehensive history of the Chicago Polonia.

With American Warsaw , award-winning historian and Polish American Dominic A. Pacyga chronicles more than a century of immigration, and later emigration back to Poland, showing how the community has continually redefined what it means to be Polish in Chicago. He takes us from the Civil War era until today, focusing on how three major waves of immigrants, refugees, and fortune seekers shaped and then redefined the Polonia. Pacyga also traces the movement of Polish immigrants from the peasantry to the middle class and from urban working-class districts dominated by major industries to suburbia. He documents Polish Chicago’s alignments and with other Chicago ethnic groups; with the Catholic Church; with unions, politicians, and city hall; and even among its own members. And he explores the ever-shifting sense of Polskość , or “Polishness.”

Today Chicago is slowly being eclipsed by other Polish immigrant centers, but it remains a vibrant—and sometimes contentious—heart of the Polish American experience. American Warsaw is a sweeping story that expertly depicts a people who are deeply connected to their historical home and, at the same time, fiercely proud of their adopted city. As Pacyga writes, “While we were Americans, we also considered ourselves to be Poles. In that strange Chicago ethnic way, there was no real difference between the two.”

Genres: History, Nonfiction

296 pages, Hardcover

Published October 7, 2019

About the author

Dominic A. Pacyga, PhD, is Professor of History in the Department of Humanities, History, and Social Sciences at Columbia College Chicago.

Dr. Pacyga received his PhD in History from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1981. He has authored, or coauthored, five books concerning Chicago's history, including Chicago: A Biography (2009); Polish Immigrants and Industrial Chicago (1991); Chicago: City of Neighborhoods with Ellen Skerrett (1986); Chicago: A Historical Guide to the Neighborhoods (1979) with Glen Holt; and Chicago's Southeast Side (1998) with Rod Sellers.

Dr. Pacyga has been a faculty member in the Department of HHSS since 1984. He has lectured widely on a variety of topics, including urban development, labor history, immigration, and racial and ethnic relations, and he has appeared in both the local and national media. He has worked with various museums, including the Chicago History Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Field Museum in Chicago, on a variety of public history projects.

Dr. Pacyga has also consulted with numerous neighborhood organizations, student groups, and ethnic, labor, and fraternal groups to preserve and exhibit their histories. He was guest curator for a major exhibit, "The Chicago Bungalow," at the Chicago Architecture Foundation. He and Charles Shanabruch are coeditors of The Chicago Bungalow (2001), a companion volume to the exhibit.

Dr. Pacyga is a winner of the Oscar Halecki Award from the Polish American Historical Association and a winner of the Catholic Book Award. In 1999, he received the Columbia College Award for Excellence in Teaching. He has been a visiting professor at both the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago. In the spring of 2005, he was a Visiting Scholar in Campion Hall at Oxford University.

Reviews

[Viral · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been meaning to read this book for a while, as I'm on a slow project to read basically every academic nonfiction book about Chicago I can get my hands on and learn everything I am physically capable of learning about my adopted city that I love so much. This book came well recommended, and when my fiancé and I were at the Oriole Park branch of the CPL (located in a historically Polish neighborhood) I felt it was appropriate to grab this book.

Pacgya does a great job showing the complex dynamics within Polonia, the Polish diaspora in Chicago and around the U.S., and charts the rise of a Polish community in the city during the late 1800s, the ethnic tensions that arose, how they integrated into the city's various institutions, became a backbone of the city, and then increasingly left the city in the mid to late 1900s for the suburbs. Alongside this, he does a great job discussing how the diaspora community related to their understanding of their homeland, and how the various political issues from the late 1800s to the late 1900s (the struggle for Polish independence, WW1, the interwar era, the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Poland, and then the Cold War struggles against the Polish People's Republic) all had very meaningful effects to the Polish community here in Chicago. It's an aspect of diasporic studies that doesn't get appreciated enough and I am glad Pacyga took the time to discuss that.

My biggest critique of this book was that Pacyga didn't really meaningfully address the anti-Black & anti-Latino racism that was an important part of the story of Polish flight to the suburbs in the second half of the 20th century, and when he did mention it, he did so with very dismissive notes and repeatedly try to defend Polish Chicagoans by pointing out that other white ethnic groups were also racist. In my opinion, you can't properly tell the story of how Polish Chicago ended if you don't grapple with that fact that as Polish Americans increasingly identified as white, they felt threatened by the very prospect of sharing their neighborhoods, schools, and community spaces with non-whites. Pacyga's failure to address that is the biggest flaw in this otherwise solid book. I'm still glad to have read it, and did learn a lot.

[Andy Dorsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pacyga brings the passion of a community insider and the skill of a professional historian to this account of the changing fortunes of Polish Chicago. Although I'm not a part of this community and had no reason to read this book other than that it sounded interesting, I found the themes easy to follow and the narrative to be an interesting one that addressed the broad question of what it means to be Polish (in America, or otherwise). Many immigrant groups face(d) a similar question of group identity compounded by assimilation, but what makes the Polish American case particularly noteworthy is that Poland itself did not exist on the map for long periods of the emigration to America. While Italians and Germans didn't have a unified national state until the second half of the 19th century, Poles *had* previously had one that was then occupied and erased by outside powers. Who counts as a Pole if there is no Poland? And at that point, are Poles in Chicago any less Polish than Poles in Europe?

At times Pacyga loses himself in excessive detail-- he appears anxious to preserve every single fact he was able to bring to light, lest it be forgotten again-- and I think that the story he wants to tell might be better served by taking an occasional step back. Rather than listing each and every donation made by Polish American organizations during various periods of crisis, it would have been more interesting to provide greater insight into the motivations behind these donations, providing quotes from speeches or newspaper articles from the time. He does, of course, already do this, but I wish he would have shifted the focus more thoroughly.

[Chet Slonina · Rating 4 out of 5]

The well researched presentation of the Polish community that evolved in and around the Chicago area. The book shows evidence of the heavy involvement of the Catholic Church, Polish religious and social organizations, and the changes that occurred with time repainting the landscape of the Chicagoland Polish Community. I enjoyed recounting past memories of Humboldt Park, Polish parades and the umbilical cord that does not separate Poles in America form Poles in Poland. A worthwhile read of historical Polish-American history.

[Natalia Z]

Repetitive, confusing structure with paragraphs written about different years intermixed without any preface, also doesn’t seem to be a complete history or story. The author focuses on small details and not the larger narrative. It’s interesting hearing from the perspective of a later-generation assimilated academic, and so I would have more appreciated a non-ivory tower, closer immigrant relationship explored in the book.

[Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative book on the Polish immigration waves to USA and specifically Chicago. Came away with a much better understanding of the political and social climate the brought my grandparents to Chicago pre-World War I. Also found interesting the political rise and fall of Chicago's Polish Americans.

[Bernie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had some good factual information but the writing was very dry. He tended to list off facts rather than creating interesting stories. It was at times fun to hear the old neighborhood names and streets but in general it was difficult to read.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice history and helped me realize some possibilities of my family story.

[Lexi · Rating 4 out of 5]

chapters one and two = 3 stars but then it picked up

[Zhengying Tian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chicago's Polish story is legendary

[Diana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up based on a review in the Chicago Tribune, and as someone raised in Polonia, as the Polish communities in Chicago are called. It's an academic book, well researched, and I learned a lot about the early days of Polish migration, which was unknown to me, as the child of WWII refugees who came to Chicago between 1948-56. And I appreciated the familiar city references to the neighborhoods, parishes (Jackowo), businesses(Bobak's), and people(Bob Lewandowski). My takeaway was the term Polskość, defined as Polishness; the quality or state of being Polish, which helped explain why I identify as Polish, not Polish-American. As a fiction lover, overall I prefer Stuart Dybek.