From
Poor Folks to Homeowners
The evolution of Polish
immigrant housing in Milwaukee
Mark Grotkiewicz
Since the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1800's, Milwaukee has been
known as "the workingman's city." A substantial amount of these workingmen were
immigrants, which composed 86.4 percent of the city's total population in 1890 (compared
to the national average of 33 percent), making Milwaukee the most "foreign" city
in the United States at that time. Among the immigrants that settled throughout the city
in the late 1800's and early 1900's were the Poles, whose steadily rising population made
them the second largest ethnic group in Milwaukee, next to the Germans (Gurda 1999).
During this time, the country of Poland no longer existed, as it had been divided by the
neighboring countries of Prussia, Russia, and Austria over a hundred years earlier. The
Polish people struggled to keep their traditions alive despite the pressures they faced
from their oppressors in Europe. Eventually, the Polish peasants learned how life was
better in the United States through "America letters" and industrial advertising
campaigns (Gurda 1974). Thus, the great wave of Polish immigration began.
When the influx of Polish immigrants
began during the 1870's, most of the farmland in the Midwest was already taken. This was
obviously a problem for many Polish immigrants because most were merely peasant farmers
back in the homeland. As a result, the only place they could turn for economic security
was the city (Gurda 1974, Kenny 1997). Booming with industrial activity, Milwaukee became
a likely choice as a place to find work and set up residence. The Poles established two
main neighborhoods in Milwaukee that were within walking distance from the industrial
districts where they were employed. On the Lower East Side, the tanneries and small
factories along the Milwaukee River just north of downtown sprouted a Polish neighborhood
along Brady and North Water Street [Humboldt Avenue] (all house numbers and street names
appear with their original numbers and names followed by the current addresses within
brackets). When the river was bridged, the neighborhood extended further north (Reisser
1977). Across the Menomonee River Valley on the South Side, the proximity to employment
and inexpensive land attracted the largest group of Polish immigrants in the city (Gurda
1977).
The fact that the Poles possessed a rural
background and that "they could not rely on a significant group of predecessors to
help them adjust to their new life" established their position on the bottom rung of
the socioeconomic ladder (Kenny 1997). As a result, they had little choice but to work in
Milwaukee's industrial districts earning low wages as unskilled laborers. According to
author and historian Gerd Korman, "in the decades following the 1870's, Milwaukee
considered the Poles good workers, but workers best fitted for 'dirty' tasks. In their
neighborhoods and in large factories, Poles were almost always to be found as common
laborers or as blacksmiths and molders working in foundries" (Korman 1967). Despite
their low wages, a newspaper article noted that "usually the first money they can
call their own is put into the purchase of a lot, or part of a lot, on which they mean to
erect a house as soon a possible. They have a strong prejudice against paying rent"
(Milwaukee Sentinel). The Polish immigrants realized the only way to earn self-respect and
the respect of their neighbors, Polish and non-Polish, was to own their own land and house
(Gurda 1977, Kenny 1997, Oeler 1999).
In order to maximize the amount of
buildable land, and in turn, maximize their profits, land speculators subdivided the areas
near Milwaukee's industrial centers. They laid out long, narrow blocks containing long,
narrow lots typically measuring 20 to 30 feet wide and 100 to 150 feet deep. On these
lots, speculators used modern construction technologies, such as the balloon-frame and
manufactured items like doors, windows, and machine-cut wood, to construct hundreds of
wood-framed cottages throughout the newest parts of the city (Kenny 1997, Hubka 2000).
Land speculators or builder-contractors, not architects, usually designed the cottages.
They were generally front-gabled structures, supported on cedar post foundations.
Oftentimes, the front facades of these modest cottages were ornamented with machine-tooled
door and window frames, shutters, and decorative scrollwork. This ornamentation commonly
appeared in the Queen Anne or Victorian Gothic styles, which were in vogue at the time
(DCD 1994). These cottages served as the first homes for immigrants, especially the Poles,
whose population slowly started dominating the South Side.
Working as unskilled laborers earning low
wages was not the quickest way for the Poles to become homeowners. The fact that living in
a small cottage with their growing families did not make matters any easier. Polish
immigrants in Milwaukee effectively combined the practices of incremental building and
renting out portions of their homes as the main strategy of achieving homeownership.
Incremental building allowed residents to
alter the house as they saw fit, based on family needs and affordability. Common methods
of incremental building included:
- inserting a basement under the cottage to
produce a raised cottage
- remodeling or adding to the front, middle,
rear of the existing cottage
- moving the existing cottage to the back of
the lot and building a new house or cottage at the front
- or moving an existing cottage to the lot
as a second structure (Oeler 1999).
Oftentimes, a combination of these
methods was used. Although other immigrant ethnic groups employed incremental building
strategies, the Poles were known to use them quite often, especially the raised flat,
which has come to be known as the "Polish flat." When their families simply
outgrew their cottages, or when they wanted rental income, the Polish immigrants would
lift up their existing cottages and built beneath them a basement (either partially sunken
or entirely above ground) out of wood, concrete block or brick, depending on how much they
could afford. The basements were high enough for ground-level windows, allowing natural
light to enter the lower apartments. Usually, the basement units also had their own doors
located on the front of the house underneath the porch of the upper unit, but occasionally
it was placed on the side of the house. The upper units were accessed with steep wooden
steps that led up to a small wooden porch at the front door (DCD 1994). This virtually
became the ubiquitous house form on the South Side, and to a much lesser extent, the Lower
East Side.
An immigrant family who bought a lot and
built a cottage was a landowner. They still had to pay off their mortgage. Working as an
unskilled laborer alone would not provide the family enough money to quickly pay their
debt. However, when an immigrant family expanded their cottage and rented out the
additional space for additional income, they became landlords. Once the immigrant family
was able to pay off the mortgage, they became homeowners. The Poles were strongly
dedicated to their mission of becoming homeowners and the Polish flat was an ideal tool
they used to earn the additional income that they could use to pay off their debts. Thus,
it was common for a Pole "with a heavy mortgage, to rent out part of his dwelling to
another family to meet his house payments. When the mortgagee retired his debt he usually,
but not always, took over the entire dwelling" (Simon 1978). With the seemingly
constant flow of new Polish immigrants coming to Milwaukee in the late 1800's and early
1900's, demand for inexpensive rental housing units was high.
The evolution of the Mazur residence
began when the Fehrers sold their cottage and lot on Tenth Avenue [S. 15th Street] for
$800 to newlywed Anton and Katarzyna Mazur. The couple moved into the cottage along with
Katarzyna's father and younger brother and sister. The Mazurs had two children by 1899 and
seven by 1914. The boys and their grandfather accessed their basement sleeping areas
through a trap door. The basement was dimly lit with natural light through windows in the
cedar-post foundation. As the family grew, more living space was needed, but naturally,
more money was needed in order to create more space. The low wages earned by the working
adults was simply not enough to make ends meet, so the Mazur children contributed to the
family's income by leaving school to work as young teenagers. The Mazur house was finally
expanded in 1917 when they bought the cottage of "Uncle Joe" Nisiewiecz up the
street, which was lifted off its foundation and rolled to the Mazur's one block away. The
original Mazur cottage was removed from its foundation, spun around, and placed in the
middle of the lot. Uncle Joe's cottage was then joined to the Mazur's cottage
back-to-back. The old cedar-post foundation was replaced with cement blocks. Thus, over
the years, the Mazur family was able to earn enough money to make changes to their house
to fit their growing family (Kenny 1997).
The house of John Plisczka began as a
brand new 20-foot by 30-foot wood-frame cottage built for $600 at 911 Tenth Avenue [2201
S. 15th Street]. The next year, for $175, Plisczka increased the living area by half when
he put an 18-foot by 30-foot addition onto the rear of the cottage. Then in 1895, he
raised the cottage above a new brick basement flat for just $350, a third of the cost for
a new building, thus doubling the amount of living space (Oeler 1999).
Substantial remodeling and additions
greatly affected the appearance and function of the Potrykus house on old Garden Street on
the South Side. When their eldest son was married in 1914, Joseph and Josephine Potrykus
"exploded" their cottage in all directions to accommodate their son and his wife
as well as the remaining Potrykus family. Not only was the original cottage raised upon a
brick first floor, but the roof was raised four feet to make room for new attic bedroom
space, and a two story addition was built onto the rear of the house. The lower unit was a
self contained flat, similar to the original cottage. The second story rear addition
contained a dining area and kitchen. Josephine Potrykus did much of her cooking and
laundry in the downstairs kitchen at the back of the house, which kept the messier
household jobs away from the upstairs living area and it had easy access to the backyard
garden. The entire family, both upstairs and downstairs residents, would gather in the
large kitchen for meals and family get-togethers. "The house was a hybrid creation
reflecting the American middle-class dream of separate rooms for separate uses and the
Polish emphasis on providing for family" (Kenny 1997).
The additions the Poles put on their
houses allowed them to rent out the extra spaces as a means of generating additional
income that they could use to finish off their house payments and become homeowners. This
was a common practice, especially on the South Side, where block after block was lined
with Polish flats. In some cases, the second flat was rented to a different family; but
more often than not, the renters were usually related to the landlords.
In 1900, August Byrowski supported his
wife and four young children as a day laborer. The Byrowskis rented the second flat of
their home at 893 Ninth Avenue [2167 S. 14th Street] to the Jankowski family. Despite
achieving homeownership when his mortgage was paid off in 1905, Byrowski continued to rent
out his second flat as a means of generating extra income (Oeler 1999).
When Jacob Domagalski replaced his old
1882 house in 1900 with a completely new house on Eighth Avenue [2074 S. 13th Street] of
Cream City brick, he was relatively wealthy. Nevertheless, his new house took the form of
a Polish flat, with its three-part parlor window and steep front staircase just like his
wood-framed neighbors. Living with Jacob was his son John, daughter-in-law Barbara, and
their children Helen, Max, Frank, and Victor. In 1909, John and his family moved a few
blocks away except for Victor, who stayed in the house with his new wife Mary and their
children Dolores, Prosper, and Eleanore. Only after Victor's death at the age of 36 in
1919 was the second flat of the Domagalski house rented out to non-family members (DCD
1994).
In addition to Polish flats, families
that had a house at the back of the lot rented out their alley houses. The Heft family had
two sources rental income on their property at 871 Ninth Avenue [2137-2139 S. 14th
Street]. Michael Heft, suffering from tuberculosis, was out of work for an extended period
of time until his death in 1899. His wife Anna brought in a small amount of income as a
washerwoman, but not enough to support herself, her sick husband, and their children. The
Hefts built an alley house in 1893 that they rented out to other families over the years.
By 1900, the Hefts were sharing the front house with renters, and rented their alley house
to two families. At that time, a total of 33 people lived on the Heft lot; 24 were
children! Once the Heft children were old enough, they began working to add to the family
income. By 1910, the Heft daughters, Mary and Rose, were working as tailors, one of the
Heft boys worked as a day laborer, and their mother Anna continued to work as a
washerwoman. The working Hefts were now earning enough money to discontinue the rental of
their front house. As a result, the seven-member Heft family was able to completely occupy
the front house while continuing to rent out the alley house (Oeler 1999).
There was no absolute rule as to where in
the Polish flat (upstairs or basement) or on the property (front house or alley house) the
renters and landlords lived. The upstairs unit in the Polish flat had the opportunity to
bring in more rent to the landlord family because in most cases it was more
"finished" than the basement flat. On the other hand, young, small families with
little money found the basement flats more affordable. Polish landlords "often rented
out the better units to tenants but lived in the worst rooms themselves to minimize
cost" (Greene 1975). Apparently it was up for the landlords to decide who lived
where.
The incremental building and renting
strategies used by the Poles to attain homewonership did not impress outsiders, as they
were attacked, sometimes even racially, for their living conditions. A 1912 neighborhood
study of the Twelfth and Fourteenth Wards on the South Side noted "on each side of
the every street or avenue is an almost continuous line of basements, miles and miles of
gloomy, poorly lighted, damp, unventilated, overcrowded rooms . . . the region of modern
cave dwellers" (WBLIS 1912). Another, slightly less brutal, report from 1911 states
that "although the outer aspect of the dwelling is not unpleasing, they are in
general undeniably insanitary, being damp, as the floor of the basement rests on the
ground. Such houses, which when completed contain eight rooms, are frequently occupied by
four or five families as well as borders, and as Polish families are generally large this
overcrowding is a serious evil" (UK Board of Trade 1911). What the reports failed to
recognize was that more often than not, the crowded living arrangements were merely
temporary. Living conditions improved over time as Polish immigrants could afford it. When
the landlord family no longer needed to rely on the income from renters, they usually took
over the entire house. By this time, the renting family was usually able to move into a
new house, or they were already starting to outgrow the apartment they were renting. The
Polish did not chose to live under such conditions because they wanted to, they did so
because they had to in order to earn enough money to own their own home-which is what all
Americans, regardless of ethnic background, wanted-to make their American Dream come true.
When the Polish immigrants arrived in
Milwaukee, they did not move into pre-existing older neighborhoods; they preferred to
establish their own brand new communities on the fringes of the city, unlike other
immigrant groups. Once the Poles attained homeownership, they had a habit of remaining in
the neighborhood for an extended period of time. Obviously, the Poles were not afraid to
alter their houses, and they continued to do so even after they owned their homes.
Exterior features like porches, doors, windows, and siding were added or modified.
Interior features like indoor plumbing and electricity were introduced. The Poles kept up
with the technologies of the time and reflected new architectural trends outside and
inside their homes. The houses were works in progress, modified by successive owners
according to changing tastes and demands (DCD 1994).
The Poles left Europe as peasant farmers,
came to Milwaukee as unskilled laborers, and created a community of homeowners. The
American value of homeownership was immediately adopted by the Polish immigrants, as few
of them ever had the opportunity to own their own home in Europe. They came to Milwaukee
to work in the factories so they could scrape up enough money to buy some land and a small
cottage, but low wages did not give them as much money as they needed to own their houses.
The Poles employed the novel building practice of jacking up their cottages above exposed
basement living units as a means to generate additional income. There is no correlation of
this unusual housing style between Polish Europe and Polish Milwaukee. Thus, the Polish
flats were a reaction to the narrow urban lots and building technologies of the time.
Renting out portions of their houses allowed the Polish landlords to make enough money to
finish their house payments, thus reaching their goal of owning a home, earning them a
respectable position among American society. Although their strategies of achieving their
goal were unconventional, as it was really neither Polish nor American, the Polish
immigrants of Milwaukee were able to climb the socioeconomic ladder with determination and
ingenuity. That is what the Polish flat is all about. The Polish immigrants of Milwaukee
built their cottages to raise their families; they raised their cottages to raise their
incomes; and they rose among the ranks to success.
Research Bibliography
- Dept. of City Development, DCD (1994)
Milwaukee Ethnic Houses Tour: The Rich Heritage of Immigrant Architecture. Milwaukee:
Dept. of City Development.
- Greene, Victor R. (1975) For God and
Country: The Rise of Polish and Lithuanian Ethnic Consciousness in America, 1860-1910.
Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
- Gurda, John (1974) A Separate Settlement:
A Study of One Section of Milwaukee's Old South Side. Milwaukee: United Community Services
of Greater Milwaukee.
- Gurda, John (1999) The Making of
Milwaukee. Milwaukee: Milwaukee County Historical Society.
- Hubka, Thomas (2000) American Vernacular
Architecture, Class lecture, Department of Architecture, University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
- Kenny, Judith T (1997) "Polish Routes
to Americanization: House Form and Landscape on Milwaukee's Polish South Side" in
Wisconsin Land and Life, T. Vale and R. Ostergren, eds. Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press.
- Korman, Gerd (1967) Industrialization,
Immigrants, and Americanizers: The View from Milwaukee 1866-1921. Madison: The State
Historical Society of Wisconsin.
- Milwaukee Sentinel "The
Polacks." November 30, 1874.
- Oeler, Paula M. (1994) Homeownership and
the Polish Immigrant Family, 1900-1910: A Case Study of the 21000 Block of South 14th
Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Unpublished student research paper, Department of
Architecture, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
- Oeler, Paula M. (1999) Americanized via a
Neighborhood of Homes: Polish Immigrants on Ninth Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Master's
Thesis, Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
- Reisser, Craig T. (1977) Immigrants and
House Form in Northeast Milwaukee, 1885-1916. Master's Thesis, Department of Geography,
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
- Simon, Roger D. (1978) "The
City-building Process: Housing and Services in New Milwaukee Neighborhoods,
1880-1910." Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. Philadelphia:
American Philosophical Society.
- Wisconsin Bureau of Labor and Industrial
Statistics, WBLIS (1912) "Basement Tenements in Milwaukee." Fifteenth Biennial
Report, Part V.
- UK Parliament Board of Trade (1911) Cost
of Living in American Towns. Reprinted by the United States Congress, Senate Doc. No. 22,
62nd Congress, 1st Session. Washington: GPO.
Mark Grotkiewicz is a graduate urban
planning student at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.