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1. from "Robert Schoone-Jongen" <rps2@calvin.edu> I can speak to Dutch Americans. They followed distinct provincial and municipal patterns of settlement in the United States, obviously with some exceptions. People from Gelderland province gravitated to Wisconsin, Groningers to the Chicago area, folks from a particular set of towns in South Holland to northern New Jersey, etc. And a look at the Dutch names on a US map will also illustrate the pattern. Overisel (Michigan), Friesland (Wisconsin, Minnesota), South Holland (Illinois), Zeeland (Michigan, North Dakota) are all named after provinces; Middleburg (Iowa), Borculo (Michigan) are named for specific municipalities; Holland (Michigan) and New Holland (South Dakota) speak for themselves. In West Michigan and the Chicago area, two of the larger Dutch concentrations in the US, their various mid-nineteenth century enclaves were populated along provincial lines. In Paterson New Jersey, immigrants from Friesland tended to settle in the Riverside neighborhood and those from South Holland in the First Ward on the other side of the Passaic River. Dutch Catholics from the southern provinces of the Netherlands tended to settle in a separate area in Riverside, several blocks to the south of the Protestants from Friesland. bob Dr. Robert Schoone-Jongen Department of History Calvin College Grand Rapids, MI 49506-4402 ------------ 2. from Anna D. Jaroszynska-Kirchmann, Ph.D. KIRCHMANNA@EASTERNCT.EDU My yet-unpublished research in progress in the 1920 census records for Willimantic, CT, shows that Polish immigrants from Galicia settled separately from Polish immigrants from other areas. The division was reflected in the census records, as the census takers carefully marked the distinction between "Galicia" and "Poland" as a place of birth. Was it prompted by the immigrants' self-identification? Maps prepared on the basis of the census records clearly show clustering of immigrant households according to the region of origin. An older member of the community, whom I interviewed a few years ago confirmed that "Galicians" who were generally poorer, lived together "down on lower Main Street" and in the mill's housing, while "other Poles" (most likely from the former Russian partition or the Kingdom) found better housing. An interesting point is that after decades of partitions, Poland regained its independence in 1918, yet the memory of regional divisions persisted till 1920. Anna D. Jaroszynska-Kirchmann, Ph.D. --30--
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