Showing stories tagged: 1900s
Halsted Street: The Rise and Resilience of Chicago's Greektown
For more than a century, a stretch of South Halsted Street on Chicago's Near West Side has been the beating heart of Greek America…
The Sponge Divers of Tarpon Springs: A Dodecanese Village on the Gulf Coast
— John Cocoris, from Hydra, Greece
When John Cocoris arrived on the Gulf Coast of Florida in 1905, he brought with him a technology, a workforce, and an entire way o…
Monroe Street: Detroit's Greektown and the Neighborhood That Outlasted the City Around It
Detroit's Greektown was built by immigrants who came for the auto industry and stayed to build churches, restaurants, and a commun…
The Invisible Greektown: Baltimore's Lost Greek Neighborhood and Its Lasting Legacy
Baltimore's Greek community never achieved the fame of Chicago's or Astoria's, but for three decades in the early twentieth centur…
The First Greeks in America: From New Smyrna to the Revolution
— Greek Colonists of New Smyrna, Florida, from Greece, Minorca, and the Mediterranean
Greek immigrants did not arrive with the great waves of the 1890s. The first Greek settlement in what would become the United Stat…
Miles of Track: Greek Railroad Workers in the American West
— Greek Railroad Workers of the American West, from Various regions of Greece
In the early 1900s, thousands of Greek men spread across the railroad lines of the American West — laying track in Wyoming, Oreg…
The Kafeneion: Greek Coffeehouses and the Making of an Immigrant Community
— Greek Immigrant Communities across America, from Various regions of Greece
In every American city where Greeks settled in significant numbers, the coffeehouse was the first institution they built — befor…
Why They Left: The Forces That Drove Greek Emigration to America
Between 1880 and 1924, more than 400,000 Greeks left their country for America. They did not leave because they wanted to. They le…
The Church as Nation: Greek Orthodoxy and the Immigrant Community
For Greek immigrants in America, the Orthodox church was never simply a place of worship. It was a school, a courthouse, a communi…
The Man on the Corner: Greek Street Vendors and Shoeshine Men in Early America
— Greek Street Vendors and Shoeshine Men, from Various regions of Greece
Before the diner, before the restaurant, before the candy store — the Greek immigrant built his foothold in America on a shoeshi…
Married by Photograph: The Greek Picture Brides of America
— Greek Picture Brides of America, from Various regions of Greece
Thousands of young Greek women crossed the Atlantic in the early twentieth century to marry men they had never met, knowing them o…
The City of Spindles: Greek Women in the Lowell Mills
— Greek Women Mill Workers of Lowell, Massachusetts, from Various regions of Greece
By 1920, Lowell, Massachusetts was home to the third-largest Greek community in the United States. The women who came there — ma…