Full text: The immigration problem

MANUFACTURING AND MINING COMMUNITIES 73 
sion in the local iron and steel industries developed 
the city and increased its population. Welsh, Irish, 
Germans and English were exclusively employed in 
the local industries from their establishment until 
1880. During the past thirty years, however, the labor 
forces have been recruited from southern and eastern 
Europe. Slovaks, Poles, Magyars, Croatians, Servians, 
North and South Italians, Syrians and Bulgarians 
have in constantly increasing numbers found employ 
ment in the local iron and steel mills. As a result, 
about 60 per cent, of the population of Johnstown in 
1910 was of foreign birth, and was and still is 
largely representative of races of recent arrival in 
this country. The native Americans and Welsh oc 
cupy two wards in the city. In addition, there are 
three distinct foreign colonies or sections. One is 
made up almost exclusively of South Italians, an 
other of Slovaks and Croatians, and the third, the 
most important, contains representatives of all races 
°f recent immigration. 
The second general type of immigrant community 
has come into existence within recent years because 
of the development of some natural resources, such as 
coal, iron ore, or copper, or by reason of the exten- 
s >on of the principal manufacturing industries of the 
country. These communities usually cluster around 
mines or industrial plants, and their distinguishing 
feature is that a majority of their inhabitants are of 
foreign birth and recent immigration. This type of 
mimigrant community is common in the bituminous 
an d anthracite coal mining regions of Pennsylvania 
ai jd in the coal producing areas of Virginia, West 
Virginia, Alabama, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas 
an d Oklahoma. In the Mesaba and Vermilion iron ore 
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