MONTANA CELEBRATES A DIVERSE ETHNIC HISTORY
By Stephanie Gandulla
I first became familiar with one of Montana’s most famous governors while working as a reporter at a small weekly newspaper in Ireland. My editor had sent the staff photographer and me three hours north from County Cork on narrow, sheep-trodden roads to Dublin. Our assignment was to do an informative feature on the Dail Eirann—the House of Representatives of the Irish National Parliament.
This grand building, located in the heart of the capital city, serves a similar purpose as our White House. Representatives and the Prime Minister regularly meet to decide the fate of the country through lively and often televised debates. After a delightful lunch in the representatives’ dining room, the photographer Declan and I embarked on a personal tour of this political center of the Republic of Ireland.
|
Covered wagon
|
As we ambled through the majestic halls I marveled at statues and paintings of well-known Irish historical figures. Suddenly, I noticed a familiar, seemingly out-of-place, sight. There, hanging high, was the state flag of Montana! With a subdued shout I proudly exclaimed that I was a Montana native.
Why was my home state’s flag hanging in such a prominent place on a wall in the Dail Eirann? I had always known about Irish immigration to Butte, but was there a deeper connection between the Treasure State and the Emerald Isle? I soon learned that, immediately following the end of the U.S. Civil War, Irish-born revolutionary Thomas Francis Meagher was appointed the second Governor of Montana Territory. Even as a successful American and a celebrated Montanan, Meagher’s life-long dedication to the “Irish Cause” preserved his hero status back home in Ireland. I had traveled all the way across the Atlantic to learn of such an intriguing chapter in Montana’s history.
In Ireland, Meagher was a strong proponent of Irish independence from Britain. In the failed Rebellion of 1848, he was sentenced to death for sedition. Some say that because of his orator’s skill, he and his fellow revolutionaries narrowly escaped execution and were sent instead to the dreaded Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania, Australia) and to one of the most notoriously dreadful penal colonies in human history.
Amazingly, Meagher soon escaped to America. Here he became a successful Brigadier General in the Civil War where he found an outlet for his natural inclination towards helping the individual against tyranny. In Montana, Meagher was a positive voice for Irish communities. As University of Montana professor David M. Emmons notes in his thorough book The Butte Irish: Class and Ethnicity in an American Mining Town, 1875-1925, “Meagher’s ambition was ‘to be the representative and champion of the Irish Race in the wild great mountains.’”
Meagher’s immigration story, although bold and brave, is one of millions. Scores of immigrants from all over Europe, Asia, and the Americas, filled an economic void during Montana’s youth. Farmland had to be settled, mines worked, and railroads built. In fact, visionary leaders understood that they had to solicit settlers and a labor force elsewhere. As Montana State University historian H.G. Merriam notes in his article “Ethnic Settlement of Montana,” “Advertising for settlers began in 1869...An agent was employed in New York to contact immigrants as they landed and another to prepare a series of State pamphlets for distribution in Germany and the Scandinavian countries.”
If immigrants weren’t actively solicited to settle and work the West, many were eager to come to America for their own reasons. They came to reunite with family members already taking advantage of young Montana’s wealth of natural resources. Some desperately fled their homeland as political refugees or seekers of religious tolerance. Whatever it was that drove these people from the familiar surroundings of the Old World and drew them to an exciting and unknown America, they came indeed, and from a multitude of backgrounds.
|
Chinese Merchant, Virginia City 1900
photo courtesy Montana Historical Society
|
In his book Inside USA, John Gunther reports finding “in Montana [in 1947]...a big and varied blanketing of foreign born. More than 45 percent of all Montanans are foreign born or of foreign or mixed parentage. Moreover, they are not predominantly of one racial group, like the Mexicans in Los Angeles or Scandinavians in Washington. Montana has Canadians, Swedes, Poles, Italians, Cornishmen, Jugoslavs[sic], Fins and vast quantities of Irish; in the mines of Butte not less than 40 different foreign stocks are represented.” And, according to the Encyclopedia of Immigration and Migration in the American West, “Between 1890 and 1930, Butte achieved recognition as having the most ethnically diverse population in the intermountain West.”
This diversity, rarely seen outside major metropolitan areas, was evidenced across the state.
Although not represented proportionately today, Chinese immigrants followed the gold rushes in Virginia City and Helena. Merriam writes, “The census of 1870 gives the Chinese the largest foreign population in Montana, a total of 1,949.” After abandoning the placer mines, the Chinese Montanans moved into other businesses throughout the territory, primarily laundries and restaurants. According to the 1890 Polk City Directory, 19 of the 20 laundries in Butte were Chinese-owned.
Another phase of Montana Territory’s settlement was the development of the railroad between 1880 and 1890. Many Italian immigrants answered the demand for labor to build the railroad and others followed to settle the lands the new rail served.
Coal mines and farming opportunities brought many to Red Lodge, a small, lively town in southwestern Montana that today retains much of its ethnic character. In Anna Zellick’s article “We Are All Intermingled,” Slavic immigrant Mike Barovich recalls the settlements of Red Lodge and Bear Creek: “There was Chicken Town and they were all Serbs there. There was Stringtown that had mostly Austrians and Finlanders. Then downtown there were a lot of Italians. Over by the high school they were all Scotch, English, and Irish.”
This ethnic celebration hasn’t disappeared. In August, one can visit the Red Lodge Festival of Nations to enjoy Japanese or Ukrainian dancers, traditional music, arts and crafts, and ethnic food.
Religious freedom was another major reason for emigration to Montana. Fertile farm lands appealed to the family-centered lifestyle that still persists at the unique Dutch colony in southwest Montana. Just a few miles west of Bozeman lies Amsterdam, its name signifying its ties with the settlers’ homeland of Holland.
Generation after generation, other communities throughout the state have maintained at least some of their Old World heritage. As the late, award-winning historian Michael Malone states, “The efforts to hold onto the Scandinavian culture haven’t diminished and still show themselves in subtle family values of the people in this state.”
|
Dutch Immigrants
photo courtesy Museum of the Rockies
|
And Butte still maintains its strong relations with Ireland. Irish President Mary McAleese received an enthusiastic welcome during her visit to Butte in 2006. Although many Irish-Americans have returned to their ancestors’ home due to the thriving Irish economy, some Irish youth are still keen on emigrating to America. Twenty-three- year-old Kevin Dillon first came to Montana six years ago as part of the charity project “Habitat for Humanity.” A carpenter from Dundalk in County Louth, just north of Dublin, Dillon visits Butte every three months and stays just until his visa expires. While in town, the young Irishman often volunteers his time at the popular Irish gift shop, Cavanaugh’s County Celtic. His brogue is unmistakable and adds charm to a store already brimming with Celtic character. “I can’t get homesick in Butte,” Dillon chuckles.
Character and culture are not the only contributions these valuable citizens made. As Dillon notes, “Ireland practically built America.” Immigration augments healthy community development with more taxes, churches and schools. Foreign-born citizens are also looked to in times of war. In the Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, Brendan A. Rapple notes, “The Irish have served in all of America’s wars. Their ready and distinguished participation in America’s military conflicts has helped the Irish to gain respectability in the eyes of generations of other Americans.”
“Everywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life,” John F. Kennedy stated, and contemporary Montana life is richer for the countless contributions of so many immigrants. A noble statue of Thomas Francis Meagher stands in front of the Capitol building in Helena. In Butte one can readily find Cornish pasties (meat pies), in Churchill Dutch orthodox religion, and in Ingomar the tempo of Scandinavian accents.This tapestry of culture, woven throughout Montana’s history, demonstrates a diverse ethnic settlement that can still be witnessed and enjoyed today.
|