Tour leaders: Joseph Bigott, Purdue University Northwest and Ann Keating, North Central College

As Polish immigrants began arriving in Chicago in large numbers in the 1880s, they established a settlement around the Roman Catholic parish of Saint Stanislaus Kostka, located northwest of Chicago’s downtown. Within two decades, Saint Stanislaus became the largest Catholic parish in the world, offering services that provided for the social, political, and religious needs of immigrants from the womb to the tomb. Saint Stanislaus became the nucleus for large Polish parishes built nearby that became known as the Polish Downtown.

The tour begins with the magnificent churches and “tenement districts” of Polish downtown, which since the 1980s has gentrified and become known as Bucktown. The tour travels northwest along Milwaukee Avenue to the areas of secondary settlement. The transition to the outlying bungalow districts of the city marked a dramatic shift in residential forms and the uses of urban space.

The tour examines the transformation of European religious cultural practices in an American environment and the role which residential dispersion played in the maintenance and adaptation of cultural practices for immigrants. The tour will also discuss the limitations of Progressive reformers’ critiques and frequent misrepresentations of immigrant Catholic communities.

Please note: Participants will travel by bus.

Limit 50 people. $20 members, $30 nonmembers