Reddit reviews The Peoples of Philadelphia: A History of Ethnic Groups and Lower-Class Life, 1790-1940 (Pennsylvania Paperbacks)

This book, The Peoples of Philadelphia: A History of Ethnic Groups and Lower-Class Life, 1790-1940 has some good takes. Basically, job competition and religion.

> For some reason the Polish immigrant was avoiding Philadelphia . . . The Poles' negative response to the city of Philadelphia invitation is best understood in terms of the city's positive attraction for the Jews and Italians . . . Italians and Poles, for example, often competed for the same jobs . . . Compared to her sister cities of the nation, Philadelphia was not receiving large numbers of immigrants, especially Polish immigrants. In contrast, Pennsylvania was receiving more Poles, Slovaks, Croatians, Slovenes, and Ukrainians than any other state in the Union - twice as many as New York and Illinois.

> There were over 110,000 Irish-born in the city in 1890, nearly 75,000 Germans born in the same year, over 90,000 Russian-born (my edit - many of these were Russian Jews) in 1910 and over 45,000 Italian-born in that year, but the proportions were less than in many of the other large cities.

Source

I'd even argue that there is something very interesting in PA. I feel that if you're German, Dutch, etc, even if you live close to Philly, there's almost a cultural Pittsburgh pull, which could partially explain why so many Steelers fans close to Philly (of course considering their many Super Bowls), etc. I think the Irish, Italians and Jews have much more affinity for Philly. The Slavs seem to be all over the place, but I'm already drinking man.

GO BIRDS

EDIT: Slavs