Haverhill’s Immigrants: At the Turn of the Century

Haverhill’s immigrants–they came for the jobs that were so plentiful in the booming shoe industry. They came to flee poverty, insecurity, and massacres. They came because their relatives had come before them, or because they would find old neighbors in this new place. Haverhill, Massachusetts, in the early twentieth century was a magnet for newcomers. They came from such diverse and faraway places as Asia Minor and Eastern Europe. They were Poles and Lithuanians, Greeks and Armenians, and Italians and French-Canadians. They joined the Yankees and Irish who had previously immigrated to the city. The result was a wonderful mix of customs, languages, religions, and names. The images in this book are family treasures. They have been lovingly taken down from places of honor on living room walls. They have come from boxes of family photographs, carefully preserved for future generations. Some photographs traveled with the immigrants from their homes far away. In all, this book offers a loving glimpse of some of the many people who helped to shape modern Haverhill.