The Silent Generation: 1925-1945

By Bob Henger and Jan Henger

Bob Henger a retired hospital administrator lives
with his wife in Birmingham, Alabama. Th ey
are the parents of two adult married children
and blessed with four grandchildren, all living
in Birmingham. He attended undergraduate
school at Indiana University in Pennsylvania and
completed graduate degrees at Indiana and the
University of Pittsburgh. His background also
includes education and teaching in the public
schools in New York and Penna. He has also
worked as a counselor and clinical psychologist.
His fi rst and last book is primarily written for his
children, grandchildren and family members.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477204726

Bob Henger

Bob Henger a retired hospital administrator lives with his wife in Birmingham, Alabama. They are the parents of two adult married children and blessed with four grandchildren, all living in Birmingham. He attended undergraduate school at Indiana University in Pennsylvania and completed graduate degrees at Indiana and the University of Pittsburgh. His background also includes education and teaching in the public schools in New York and Penna. He has also worked as a counselor and clinical psychologist. His first and last book is primarily written for his children, grandchildren and family members.

Book preview

© 2012 Bob and Jan Henger. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 6/15/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-0471-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-0470-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-0472-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012908124

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

Section I

The Silent Generation

Hometown Hertiage… The People And History Of Johnstown

Family Heritage: The Henger Ancestry

Bob Henger, Sr.

Louis And Katherine Crelli… The Immigrant Generation

The Crelli Children….The G.I. Generation

The Greatest Generation

Section Ii

Pre- Adulthood (Childhood And Adolescence) Age 0-17

The Effects Of The Depression, New Deal And War Years On Children

The War Years 1941-1945

The Post War-Years 1946-1950’S

Gautier Street In The 1940’S

A Bygone Service Era

St. Joseph Grade School 1947-1955

The Gang And Play Years — 1948-1956

Entertainment For Youth In The 1930’S, 40’S, 50’S

Housing In The Post War Years And The G.I. Projects

Transportation And Cars

High School And Teenage Years –1955-1959

The Henger Work Ethic

The College Years 1959 – 1963

Section Iii

Early Adulthood- Age 22 To 35

Marriage And Parenting In The Silent Generation

Rage And Revolutionary Peroid 1964-1975

Vietnam War 1965-1975

Lessons Learned From Vietnam

The Civil Rights Movement In The 1960’S

The Space Program 1961-1969

Public School Teacher 1963-1966

The Struggling Years 1968-1971

Harmarville And Cambridge St. 1972-1988

Mangement At Harmarville

The Post- Vietnam Era And The Following Decade 1976-1989

Section Iv

Middle Adulthood Ages 40 - 60

Hillside Hospital 1988-89

The 1990’S – The Last Decade In The 20Th Century

Lakeshore Hospital And Relife Inc. 1990-1994

Carraway Nothwest Medical Center And Winfield 1995-2004

Living In Winfield, Alabama 1995-2004

The New Millennium

Section V

Late Adulthood Age 60 To 85

Retirement Years – 2004 To The Present

Grandparenting In The 21St Century

The Class Of 1959: A Case Study Of The Silents

Changing Of America And Americans’ In Five Generations

Faith, Christanity And Catholicism

In The End

Bibliography

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To Mark Twain words were a compulsion with him and not just any words. He replied, The difference between the almost right word is really a large matter. It’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. I am deeply grateful to those who helped me with the right words; who were generous with their time, expertise, encouragement, and who helped to recall the memories. I particularly wish to thank my wife Jan for her patience, encouragement, recall, proof reading and typing skills. I share this authorship with her since our love and lives have been so inter-twined in oneness. I am also grateful to my son, Rob for his wizardry with the computer in assisting me; and to my brother Gary who read the manuscript and offered embellishments to the content. Thanks also to my aunt Elva Dresner, the only remaining relative from the Greatest Generation that revised and offered many family memories and stories. Special thanks are due to Justin Antonini, a high school classmate, English teacher and principal; and Yvonne Barker, my former executive assistant, for reading the proof and for their valuable suggestions to the finalizing of the book. Finally, to our children Rob and McCall, and grandchildren Sophia, Corey, Nick and D.R. who contributed to this book with their love and lives, I give my dearest thanks.

PREFACE

I am not sure what motivates or inspires an author to work; but ever since I retired four years ago, I have had this internal urge to write, much like the subtle messages you receive from God in prayer; or the self-improved directives that come from the subconscious to the conscious level of thought. A quite, persistent, inner voice is there saying, are you making the best use of your time in retirement? My inclination is to write about the generation I was born into, the town I came from, past and present generations, and what I remember growing up in the 1940’s and 50’s.

This book is written for my family and any future generations that wish to uncover their roots. It’s also written for comradeship of those interested in the Silent Generation and forgotten times and ancestors. It also has value from a historical viewpoint from the turn of the 20th century to the present day and its impact on the Silent Generation. It traces the history of my life and how I got to be where I am.

The years prompt all kinds of pondering, to spend several years to recall and record a lifetime that bears the joys and battle scars of living in the 20th century. This is a journey in time, over nearly six decades, and five generations to revisit the memories and images in my mind of the simpler, more stable and predictable times, living in a steel mill town in Western Pennsylvania.

The mental search that informs this book is to recall the past in detail, at a time, when my memory and mental sharpness of thought is at its lowest ebb. To age is to forget. Another problem, I experienced in writing about generations past, is that by the time you have the time and interest to record your family history, there are no family historians left. I don’t think this problem is unique to me; it’s only when you become aware of your own mortality that the desire to record your past peaks.

It’s also remarkable how your mind erases the memories of darker times, and makes everything better and brighter than it actually lived out. Memory has a way of protecting us from the bad times like a thickening fog in the brain. At the same time, I realize one cannot go back to the past; but, I felt compelled to write about my generation, foremost. Those born between 1925-1945, that generation of Americans that I initially labeled the lost or forgotten generation; but later discovered a term had already been coined for us, The Silent Generation. Perhaps, we are called the Silent ones; because, we are lost between the two most prominent generations in American history, The Greatest Generation, (WW II Generation) and the Baby Boomers.

To write this text is to preserve these times and words for my children and grandchildren. Alfred Crosby is credited with saying, It is always easy for those living in the present to feel superior to those that lived in the past. I don’t want my children and grandchildren to think they are living in a superior time. They need to know, their generation is a product of past generations. Their advantage is they live in a more advanced time due to their parents’ and grandparents’ hard work, sacrifices, achievements and values. They are beneficiaries, and I want to impart to them a sense of history about their ancestry and the repeated death and resurrection of the home town their parents and grandparents originated from.

In my lifetime, many of us have undergone a profound paradigm shift. We gradually replaced our internal memory with external technology. We have moved from trying to remember everything to remembering awfully little. In my productive time, there were no Blackberries, iPods, video cell phones, laptops, or Google to preserve the present, instantly. The only methods available beyond our own memory were written words, recordings, photography and home movies.

People will always remember things that are important to them. What I am trying to remember and record are the times and events that pass through our brains that don’t need to be remembered any longer than the conscious moment we experience them. The ordinary of life is what I want to record, unlike the image of President Kennedy being gunned down in Dallas that never fades away. It’s not just like running through days and years, flipping through a rolodex, to unscramble your brain through seventy years of cobwebs.

Everyone has a memory for something, and some will try to hold onto the past; that’s not my purpose. This effort is not to be a semblance of remembrances, nor do I want to be a wooly mammoth in the 21st Century, not so drawn to the past that I should beep like a truck in reverse. I simply don’t want to forget or leave the past behind. I just hate to lose it all together. I know for certain, nothing will ever be the same. It has also been said about the 20th Century that never before in our history have changes come so rapidly, where roots are lost and traditions abruptly terminated. Leaving our traditions behind causes a decline of living in the present - a contemporary life. It’s about family and friends and circumstances that helped shape your life and values. It isn’t just about where you lived. It’s about who you are, and how a town and people established your roots and captured the essence of living life. The insights, lessons and values gained over a life time. What I have sought to convey is the reality of living a contemporary life as a member of the Silent Generation in our time period. I resolved to look inside my generation and retrace as many of the important twists and turns of the times we lived; a self defining exercise in the most formative steps that led to make us who we are. My primary goal is to leave with my generation justified and to connect the dots through five generations of family, tying this human heritage together with a Herculean knot.

What to write never presents much of a problem if you follow the one golden rule of accomplished writers: write about something that you know about and listen to yourself think. Nothing amplifies the opportunity to hear myself think than my morning walk in silence and prayer. My mind seems to be refreshed from a night’s rest and races through memories of times and people, contributing to the accomplishment of this task. It’s the most stimulating and creative time of the day, and I’ve learned that if I don’t capture these fleeting ideas, and forgotten memories; they quickly disappear back into my subconscious. So, I’ve come to carry a small notebook and pen with me on my morning walks, to jot down a few words or notes that remind me to write later in more depth. The memories have so many years of living alone inside my mind, it surprises me what I am able to bring out of the darkness, to relive again at my conscious level. The only concern I have now is the obsession and the willing amount of time and energy I delight in this project. How much time do you want to spend in the present thinking about the past, which is my dilemma?

So, I set aside this mental work for weeks at a time to refresh myself in the present. Then, I am drawn back, knowing in the end the only real thing we can leave our loved ones are precious values and memories of our life’s journey. Foremost, I don’t want my life to be lost to my grandchildren, and I do not want them to discover on their own what’s new is old again. I don’t want to get soggy with nostalgia either. I simply want their future to benefit from the more distant past. After a lifetime the experiences gained through the years can be a resource to share with others.

INTRODUCTION

A new generation of Americans arrive every twenty years or so. Every time it does subsequent generations struggle to understand the behavior of the present generation, and will often disparage younger generations. The use of demographics tend to be used prospectively and easily turned into statistics of exaggeration; but aggregate research data does help to define a given generation and to draw a clearer picture of how they differ. Every generation is shaped by unique forces that are part of what makes every generation original, aside from their place in time. In a single generation there are events and times that are so differential and uncommon to the segments of other generations. Each generation of Americans is born into a social environment with distinct values, such as marriage, family and children. These domestic values shape how each generation is reared and the residuals that remain throughout adulthood. The values contribute strongly to the distinctive life cycle attitudes and behavior of each generation in areas of politics, economics, occupations, education, social interactions, entertainment, and sex roles. A generation more liberal or conservative, more female than male, more secular or religious, poor or rich, hard times or soft; this is the content that makes the journey for each generation.

Also, significant events and the greatest of leaders can play a major role in how a generation is poised to act. Wars, diseases, Lincoln and Darwin’s genius, industrialism, revolutions, King’s civil rights movement, inventions, governments, No Child Left Behind and the Great Depression, manifests itself in a generation’s behavior and achievements.

My goal is to reconstruct the flow of my generation’s life cycle against a backdrop of specific events, relationships, achievements, failures, values and aspirations that are the measure of life. The life course of the Silent Generation is what I intend to uncover and understand.

As every generation is different and distinctive from those that proceed and follow it, so are the seasons or stages within a generation’s life cycle. The developmental process is not a simple, continuous and unchanging flow. The seasons of life are no different than the seasons of the year. Each has its own time and shape and is definable. Each has its necessary place in our lives. No season is better or more important than another; each contributes its special place and character to the whole of life. Therefore, I’ve chosen to profile the Silent Generation’s life cycle in four specific time periods:

Pre -Adult - birth to 21 years

Early Adulthood - 22-35 years

Mid -life Adulthood - 36-59 years

Late Adulthood - 60+

In childhood particularly, one must not only look at the generational phase itself; our heritage has a greater input in this stage of life than any of the others. The heritage factor relates to where you lived and your ancestry. Also important to note, this book is a microcosm of the Silent Generation, primarily through my life experiences growing up in a steel mill town in Western Pennsylvania in the 1940s and 50s.

I have also written extensively during the four time periods of my generation about the 13 men who occupied the oval office in Washington and the impact each of them had on the Silent Generation and other generations during and after they left office. The Presidency of the United States is unique, and everything a president does affect the American people.

The Silent Generation is my point of reference; but generations on both sides play a prominent role in our life cycle, since the Greatest Generation represents our parents and the Baby Boomers, our offspring. Perhaps less concentrated in our make-up and cultural heritage are the immigrant generations: our grandparents or great grandparents. Then, on the other end of life, two generations away, is our grandchildren; perhaps, more significant in our lives than grandchildren of previous generations. We may be the first generation of Americans to help raise our grandchildren due to two working parents or due to the high divorce rate in the Baby Boomer Generation.

Another concern in studying successive generations is the overlapping factor from one generation to another. There is at least a five year period, where generations overlap, and boundaries get as fuzzy as George W Bush’s math, at both ends of a generation. For example, the Greatest Generation ends in 1924 and the Silent Generation begins at 1925. One could rightly say, from 1925 through 1929, those born to the Silent Generation have more common experience with the Greatest Generation, than their own generation. Both served in WWII, and were children or teenagers, when they went through the Great Depression. On the other end of the Silent Generation, children born from 1940-45, never experienced the Great Depression, and are more identified with the Baby Boomers, since many born in those years served in the Vietnam War or protested the war, fought for the civil rights movement, or were part of the Woodstock experience.

Therefore, it is with a broad brush stroke that we define generational subjective characteristics, since it is difficult to distinguish, one generation from another in their overlapping periods. Although, each generation has its own set of circumstances and uniqueness in time and place; this book is written from exhaustible memories of the five generations that relate to my life line. The five generation titles and time periods used are generally acceptable in generational literature and research.

1830 -1900 Immigrant Generations

1901 -1924 Greatest Generation (70 million)

1925 -1945 Silent Generation (58 million)

1946 -1966 Baby Boomers (80 million)

1967 -1976 X-Generation (41 million)

SECTION I

THE SILENT GENERATION

The name Silent Generation, was coined in the November 5, 1951, cover story of TIME magazine referring to the current generation within the United States coming of age as young adults. The article characterized this young generation as conventional, fatalistic, disappointing, confused morals and grave, but desiring faith; and for women, conflicted, wanting both a career and family. The article stated: The most startling fact about the up and coming generation is its silence…youth is nowhere near the rostrum…it does not issue manifestoes, make speeches or carry protest posters…it should be called The Silent Generation.

The title gained further notice after William Manchester’s comment that this generation was withdrawn, cautious, unimaginative, indifferent, unadventurous and silent. The name, Silent Generation was used by Strauss and Howe in their book, Generations, as their designation for that generation of Americans born from 1925 through 1945. The generation has also been called The Post War Generation. Over 58 million Americans were born to the Silent Generation. No modern generation has so small a number and smaller reputation as does the Silent. At this point, the Silents are about 95% retired, and most have gone well into the background. Except for John McCain, in the 2008 Presidential Election, with his loss, there is little to no chance that a President of the United States will come from this generation of Americans, a distinction not shared by any other generation of Americans.

In his autobiography, John Updike, the deceased and prolific author, provided us with a personal insight into his generation. My generation, once called Silent was in a considerable fraction of its white majority, a fortunate one, he wrote, too young to be warriors, too old to be rebels.

Contrary to the above connotation of silence, the word silent does not indicate a mere void or absence of noise. It is not something strictly negative, silence is more than that; silence involves a calm stillness in the interior, thus making the person receptive to the soul.

Many significant and insightful activities transpire and materialize in very quiet and inconspicuous ways. Nature itself presents us with countless moments of the dynamism of silence: a beautiful sunset, the stillness and tranquility of a lake at daybreak, the gentle breeze passing through a field of wild flowers. These amazing manifestations of nature’s beauty occur in quiet stillness.

Silence is also the fertile ground for growth in the interior life. Religious orders make it part of their daily schedule to observe silence. One of the finest features of saintly life is called the Grand Silence. Grand Silence was the time of day in monastic life for solitude and quiet. Without it, it is impossible to know God. This silence meant no calling attention to self or life’s problems. To withdraw in this way provides a place of quiet for the mind and psyche that allows for personal well-being, and finding ones inner self in silence and solitude. It builds an internal strength of the mind that allows one to endure all life’s demands and disturbances. Today’s endless news, business, noise and crowds have conditioned people to almost fear silence and solitude.

In a modern age of cell phones, iPods, cable television and the Internet, we are constantly bombarded by an endless supply of communication and commentary. We even answer calls in the grocery store, in the car, and to no embarrassment in church. We make ourselves available to anyone every moment of the day. The fact that anyone can say anything does not mean that anything anyone says is worth hearing. Is this progress? Is the computer generation superior to the Silent, the fact that they can e-mail or text a message instantly? As a member of the Silent Generation, I still prefer to communicate my greetings and messages by phone or letter form. Most e-mails we receive are superficial or a nuisance; those that have substantive content I value like a good book or worthwhile conversation. In my judgment, we communicate more than ever before in this free country; but say less than ever before. Excessive communication technology doesn’t necessarily translate into insightfulness and a deeper interior life; on the contrary; it really is a challenge in the modern world to find respite from the constant stimulation and clamor. Even in the background of television commercials, there is a constant pounding or beating of annoying music or sound. We have become so conditioned to it, we don’t even notice it!

However, the term Silent Generation is not wholly inappropriate. While some members were outspoken activitists in the counter culture revolution of the 60’s, most were like the previous generation, quiet, industrious people who focused on getting things done and advancing their personal careers. Members of our generation were encouraged to conform to family and social norms and remain obedient and silent. Our generation being supposedly silent on political and social issues is pure and simple hypocrisy. We were the generation that lead the civil rights movement, fought an unpopular war and initiated the women’s liberation movement.

Who are these Silent members from one of the most overlooked and least understood generations from the 20th century? First of all, the generation is comparatively small in number, because people had fewer children in the 1930’s, in response to hard economic times and global insecurity.

In defense of the Silents, it’s usually in bad form and often misinformed, to weigh in on someone or a people when a work is still in progress. Ask Harry Truman! TIME Magazines’ featured article in 1951 may be somewhat accurate in calling the generation of that day conventional and unresponsive. What might you expect from a generation that was raised in a time period to be obedient, timid, scared, ignored and overly respectful and quiet around adult authority figures? It figures as adults we may lead conventional, quiet and non-activist lives.

In exploring and understanding our generation of Americans, we have not only inherited our parent’s physical character and human nature; but we were trained-up and influenced by their social and moral values, and their culture that some had resonances, intersections and parallels in our lives. I expect this is why the Silent Generation is more like our parents, the Greatest Generation, than our children, the Baby Boomers.

The defining moment for the Silents was their childhood, lived out in the shadows of the Great Depression and WWII; a generation that was born when America went back to back with two catastrophic events and periods. The 1930’s and 40’s, was called the age of American anxiety. To be born and raised during this period in American history, meant every day was difficult. The country, as well as every family, was preoccupied with its own survival. It was a cloudy day even when the sun was out. Children born at that time may not have been considered a gift from God; but a burden, another mouth to feed around the family table. If abortion clinics were as available then as today, and the moral values the same, half of our generation would have been aborted. What mother wanted a child she couldn’t feed and clothe, or to be with a child while her husband was at war with a strong possibility her child would be fatherless? The point is, how much love, attention and security was given to this generation during the poverty years of the Depression and war? It was not only economic poverty they suffered; but also emotional poverty during the most formative years of their lives.

Dr. Abraham Maslow, a 20th Century psychologist, proposed a theory of human motivation that is based on a hierarchy of needs and priorities. The most basic are those physiological needs such as food, clothing and shelter at the base of the pyramid. As these needs are fulfilled, the satisfied man moves up to the higher level needs, security and belonging. Then love and self esteem, moving to the highest level of human achievement; that is, self-actualization, or making real your true potential. If these needs are not met at any level, the individual will persevere at that level. Some members of the Silent Generation never moved to the higher levels of human achievement. They may have been stuck as children at the first level of physical survival needs during the Depression. So it should not surprise any of us that we were dealt by the fate of our time, a developmental blow that rendered us less secure, less risk-taking, and certainly, less self-centered and egocentric than generations to follow. That doesn’t necessarily add up to a life of disappointment or lack of productivity. In some respects, our generation is a group of conservative overachievers, considering the background we came from, raised in economic and emotional poverty and squeezed between the two most notable generations of Americans.

The Associate Editor of TIME Magazine wrote a follow-up article about the Silent Generation: The Silent Generation revisited in 1970. He concludes, their major contribution was to humanize their world, and now they want to help ensure a safe world for their grandchildren. Because the Silents had to look after their own survival and worry about their parents, they became empathizers, mediators, conciliators, preferring cerebral approaches to problem solving over confrontations. Therefore, we have also been called the Bridge generation.

Our early childhood experiences produced human traits and a citizenry of Americans that believed in harmonizing with past traditions and values, a population that promoted teamwork, loyalty and valued employees in the workplace. A generation that preserved its marriages and the family unit, a people of steady and reliable source. Could it be that we were the generation that former President Nixon referred to as the silent majority?

The political scientist of our day, Friedrich Nietzsche, is quoted as saying, That, which does not kill me, makes me stronger. This is our self-identity as a generation, somewhat quieter, but a disciplined, industrious population that brought about Civil Rights (Martin Luther King himself, a member of the Silents), unparalleled national wealth in the arts and commerce, and unimaginable advances in science and computer technology

The Silent Generation can be divided into three subgroups: the 20 million born in the Roaring Twenties (1925-29); 22 million born during the Great Depression (1930-39); the last of our generation, 16 million born during the war years (1940-45). Over one-third of our generation was born in the mid to late 1920’s. These were the individuals that were children and teenagers during the Depression, but also old enough to have served in WWII. In this regard, their life experiences were more like the former generation than their own. Those born throughout the 1930’s were children of the Depression, but too young to be engaged in the war. The 16 million Americans born during the war years never experienced the Depression, nor served in the war. Their uniqueness was being infants and children during the war years when fathers were overseas engaged in war and mothers held down the home front.

My emphasis on the Silent Generation’s life cycle will be on their childhood and adolescent period in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s. This is the time period I want to push forward for future generations of my family to ingest.

HOMETOWN HERTIAGE…

THE PEOPLE AND HISTORY OF

JOHNSTOWN

The fish is in the water and the water is in the fish. No better said than Arthur Miller in his plays and essays, interpreting self and the world we live in … Society is inside of man and man is inside society and you cannot even create a truthful psychological entity on stage until you understand his social relations and their power to make him what he is, and to prevent him from being what he is not.

Johnstown’s history of great prosperity and growth, and times of disaster and human struggle, has more than influenced and shaped our human content. Our rich heritage comes from both our hometown and foreign ancestors, meaning the past itself. It is impossible to separate the two, for they are so intertwined within the five generations of my life cycle.

Nowhere is the bond between team and town as tight as in Pittsburgh. Just like the Pittsburgh Steelers transient the image of the steel mill city into their reputation as a tough, hardnosed, intimidating football team, Johnstowners have similar traits of hardworking, blue collar people with a determined spirit to rise above losses and tragedies, and to win the victory. It’s the same intrinsic maturation that occurs in a devoted Christian, their lives and behavior become more like Christ, until they are one with Him, inseparable and undistinguishable. Whoever is joined in the Lord becomes one Spirit in Him. ….you are not your own, but your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:13-17)

My wife has a way of characterizing me in less flattering terms, when I don’t rise to the occasion in certain social situations. She will say, You can take the boy out of Johnstown, but you can’t take Johnstown out of the boy. This is so true of Johnstowners. They are proud of their heritage and hometown, but are both handicapped and advantaged by it. These forms of heritage are complex, the sense of the past that comes down to us, or is generated for us and by us. The difficult times our town and ancestors experienced express our heritage with considerable strength and depth, particularly the three floods that enriched the human and cultural heritage that would distinguish Johnstowners at the end of the 19th Century and throughout the 20th Century.

Johnstown is located in the Laurel Highlands portion of the Allegheny Mountains in Southwestern Pennsylvania, 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The city lies at the bottom of a bowl in a flood plain, where three river valleys form mountainous terrain that bounds the city on all sides.

Johnstown’s history can be traced by archeological evidence dating back some 1,000 years. However, the prehistoric Native American Indian left us no written history. The first recordings are by a Frenchman, James Latort, a renowned trapper and Indian trader, who ventured down the Little Conemaugh River, then known as the Little Otter by the Delaware Indians. Latort’s daily logs in 1731 record that near the junction of the Little Otter and the Sunnehanna River, now called the Stony Creek, he traded with Indians, who had a village at the point of the rivers. There lived twenty Indian families with about sixty braves. This Delaware tribe called their village, Conemaugh Old Town. The exact location of the village has never been determined, but Indian burial grounds were found near the intersection of present day, Vine and Levengood Streets in downtown Johnstown.

The Delaware Indians were one of the most powerful of all Algonquian tribes. The Algonquians formed small tribes in single villages and were not a highly organized nation. It was William Penn that made his famous Walking Purchase treaty of peace in 1686, when he founded Pennsylvania. Under the treaty, the Delaware Indians agreed to cede land between the Delaware and Lehigh Rivers in eastern Pennsylvania as far as a man could walk going and returning in three days.

The government treaty with the Delaware Indians in 1768 opened up the Laurel Highlands territory to white settlers that began to arrive in the three river valleys formed by the little Conemaugh, the Stony Creek and Conemaugh Rivers. During the pre-industrial era in the early 1800’s, ninety percent of the people were farmers, who lived on their own resources. There were few economic links to other places. The people built their homes from the area forests; tools were made by the local blacksmith; and gristmills ground their flour. These small frontier towns were tied together by interdependency upon each other.

Johnstown’s founder and developer was an immigrant farmer from Switzerland, Joseph Schantz. His last name was later anglicized to Johns, Joseph Johns. Initially, he farmed in Eastern Pennsylvania before moving to Somerset County in 1784 and began farming on the flood plain at the confluence of the Stony Creek and Little Conemaugh Rivers. In 1800, he laid out the town that he called Conemaugh, after the Indian village that once occupied that site. Johns was an early entrepreneur hoping to profit from the sale of lots and other trade opportunities that would result from establishing a town. Johnstown was located in the northeastern section of Somerset County that was to be parceled off in 1804 to form a new county, Cambria. Johns anticipated years earlier that the new county was to occur and was positioning his town to become the county seat. But his plans and influence were not sufficient, for the town of Ebensburg was designated by state government to become the county seat because of its closer proximity to the frontier highway moving east to west. Johns, disappointed with his failure, moved in 1807 to a farm near Davidsville in Somerset County, where he died eight years later.

Johnstown changed hands several times, and by 1820, the town had about 200 settlers. The first group in Johnstown’s ethnic background was southern Germans, who joined the Native Americans in the valley in the early 1830’s during the canal era. But the real waves of German immigrates came in the 1840’s and 1850’s. Political unrest and revolutions in Germany made people leave their country looking for higher wages and better working conditions, whereby they could bring their industrial knowledge to the United States. Many came to Johnstown, attracted by industrial jobs. They were looked upon with great favor by the steel companies because they were industrious, hard working people.

In 1831, the town was officially incorporated and in 1834 the citizens honored its founder by changing the name from Conemaugh to Johnstown. Although Johnstown had lost out as the county seat because of its distant location from the main road, water transportation proved to be a different matter in Johnstown’s development. In the frontier era, river travel was the easiest way to explore and move cargo. The roads were primitive and loosely scattered about connecting frontier towns with the larger cities of commerce. This access to river transportation in Johnstown opened a bonanza of growth and prosperity when in 1828 the town was identified as one of the most strategic locations on the statewide proposed, Main Line Canal, connecting Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

In 1829, the Pennsylvania legislature granted $300,000 to fund the canal. Within five years, the canal in Johnstown was completed and excavation began for a canal basin to provide docking and access to warehouses. The canal basin served as the hub for the east-west trade route. It was constructed in a crescent shape between Long and Goose Island in an old channel of the Little Conemaugh River.

With Johnstown established as the beginning of the western length of the canal, and Hollidaysburg, the beginning of the eastern length, the task of connecting the two towns proved an enormous technological challenge since the Allegheny Mountains of Western Pennsylvania separated the two towns. It seemed impossible to build a navigable route across these mountains, but engineers devised a unique system of inclines and railroad lines that would ascend and descend canal boats over 37 miles of summit. The Allegheny Portage Railroad, one of the engineering wonders of the age when finished, reduced the travel time across the state from three weeks to four days, and changed Johnstown from a pioneer town to a town of importance and economic growth. Until the 1830’s, Johnstown was largely a German immigrant town, but the impact of the canal was significant in changing the character of the town. Many of the Germans became merchants, and the later arrivals were the skilled laborers and bosses in the steel mill.

The Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the mid-18th Century. The world demand for imported products began a process of inventions and expansion that produced steam engines, canals and railroads to get goods to market. Towns grew rapidly, but housing and working conditions were often very poor, and many people suffered from hunger, disease, or accidents at work. The English speaking countries and Europe were in turmoil. The people’s demands for change were either ignored or crushed. Revolutions and protests seemed the only way forward, while old governments and old ideas were rejected for a new age of industrialism and democracy that was dawning across the Atlantic.

The Irish were the first English speaking group who came to America and populated Johnstown to help build the canal system and the Portage Railroad. The Irish came because of economic reasons. One third of the Irish population was dependent upon the potato harvest for income. In 1845, the complete harvest was destroyed by drought.

The Welsh and Scottish people started to populate the valley town as men came to work in coal mining and iron making. These foreigners, along with the many passengers and cargo passing through the canal, provided Johnstown with the means and aspirations for an improved lifestyle. Production of canal boats and railroad cars became the first important local industries. The rapidly growing population and travelers generated trade and business activities; hotels, factories, warehouses, brewers, butchers, carpenters, cabinetmakers, tailors, dentists and physicians all benefited in this new socio-economic environment. During the Johnstown canal era and by 1840, the population of nearly 1,000 citizens was three times greater than the previous period.

Unfortunately, within 20 years of the completion of the Canal and Portage Railroad, they became virtually obsolete. The very system that brought economic development to Johnstown became a victim of technological advancement in the late 1840’s. In 1846, the State of Pennsylvania initiated the Pennsylvania Railroad, intending it to replace the canal system since technological innovation made it possible to scale the Allegheny Mountains by rail. The Pennsylvania Railroad was completed in 1854, and by 1863 the canal and incline plane were no longer in use. However, for the better part of twenty years this unique canal transportation system brought growth and prosperity to Johnstown; now the expansion of the railroad network west once again allowed Johnstown to take another unparalleled leap into history.

The new railroad lines in Johnstown followed the same path worn by the Conemaugh River and the former canal, tracking west through the renowned and scenic Conemaugh Gap. The mainline passing through Johnstown brought new life to the city and surrounding towns. Altoona, the sister town, benefited more than any other place from the Pennsylvania Railroad; but Johnstown also gained tremendously from the railroad, for with the railroad came the iron and steel industry. Between 1830 and 1865, during the canal and railroad eras, Johnstown moved through an awkward adolescence culturally, socially and economically; gradually gaining an independent sense of self and importance during the Industrial Age.

Johnstown and the surrounding small towns also had vast mineral wealth, rich deposits of coal, iron ore, limestone and fire clay. They were able to turn these natural resources into iron rails and coal cars for the railroad. Likewise, the railroad network ensured a way to transport tons of iron and steel products to market on the east coast, used in buildings, warships and bridges.

At least one local businessman saw the opportunity in the coming of the railroad. George S. King owned several old fashioned charcoal furnaces which were built by pioneer iron workers in the area. He was convinced that he and his partner should turn their resources into making iron rails for the railroad. After soliciting investors, King had the necessary capital to form the Cambria Iron Company in 1852, the same year the railroad connection was completed through Johnstown. The combination of railroad, iron works and coal, and their interdependency, were a powerful force in Johnstown’s future. King’s Cambria Iron Company stood in Millville beside the railroad and the canal. The early iron manufacturers foresaw a future for the industry, and the new railroad would enable them to find ready markets for their products. In 1853, the construction of four coke furnaces was commenced. Johnstown was then a village of 1300 inhabitants.

The new furnaces in Johnstown labored under a failing company in those early difficult years. The company was unable to continue in business and suspended operations in 1854. Had it not been for the financial credit and protecting the interests of a few citizens of Philadelphia, the Johnstown plant would never have survived. Among its heaviest creditors in Philadelphia were Oliver Martin and Martin, Morrell & Co. More money was subscribed; but the fledging Iron Company failed again in 1855. D.J. Morrell, however, formed a new company with new creditors in 1856. Morrell’s management and men with renewed energy, determination, reorganization, and more fully equipped came through. Morrell was progressive and inventive and utilized the valley’s natural resources with the water power of the rivers like no one before him. The assembly lines of the steel mill industry were the rivers. Steel mills developed along rivers with the principal of the conveyor belt. Iron making was farther up river. Iron ingots came downstream as rolled billets, and the downriver plants rolled the billets into shipped products like flats, rounds and wire. Under Morrell’s leadership, one year later, the furnaces and rolling mills started shaping the future of Johnstown. By the beginning of the Civil War, the Cambria Iron Works was the largest iron producer in the nation and operated successfully throughout the Civil War years.

During the twenty year period prior to the Civil War, iron production was dominating along the river walls in Johnstown and the mills in other towns and cities in Western Pennsylvania where coal and ore deposits had been discovered. Shortly after the war, technological advances in steel production brought the price of steel railroad rails down to the point that Cambria Iron Works and other Pennsylvania mills began to displace iron rails in the national market. Cambria Iron had been a major innovator of the rolling railroad rails for over twenty years. A significant iron and steel producer since the early 1860’s, it had pioneered the commercial production of rolled steel railroad rails in 1871.

In the Post-Civil War years, a new era in manufacturing of iron and steel was dawning in America. In the 1860’s, the new iron factories were attracting immigrants from all over Europe. While living and working conditions in Europe during the nineteenth century worsened for millions of its people, the United States entered a period of incredible prosperity. Millions of Europeans, who suffered through the industrial revolution, economic depression, famines and over population, envisioned America as a land of unbounded opportunity. European governments further helped to stimulate this enormous migration to America as a solution to their demographic surplus and social unrest. Between 1815 and 1860, five million immigrants settled permanently in the United States, mainly English, Irish, German, Scandinavian and others from Northwestern Europe. From 1865 to 1890, ten million more immigrants migrated to America, again mainly from Northeastern Europe. From 1890 to 1914, fifteen million immigrants considered degraded peasantry, shipped off to America from places in Southeastern Europe, such as Austria, Hungary, Russia, Italy, Turkey, Lithuania, Romania and Greece.

The American economy needed both unskilled and skilled workers throughout much of the nineteenth century. But after the 1880’s, the demand was almost exclusively for unskilled workers to fill the growing number of factory and manufacturing jobs. Although many immigrants did migrate to rural America, the majority settled in cities and manufacturing centers like Johnstown, where there was favorable growth, opportunity and better wages.

As many as five thousand people passed through the gates of Ellis Island in a single day. From the beginning, the policy of the United States was to welcome and encourage immigration without qualification or discrimination. Our Nation viewed immigration as a source of both strength and wealth, just like a rising tide lifts all boats. The early arrivals in the United States, from 1830-1850, were accepted and integrated into jobs and society because many were from English speaking countries and progressive nations like Germany and Scandinavia. Thereafter, an increasingly large number of poor and uneducated, a peasantry of peoples, created for the first time in this country distinct social classes. The Southeastern European immigrants were necessary in order to supply the country with a laboring class who were able and willing to perform the lowest kind of work required in building our industrial base. However, many were thought inferior and were particular targets of discrimination. So much so, that the Immigration Restriction League was formed to argue against the proposed restrictions opposing these undesirables.

By the end of the Civil War, Johnstown would be the most populated, diverse city in the county with a solid political and economic base, capitalizing on the rail line connecting it to the rest of the Nation. By the mid 1870’s, the Cambria Iron Company had become one of the largest iron works in America. This was a period of startling growth. The population increased exponentially; a constant stream of immigrant settlers, pushing the town technologically forward into the modern industrial age of iron and steel.

Johnstown was the Nation’s hotbed of experimentation and innovation in the production of iron and steel works. In 1876, as a means of diversifying, Cambria Iron Company formed a partnership with a steel products company in New Jersey, owned by the Gautier family. In the end, the partnership never seemed to work well and was dissolved within three years. Cambria Iron Works took over the operation and the Gautier Division became a department within the corporation, specializing in barbed wire fencing and other agricultural products and equipment. In the late 1870’s, the Cambria Iron Works had retooled its plants completely to produce steel rails for what seemed to be an endless demand for the expanding railroad industry.

Culturally, the town was slowly developing with a community of middle class steelworkers and a supportive cast of merchants and professionals. This was a time of enhanced community self consciousness and heightened awareness of Johnstown’s importance in the industrial age.

Between 1870 and 1920, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, thousands of immigrants settled in Johnstown neighborhoods, established by immigrants who came before them. Most peasant immigrants were predominately males. They had no industrial skills, nor the ability to speak English. Without money or possessions, they were taken into the local industry as much needed common laborers, with the vast majority working in the steel mills and about 15% laboring in local coal mines. Mining was an integral part of the steel making process and many small coal mining towns developed around the Johnstown area

The South had their slaves on plantations and the North had coal mine company towns. The chief difference between the slave and a free immigrant mine laborer in the North lay outside the realm of food, clothing, shelter and work. The difference was that the slave was ordered to do his work, had his movements restricted, his every act was watched, he could be punished or might be sold. Whereas, the immigrant was not physically chained to his place of employment; he was mentally chained. That’s how a ten-pound stake can hold down a two-ton elephant. The mind-set that they were made to feel inferior and ignorant by a superior society, as well as, their own mind set from years of deprivation in the old country; chained them to a life style and self image of limits and hard manual labor throughout their lifetime.

The coal company owned the houses, and rent was taken from the miner’s paycheck. There was a company store, and his job depended on his patronage. Most miners not only owed their souls to God, but also to the company store. They were uneducated and impoverished in these isolated, small company towns, living in debt to the mine owners.

Most homes had electricity, most likely because the mines needed electricity. Hand pump wells were in back yards, and miners had to bucket water into the home. Coal burning stoves were used for cooking, baking, heating water and heating an iron to press clothing. Outhouse toilets were placed at the end of the backyard, along with a coal and wood storage shed. There were no refrigerators; even the upper class used ice boxes. Most coal mining towns were divided into two sections, the lower town where the immigrant miners and their families lived in rows of modest houses; and the upper town where the company store, the school, churches, the doctor’s family and mining supervisors lived.

Many ethnic Americans benefited from the industrialization of America, and many suffered because of it. Men might earn as little as two dollars a day, unable to afford decent housing. Workers crowded into shanty towns, hunky towns, or doubled up in small hotels or boarding houses. Sanitation was rudimentary and work conditions unhealthy and so dangerous that thousands died of diseases or work accidents.

Cambria Iron Company expected long hours from its workers, including back to back shifts. Wages were low for some of the most back breaking and dangerous work. Workers understood that they could be replaced for insubordination, accidents or careless work behavior. The newcomers were called Hunkies, Dagos, Polacks, Hebes, Slavis, Wops, Krauts, Miks or simply Foreigners by the established American inhabitants of the city. The workers tried to improve their lot by organizing trade unions, but conflict between workers and mill and mine owners inevitably lead to violence. But those unskilled and under educated immigrants had a strong work ethic that allowed Johnstown to become one of the largest steel making centers in the United States, out producing better equipped and larger mills in Pittsburgh.

Immigrant neighborhoods were established in Kernville, Hornerstown, Prospect, Conemaugh Borough and Cambria City to preserve their culture, customs and language. They permanently transformed the social and ecological environment of Johnstown. The surge of immigrants reached its peak in the steel mill town in the pre WW I years. Cambria City, one of the oldest immigrant workers district, established in 1853, across from the Conemaugh River and the Cambria Iron Works, formed immigrant neighborhoods from Greek descent, Slovak, Croatian, Russian, Hungarian and Polish.

These Middle European settlers brought their skills and strong backs to the task of escaping poverty and building the steel mills, coal mines and coke ovens. These eager, hardworking laborers were as fired up to work as a Knute Rockne team. Getting even an unskilled job in the steel mills meant having a relative or member of one’s ethnic family in charge of a work gang. The work gangs were organized along ethnic lines, many of which were made up of fathers and sons. They worked to survive; the thought of failure or going under was embedded in their minds from their years of struggle in their former country. They found safety and security with their own kind and organized their own neighborhoods and churches. They formed branches of their national societies and lodges, published their own native language newspapers, organized their own competing sports clubs and leagues. Their lives were woven tightly within the confines of their own groups and social functions, and the older and larger ethnic groups made it possible to welcome newcomers. It was commonplace for these foreigners to send money to their families in the old country for passage over.

These ethnic groups were more than willing to do callous making work without complaint, and endure the poorest of working conditions for their children’s sake. It was their chance to rise above poverty and see their children live out the American Dream. These immigrants wanted their children to be educated and raised up beyond their parents’ social and economic conditions. Like the young black athlete today, who views sports as his way to escape the ghetto, the immigrant worker saw the mills or mines as an escape from his poverty. It was also their opportunity to send money back to their homeland as a sign of their success in the New World.

While the immigrants made up the largest population in Johnstown, their entrance into the political, social and economic life met with hostility and discrimination from the establishment in Johnstown. They were viewed as peasantry, unskilled, beaten men from beaten races, representing the worst failures from Europe. There was no encouragement or acceptance; they were given the lowest, most degrading and dangerous work in the mills and mines. They were so mistreated that many grew elephant skin to deal with the endless frustrations.

Minority immigrant populations, namely Jewish immigrants and African Americans faired no better coming to Johnstown. During the 1850’s, the first Jewish families came from regions in Germany as clothing merchants. The next two decades, the small Jewish community grew with newcomers. They opened small retail stores in Johnstown, and others were peddling and huckstering merchandise between nearby towns. While African Americans had come to Johnstown before 1840, the great black migration to the North occurred from 1910-1930.

As late as 1910, 80% of