This next excerpt is from The Hull House Maps and Papers, a book with a series of essays and statistics that describes how immigrants settled in Chicago. It illustrates where different immigrants lived in a small section of Chicago. As you read, use the highlighting tool () to highlight text that describes what life would be like living in this neighborhood.
Eighteen nations are thus represented in this small section of Chicago. They are more or less intermingled, but a decided tendency to drift into little colonies is apparent. The Italians are almost solidly packed into the front and rear tenements on Ewing and Polk Streets, especially between Halsted and Jefferson, and outnumber any single class in the district. The Russian and Polish Jews cluster about Polk and Twelfth Streets, on the edge of the "Ghetto," extending south beyond Twelfth. The Bohemians form the third great group and occupy the better streets toward the corner of Twelfth and Halsted, extending south and west beyond the limits of the map. The Irish, although pretty well sprinkled, are most numerous on Forquer Street, which is a shade better than Ewing or Polk. A few French pepper the western edge of the section, the poorer members of a large and well-to-do French colony, of which the nucleus is the French church near Vernon Park.
Only two colored people are found west of the river, while large numbers are wedged in Plymouth Place and Clark Street. The Italians, the Russian and Polish Jews, and the Bohemians lead in numbers and importance. The Irish control the polls; while the Germans, although they make up more than a third of Chicago's population, are not very numerous in this neighborhood; and the Scandinavians, who fill north-west Chicago, are a mere handful. Several Chinese in basement laundries, a dozen Arabians, about as many Greeks, a few Syrians, and seven Turks engaged in various occupations at the World's Fair, give a cosmopolitan flavor to the region but are comparatively inconsiderable in interest.
