The exhibit was prepared by Special collections assistant Shannon Phillips, a graduate student from Pittsburg, using artifacts, photographs, books, and other materials that pertain to the life experiences of the European immigrants who came to Southeast Kansas after the 1870s. The exhibit will be open to the public Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to noon and from 1-5 p.m. through the end of the year. 

The period from the 1870s through World War I was characterized by the arrival in America of extremely large numbers of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe.  Although primarily from poverty-stricken rural areas, most of them settled in the large cities of America. This urban settlement represented a dramatic and permanent change for them.

Occurring simultaneously with the arrival of millions of European immigrants in America, a small, obscure coal field in Cherokee and Crawford Counties in Southeast Kansas was rapidly developing over abundant and marketable bituminous deposits.  The rapid growth of the coal field was such that sizeable numbers of laborers were needed to work in the deep shaft mines and in the strip mines as well as in coal-related industries, primarily lead and zinc smelting.  Seeking workers, mining companies sent representatives to the coal fields in Illinois and Pennsylvania, as well as to the piers of New York, where European immigrants were disembarking from ships.  Jobs, they were assured, would be waiting if they came to the coal fields in Kansas. 

More than 50 distinct immigrant groups eventually settled in Southeast Kansas during the period from 1870 to 1920.  “The Immigrant Experience” reveals the life experiences of these arrivals from the perspectives of labor, education, recreation, and economics.
 
Kenneth R. "Ron" Womble
Director, News Services & Media Relations
Pittsburg State University

Office: 213 Russ Hall
Phone: 620-235-4124
Fax: 620-235-4125

For more information, please contact PSU Archivist Randy Roberts at reroberts@pittstate.edu, 620-235-4883.