Chicago Heritage: Asian Indians in Chicago

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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Chicago Heritage: Asian Indians in Chicago

The Early Years

Long before the Asian Indian population growth in the mid-1960s, some famous Indians visited and left their mark on Chicago. Some notable visitors included the great Hindu philosopher Swami Vivekananda and Bengali Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. After 1965, Indians arrived in large numbers and formed the first substantial Asian Indian population in Chicago. The selective nature of the 1965 immigration law gave initial preference to skilled professionals. But once established, these professionals sponsored their relatives and the community became much more diverse.

Family, Work, and Religion

During the 1980s and 90s, many Indian immigrants ventured beyond the institutions of their employers. They utilized their entrepreneurial energy, professional training, and global connections to establish international commercial and technical enterprises of their own.  

Chitra Ragavan joined John Calloway’s Chicago Tonight in 1984 and became the first Asian Indian on-air TV reporter in a major market. After 8 years at WTTW, she went on to become the first Asian Indian reporter on National Public Radio. (Courtesy of WTTW.)

When Asian Indians arrived in Chicago in the 1950s and 60s, they looked to their fellow Indian colleagues to fill the void caused by separation from their families. They gathered together to celebrate each other’s birthdays, religious events, and holiday festivities. International phone calls were prohibitively expensive, travel to India was out of the question, and long letters to and from home were read, re-read, and cherished.

Meena Pandey and Sanjiv Bhatia are greeted with an arati (devotional circling of wick and flame arranged on a platter) at the bride’s Burr Ridge home after their wedding in 1992. In a traditional combined family, the newlyweds move into the husband’s parents’ home, but in the U.S. most young couples live on their own. (Photo by Mukul Roy.)

Beginning in the 1960s and 70s, Hindus worshiped in homes under a broad Hindu identity. As their numbers grew in the following decades, they regrouped according to narrower preferences. The result is a proliferation of temples dedicated to different deities in the Hindu pantheon.

Water from holy rivers of India is poured on images as they are installed in a 48-day puja (worship service) during Kumbabhisekham or inauguration ceremonies for the Balaji temple in Aurora in 1985. (Photo by Mukul Roy.)

Tradition and Community

Classical music and dance performances, plays, independent art films, and exhibitions of visual art help strengthen traditions. They inspire new forms of expression that celebrate the vibrant and varied cultural life of Chicago’s Asian Indian community.   

Dancers of the Dilshad Academy perform Kathak at an India Tribune gala. Kathak, a glorious fusion of Hindu-Muslim arts from North India, is taught at area institutions including Kathak Nrityakala Kendra Academy in Elk Grove Village, established in memory of classical dancer Anila Sinha by Dr. Birendra Sinha. (Courtesy of India Tribune.)

The leading Indian political body in the city is the Indo-American Democratic Organization. Established in 1980, it has grown in influence by endorsing political candidates who seek the support of the Indian community, conducting voter registration drives, sending delegates to national political conventions, and teaming up with other ethnic groups to lobby on issues such as affirmative action, immigration, and discrimination.

At a reception hosted by Bell Telephone Company following the Naturalization Ceremony on July 26, 1966 at the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago, Surendra P. Shah (center), accompanied by his wife, Dorothie, was invited to say a few remarks on behalf of the 33 new citizens. (Courtesy of Dorothie Shah.)

Many Asian Indians who have prospered in the United States share their good fortune with others by volunteering and contributing generously to worthy causes. In addition to established mainstream institutions, which provide abundant avenues for service, a plethora of organizations addressing special needs and interests of immigrants has emerged as the population has grown. These organizations facilitate immigrant adjustment to America and American understanding of the distinctive heritage and customs of Asian Indians.

Indo-American Center (IAC) volunteers Lakshmi Menon, Indira Adusumilli, and Sushila Maker greet a visitor at the 1997 press conference inaugurating the City of Chicago Ethnic Neighborhood Tours. (Courtesy of Chicago Neighborhood Tours, Chicago Office of Tourism.)

To learn more about the Asian Indian community in Chicago, click here.

Chicago Heritage: German Chicago

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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Chicago Heritage: German Chicago

Who were the Donauschwaben? According to stlmag.com, they were a German ethnic group that were victims of ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia. Those who escaped found refuge in the United States after World War II. These German people lived in Chicago and other major American cities whom the American Aid Societies for the Needy and Displaced Persons of Central and Southeastern Europe tried to save after World War II.  

In the center of photograph, Josef Miller poses with friends in the uniform of the Serbian military, c. 1927. Hitler’s invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941 forced the Donauschwaben into a terrible position, their only choice being between Hitler and Stalin. (Photograph courtesy of Katherine Glasenhardt.)

A Humanitarian Crisis

The truth about Yugoslavian ethnic cleansing is what created the American Aid Societies for the Needy and Displaced Persons of Central and Southeastern Europe in the first place. Word had come to Chicago in late 1944 from Dr. Kaspar Muth, a senator in the Romanian legislature, and the word was bad. In Chicago; the Bronx; St. Louis; Milwaukee; Detroit; Cincinnati; Buffalo; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Mansfield, New Jersey; and Elizabeth, New Jersey, a long-standing community slowly emerged behind Nick Pesch and John Meiszner in the cause of humanitarian relief for the German refugees. This is nothing new among America’s Germans, as Melvin Holli proved when he brought the records of the German Aid Society, c. 1873–1896, to the Library of the University of Illinois at Chicago. People in America do “meet to talk about their needs,” and this participation in the political process includes the Donauschwaben.

Everett McKinley Dirksen, the newly-elect senator from Illinois, speaks to the Danube Swabians of Chicago at the Logan Square Masonic Temple on December 10, 1950 (Photograph courtesy of the American Aid Society.)

Ready to Work

In 1949, Nick Pesch finally went to Europe to make a “first-hand” report from the refugee camps for the American Aid Societies. As founder and leader, he was the logical choice to go. He shot a silent film of this journey that was transferred to video in 1998 in the studio archives of J. Fred MacDonald, Professor Emeritus of Northeastern Illinois University, who noted that the message of the film seemed to be quite simple. The Danube Swabians were ready to work. This would be in perfect accord with their long pioneering heritage and represents a legacy still alive in America.

Katherine Glasenhardt can be seen working in the Lake Villa summer kitchen in 1997. (Photograph courtesy of Raymond Lohne.)

Good Neighbors

Perhaps the material realities of a multi-ethnic empire persuaded the Donauschwaben not to be anti-semitic, or perhaps they took the fundamental lessons of Christianity more seriously, but over 250 years of peaceful co-existence among Serbs, Croats, Muslims, and Jews, to name but a few, is eloquent enough evidence of the truth. Until the arrival of Hitler and Stalin, the Donauschwaben were considered “good neighbors.”

The American Aid Society threw a farewell party for Prof. P. Josef Stefan, seated in rear next to Nick Pesch, who is at the edge of the framed picture. Stefan worked as Flüchtlingsseelsorger, or “refugee pastor,” in Salzburg, Austria, and had visited all the chapters of the American Aid Societies. (Photograph courtesy of Helen Meiszner.)

To learn more about the German community in Chicago, click here.

The Making of the Texas Republic

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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The Making of the Texas Republic

Remember the Alamo! Remember Gonzales? Well, maybe not. Texans sure do love their rich, shared history, and they especially love reminding non-Texans that their beloved state was once its own nation, the Republic of Texas. Every Texan worth his salt knows about the tragic Fall of the Alamo and the victorious Battle of San Jacinto. Here are some golden moments in the history of the Lone Star State that are just as important in decoding Texan DNA.

An image of the Gonzales Flag.
Gonzales Flag—“Come and Take It.” Image sourced from Historic Tales from the Texas Republic: A Glimpse of Texas Past, courtesy of Daniel Mayer, Wikimedia Commons.

Come and Take It

Modern Texas was once a far-flung Mexican colony, and from 1825 onward, the Mexican government allowed Anglo settlements in central Texas. Colonists were under constant treat of attack from local Native tribes, but all they got for protection was a small cannon. When General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna seized control of Mexico, Texan settlers grew unsatisfied with the dictator. Following the severe beating of a Gonzales resident by a Mexican soldier, public protests bubbled over. Fearing a general uprising, the Mexican garrison at San Antonio sent a detachment of soldiers to Gonzales to retrieve the cannon. The colonists declined to return it. When more soldiers returned, the Texans felt threatened and prepared to defend themselves. Attacking the Mexican soldiers, the Texas militia fired the small cannon and raised a homemade flag with the image of a cannon and a star painted in black above the words “Come and Take It.” After the fighting had concluded, angry colonists continued to gather in support of the revolutionary banner. Although only a minor skirmish, The Battle of Gonzales became a magnet for all Texans who opposed Santa Anna. The Texas Revolution had begun.

An image of a chapel in Goliad, Texas, where a crushing defeat came to the Texas Republic.
The chapel at Presidio La Bahia, Goliad, Texas. Image sourced from Historic Tales from the Texas Republic: A Glimpse of Texas Past, courtesy of Travis Witt, Wikimedia Commons.

Goliad

Santa Anna’s army took no prisoners at the Alamo. Sam Houston, commander of the Texas Army, ordered Colonel James Fannin to abandon their makeshift quarters at the Presidio La Bahia in Goliad, but Fannin’s retreat was a disaster. When the Mexican Army caught up with Fannin’s men, they surrendered. General Urrea could not accept any terms other than unconditional surrender. The wounded prisoners returned to Goliad in carts and wagons. On Palm Sunday of 1836, guards fired on marching prisoners from point-blank range; and the wounded captive were bayoneted or clubbed to death. The Mexican Army burned bodies of the nearly four hundred victims. A handful managed to escape the Massacre at Goliad, Texan revenge would be found at the Battle of San Jacinto where shouts of “Remember Goliad!” and “Remember the Alamo!” would echo across the battlefield and into Texas lore.

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"The Surrender of Santa Anna," a painting by William Henry Huddle.
The Surrender of Santa Anna, by William Henry Huddle, 1886. Image courtesy of The Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Santa Anna Surrenders

Weeks later, the decisive final battle in Texas’s war for independence from Mexico was fought and won on a prairie at the mouth of the San Jacinto River. General Sam Houston and the Texan Army defeated President Santa Anna and his army of over six hundred soldiers. Santa Anna would eventually be captured and brought to a wounded Sam Houston on the battlefield. Ignoring the public’s cries for the Mexican leader’s execution, Sam Houston shrewdly allowed Santa Anna to stay alive to ensure Mexico’s recognition of the new Republic of Texas and their
retreat to the Rio Grande.

An image of the Colt Paterson patent illustration, one of the main weapons used by Texas Rangers in the Texas Republic.
Colt Paterson patent illustration, 1839. Image sourced from Historic Tales from the Texas Republic: A Glimpse of Texas Past, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Pistol-Packing Rangers

Texans witnessed a long-running struggle between the Comanches and the Texas Rangers. But it was during the Battle of Walker’s Creek that the Comanches were finally outmatched, due in large part to the latest tech — the Colt Paterson revolver. Walker’s Creek marked the first time that an entire company of Texas Rangers armed with Colt revolvers participated in combat, and Captain Jack Hays attributed the victory solely to the Patersons. The Colt Paterson revolver caused a revolution on the Texas frontier, and mounted warfare between the Comanches and the Texas Rangers would never be the same. A Texas icon was born.

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Five Pictures of Real Stops on the Underground Railroad

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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Five Pictures of Real Stops on the Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad was an amazing network of people and passages that helped fugitive slaves escape to the North and even to Canada. It’s a Pulitzer-winning novel, too.

But the Underground Railroad was also a series of real locations, run by real people. Those people often kept few records — the less that was known, the safer it was. But they helped many fugitives in the time before emancipation.

In the modern era, historians and researchers have been able to verify some of the locations and people. Here are five actual houses from the Underground Railroad, along with some stories about them and their residents.

Ohio

An image of the William McCraken house, a stop on the Underground Railroad.
The William McCracken house at 819 Steubenville Avenue in Cambridge, Ohio. Image sourced from Safe Houses and the Underground Railroad in East Central Ohio, courtesy of N8.

Alexander McCracken, whose home is pictured here, lived in Cambridge, Ohio, where he worked as a tanner. McCracken would transport fugitives north by wagon, often using Birmingham Road — until one night it was discovered that a spy lived on that road. McCracken had fugitives lie as flat as possible in the back of his wagon, covered them with a buffalo robe, and went three miles out of his way to outwit the spy. The fugitives were safely delivered four miles north of Cambridge to the home of Daniel Broom, another participant in the Underground Railroad.

Pennsylvania

image from Slavery & the underground railroad in South Central pennsylvania, page 125.

An image of Richard D. Woods' springhouse in Pennsylvania.
This early twentieth-century photograph shows Richard D. Woods’s springhouse, which the Woods family utilized as a hiding place for runaway slaves. In 1863, a black woman hid inside the springhouse as Confederate cavalrymen watered their mounts just inches away. Image sourced from Slavery & the Underground Railroad in South Central Pennsylvania, courtesy of the Cumberland County Historical Society.

This early twentieth-century photograph shows the spring house that sat near the home of the Woods family. The family, as one member later recalled, was “greatly troubled [with] what to do . . . for part of the [slave hunters’] program was to search the house and take off the Negroes. Finally they hit upon a plan to put a bed in the loft above the Spring House and hiding them there.” So that’s what the Woods did. It was an effective approach — especially one afternoon in 1863, when about half a dozen Confederates on horseback arrived at the Woods farm to search for fugitive slaves. “They all went all over the farm,” one of the Woods family recalled, “through the barn, and up the paddock.” Most frightening was when the horsemen watered their mounts at the springhouse, while a hidden African American women watched from within the springhouse. It was a close call, but she survived.

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New York

An image of the Stephen Keese Smith farmhouse, on the Underground Railroad in New York.
Stephen Keese Smith Farmhouse in Peru, New York. Image sourced from The Search for the Underground Railroad in Upstate New York.

Stephen Keese Smith was one of the leading Underground Railroad agents in Clinton County and hid fugitives from slavery in the barn behind his farmhouse, pictured here. Smith later stated:

Samuel Keese [my uncle] was the head of the depot in Peru. His son, John Keese, myself, and Wendell Lansing were actors. I had large buildings and concealed the negroes in them. I kept them, fed them. Often gave them shoes and clothing.

Vermont

An image of the Sanborn house in Vermont.
For years, the Sanborn house was known locally as an Underground Railroad stop. Postcards refer to that distinction, and information about an underground tunnel from a summer kitchen to the barn has been shared. Image sourced from Abolition & the Underground Railroad in Vermont, courtesy of Thetford Historical Society.

For years, the Sanborn house, pictured here, was known locally as an Underground Railroad stop. Locals still talk about the house’s underground tunnel. Fugitives would use a hidden door in the summer kitchen to get to the root cellar. From there they could follow the tunnel to the Sanborns’ barn, near the back of the property. The system made for easy, unseen wagon pickups. Many years later, local children would play in the underground tunnel, until it was blocked for safety reasons in the 1940s.

New Hampshire

An image of the Hamilton house.
The Hamilton House sits across from the Lyme Common and was the home of Irenus Hamilton during the time when fugitive slaves were brought to Lyme and relayed through the village. Image sourced from Slavery & the Underground Railroad in New Hampshire, courtesy of Michelle Arnosky Sherburne.

Irenus Hamilton, whose home is pictured here, was a deacon in the Lyme Congregational Church. He was also a key player in the town’s (and church’s) slice of the Underground Railroad. In 1935, a Lyme resident named Caroline Fairfield explained the system in a letter:

Lyme was in those days an “Abolition” town from the minister down to the plain man voter. . . . The minister’s boys and Dea[con] Hamilton’s boys [would] tell of their experiences as runners from one station to another of [the] “Underground Railway.” The old parsonage was the first station in the village. Father F’s was next, and then Dea. Hamilton’s.

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The Mystery of the Sea Islands: Gullah Geechee Legacy

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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The Mystery of the Sea Islands: Gullah Geechee Legacy

If you were tricked into slavery, how would you react? A famous legend in Georgia’s Golden Isles tells of a group of free West Africans who willingly came to America for work, upon realizing they would be enslaved, took their own lives, deliberately drowning themselves in Dunbar Creek on St. Stephen’s Island. Singing a tribal hymn, the men chose to live free or die.

The water brought us here, the water will take us away.

– Ancient Ibo saying

Why is Gullah Geechee, the English-based language and culture developed by the enslaved South Carolina and Georgia community, still such a mystery? While African-Americans lived on the South Carolina and Georgia Sea Island coasts before and after the Civil War, it was the relative isolation of these communities that allowed their African culture and traditions to thrive, while remaining unknown. During the slave trade, their African ancestors brought with them their own innovations in science, construction, agriculture, animal farming, and oral history from over ten thousand years of tradition. As the modern world reached what was derogatorily known as the Lowcountry, Gullah Geechee was dismissed outright. In the early 20th century, black communities grew in political and economic strength, but that sound of the local Southern, rural, blacks slowly diminished after the 1920s. It is the landmarks of the African-Americans in and around Charleston, South Carolina and the barrier islands of Georgia that are the most durable monument to their Gullah Geechee legacy.

An image of a group of Gullah Geechee women at a market.
Gullah Geechee ladies at market. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs. Photography Collection, the New York Public Library. “Oyster and fish women, Charleston, S.C.” Image sourced from Gullah Geechee Heritage in the Golden Isles , courtesy of The New York Public Library Digital Collections, 1870.

The word “Gullah” is considered a derivation of the African word Gora or Gola, which were names of tribes living in Sierra Leone, West Africa. The name “Geechee” may come from an African tribe living on the border between Guinea and Liberia who were known as Kissi, pronounced Geezee.

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An image of the Harrington School.
Historic Harrington School. Image sourced from Gullah Geechee Heritage in the Golden Isles, courtesy of Patrick Holladay.

The Harrington School

Following emancipation, the Harrington area was settled by former slaves on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Due to the nature of racial segregation, it grew into its own self-enclosed community, and boasted a store, gas station, barbershop, two churches, and a restaurant called the Plantation Supper Club. The Harrington Graded School was built in 1924 and served as the main schoolhouse for three African American communities on St. Simons Island. The Historic Harrington School hosted grades one through seven until desegregation in the 1960s; and in 1968, it was converted to a daycare center for a few years. It was largely abandoned after that and sat unused for decades. In 2004, the St. Simons African American Heritage Coalition worked to save the landmark. Rescued and restored, it officially reopened in 2017.

Dixville

From 1875 to 1967, the Dixville neighborhood on the south side of Brunswick, Georgia was home to nearly 600,000. Its African-American residents lived in a planned residential community, and with its shipyards and factories, Dixville boomed during World War II. Dixville remained insular, but provided for all of its citizens needs from black-owned businesses. In 2017, Dixville was added to the Georgia Register of Historic Places.

An image of the Charleston Visitors Center gates.
Charleston Visitors Center gate. Image sourced from A Gullah Guide to Charleston: Walking Through Black History.

Gates of Charleston

Sometimes, an entire culture’s legacy can be found in the smallest artifacts. Charleston, South Carolina is adorned with the work of African-American Philip Simmons, who designed and forged iron gates for homes and churches with his signature tightly curled on the ends. His artistry was legendary, as was his pride — Simmons said that the snake on one of his gates looked so real that the lady of the house was afraid to come through it. Through is talent, Philip Simmons became an internationally known blacksmith/ornamental iron gatemaker, and had over five hundred documented gates and ironworks on homes and in museums throughout the United States.

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Jane Bolin: Breaker of Glass Ceilings

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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Jane Matilda Bolin, LL.B. was the first black woman to graduate from Yale Law School, the first to join the New York City Bar Association and the first to join the New York City Law Department.

Ambitious. Brilliant. Driven. And yet humble, generous, and kind. One of the most accomplished legal minds of her generation, and a breaker of glass ceilings throughout her life—today on Crime Capsule, as we continue our series on notable African-Americans in criminal and judicial history , we’re proud to introduce you to Jane Bolin of Poughkeepsie, New York.

One of four children, Bolin (1908-2007), was born into a family of trailblazers. According to Helen Engel and Marilynn Smiley in their book Remarkable Women in New York State History, Jane’s father, Gaius Bolin, an attorney in Poughkeepsie, had been the first African-American graduate of Williams College in Massachusetts.

Partly inspired by her father, young Jane excelled academically as she began to pursue her own career in the legal profession: not only did she graduate from Wellesley in the top twenty of her class, but the first glass ceiling she ever broke came at the age of twenty-three, when she became the first African-American to graduate from Yale University School of Law.

Read the full story at our sister site dedicated to True Crime, Crime Capsule.

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