History of the Poles in Baltimore

The history of the Poles in Baltimore dates back to the late 19th century. The Polish community is largely centered in the neighborhoods of Canton, Fell's Point, Locust Point, and Highlandtown. The Poles are the largest Slavic ethnic group in the city and one of the largest European ethnic groups.

In 1920, 11,083 foreign-born White people in Baltimore spoke the Polish language, making Polish the most widely spoken Slavic or Eastern European language in the city.

In 1940, approximately 34,000 Polish-Americans lived in the state of Maryland, most of them in Baltimore. In the same year, 8,862 immigrants from Poland lived in Baltimore. These immigrants comprised 14.2% of the city's foreign-born white population. In total, 21,175 people of Polish birth or descent lived in the city, comprising 15.2% of the foreign-stock white population.

The Polish community in the Baltimore metropolitan area numbered 122,814 as of 2000, making up 4.8 percent of the area's population. In the same year Baltimore city's Polish population was 18,400, 2.8% of the city's population.

In 2013, an estimated 15,828 Polish-Americans resided in Baltimore city, 2.5% of the population.

As of September 2014, immigrants from Poland were the eighteenth largest foreign-born population in Baltimore and the Polish language was the eleventh most commonly spoken language, after English.

The first Polish immigrants to Baltimore settled in the Fell's Point neighborhood in 1868. Polish mass immigration to Baltimore and other U.S. cities first started around 1870, many of whom were fleeing the Franco-Prussian War. Many of the Polish immigrants came from agricultural regions of Poland and were often considered unskilled workers. Many worked as stevedores for Baltimore's International Longshoremen's Association. Other Polish immigrants worked in the canneries, some travelling to the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi to work in the seafood canneries during the winter months. After the abolition of slavery, farmers had lost their slaves and wanted a cheap source of labor. Following changes in U.S. immigration laws many Central and Eastern European migrants, particularly Polish and Czech, came to Maryland to fill this need. These changes also affected other nations.

...
Wikipedia