Milwaukee County Wisconsin Genealogy

Census Men Find City One of Many Different Nationalities

From the April 28, 1910 edition of the Milwaukee Journal:

Colonization is a Feature of Peopling of Cosmopolitan Inhabitants and Uncle Sam's Employes Find It Necessary More Than Once to Carry Interpreters Along.

Milwaukee is a city of many different nationalities. The census enumerators have found fourteen languages spoken in the city by people who could not understand English or German. The various nationalities are generally found grouped together, as, for instance, the Polish colonies are to be found generally on the East and South sides. The Germans are confined to no particular locality though the majority of the non-English speaking class are to be found on the North side. The Third ward, which at the last census was an Irish stronghold, is now peopled almost entirely by the Italians. The west end of the Sixth ward contains a large percentage of Bohemians.

But the foreign population of the city is not confiend to these districts. Along most of the railroad tracks the people are almost entirely of alien birth, and unable to speak English. Then there are many isolated families and it was these which made the taking of the census more difficult than it would have been if they were all together. It was necessary to have many interpretors on hand to secure answers to the questions and many times it was necessary to send more than one man out to get the information. One of the cases was especially peculiar in that one whole family was unable to make themselves understod in English, Polish or German, and, in addition to this, were all deaf and dumb.