We Are All Connecticut Yankees:
Diversity in the 19th and Early 20th Century

Diversity In The Workplace

Many Connecticut employers made an effort to recruit recent immigrants both for skilled and unskilled positions. Connecticut’s booming late 19th- and early 20th-century economy depended heavily upon immigrant labor.

< How do you recognize diversity? At first glance, this group of workers at the Collins Ax Factory appear anything but diverse. Fortunately, one man recorded all their names on the back of the photograph. The list includes such names as Furrier, Fiokewicz, Dubiel, Zakiski, Siemnicki, Soucy, Yliasz, Del Nero, Emhoff and O’Brien.

Line Gang
Southern New England
Telephone Company
Norwalk, 1930
Photo CD: 3151 Img0060.pcd

< The names of the men in this photograph of Southern New England Telephone Company employees are unknown. One man, at the far right, is clearly African-American. Others are likely to be Irish, Polish or Italian. It’s impossible to tell just by looking at them.

< The crew of the Smith Bros are identified on the back as Capt. Irving “Frank” Wheeler, Mose Price, Al Eaton, and engineer Ed Morgan. One man is not named. According to the catalog record, the African-American man is probably not Mose Price, though he is identified as Price in another photograph.

< The workers who pose together in the shop of the New London gas company have French, Irish and Italian surnames, but it is impossible to tell whether they are recent immigrants or the descendants of families who arrived in Connecticut many generations earlier. From left to right, they are identified as Frank Delap, Jack Gillis, Maurice Connell and Santo Ferro.

Link to other essays in this Journey:

>> Introduction: We are All Connecticut Yankees
>> Celebrating Ethnic Origins
>> Becoming Americans
>> Immigrant Entrepreneurs

>> Guideposts
>> Suggestions for further reading