We're
Moving to Town
Stroll
Through the 1920s
 Michigan
soldiers returning from World War I joined
a decade of growth and energy known as the Roaring Twenties. As you
stroll through our 1920s city street scene, you see sights that offer an
impression of many Michigan cities during the decade.
Thousands
of immigrants and migrants moved to the cities of Michigan between 1900
and 1930. They came for jobs, particularly in the booming auto industry.
They crowded into houses and apartments, built churches and synagogues,
shopped, bought cars, voted and went to movies.
My
parents came in 1906, joining Uncle Louie Figari and Aunt Vittorina
Conti, who came here in the 19th century. There were many Genoese in
Detroit even before that. . . . The Genoese scattered through the area
came together as a community called Associazione Genovese.
Marie
Conti Oresti
By
1920, one in every five Michigan residents had been born in a foreign
country. In the cities, the figure was one in four. Immigrants usually
chose to live in neighborhoods settled by people from their own country.
[My
father], Daniel Nagy, came from Hungary about age 18 [in 1921] using a
White Star Line ticket. He joined his father, Michael, who had come
earlier to get established in the United States before sending for his
family. Daniel moved to Chicago and Gary, Indiana, and then returned
to [Haslett] where he operated a fruit-and-vegetable stand. He never
became an American citizen.
Penny
Meier
Other
newcomers came from southern states; many rural Michiganians also moved
to the industrial cities.
Visit
the Michigan of the 1920s. Click on a topic in the column at the left to
travel down our 1920s city street.
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