Immigrants in Hoboken: One-Way Ticket, Book Talk

July 17, 2011

Hoboken was a sleepy village of about 2,600 people in 1850, a popular destination for landscape painters and day-trippers from Manhattan seeking a leafy refuge and stunning views. In just a decade, however, waves of European immigrants more than tripled the population to 9,662 in 1860 and then tripled again by 1880 to nearly 31,000. Another 20 years later, in 1910, the city’s population had swollen to more than 70,000.

Just who made up these waves of newcomers and how the different ethnic groups shaped Hoboken’s cultural and economic landscape from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s are among the topics covered in a fascinating new book by local historian Christina Ziegler-McPherson, Immigrants in Hoboken: One-Way Ticket, 1845–1985 (The History Press, 2011). Dr. Ziegler-McPherson will visit the Museum on Sunday, July 17 at 4 p.m., for a talk and book signing.