Night schools helped integrate immigrants in Bangor a century ago

This story shows how much (or how little) times change in 100 years. Teaching new immigrants English is always the best way to help them integrate and assimilate. DP

By Wayne Reilly, Special to the NEWS

The new immigrants flooding the nation a century ago were greeted with trepidation even as their services on construction gangs were welcomed in Bangor and other cities. Newspapers summed up many of the fears.

“Inflow of aliens menace to nation,” declared a front-page headline in the Bangor Daily Commercial on Jan. 7, 1907. A former Cornell University professor urged that all American college students be given military instruction to cope with the disorder and rebellion that was surely coming. That was only one of the many stories expressing fears and contempt for the great influx of foreigners.

Whenever a fight broke out or a petty theft was committed on Bangor’s Hancock Street, the center of the city immigrant population, it was sure to make headlines. Courtroom interpreters often were required as well as lawyers to settle these disputes.

A sure way to tame this tidal wave of humanity was to Americanize it the most progressive residents believed. Before this could happen, the newcomers needed to learn to speak English. A century ago efforts were under way in Bangor to make sure this would occur.

The YMCA planned to employ “college men” from the University of Maine to teach English and possibly basic arithmetic at night in a room in the former York Street school. “There are hundreds of foreign-speaking men in Bangor, the larger percent of them being Italians and Russian Jews,” said the Bangor Daily Commercial in a story on Nov. 5, 1908. No mention was made of women.

The idea was not new in Bangor. Previous efforts had been made to start such a school at the YMCA building at Hammond and Court streets. “They were somewhat diffident about coming to the association building where there were always many young men in better circumstances than theirs, and for this reason the YMCA decided to go to them,” the story reported.

Another story on Nov. 11 announced that a school for Italians — a Union Mission school — was also in the planning stages. E.A. Natino of Springfield, Mass., a native of Venice, was in Bangor to generate interest. The Commercial story said Natino had been engaged in Salvation Army work in New York City, and had much experience in founding such schools. Natino said there were about 100 Italians living in Bangor. I did not see any further notice of this effort in the Bangor newspapers.

The YMCA night school started sometime in late November or December. The Commercial declared it a success on Jan. 1, 1909. An average of 25 students, “all Hebrews,” were attending the classes three times a week. Their average age was 30.
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