Bay View’s Immigrants | Wisconsin Historical Society

Historical Essay

Bay View’s Immigrants

Bay View’s Immigrants | Wisconsin Historical Society

Zillman Park, S. Kinnickinnic Ave. and E. Ward St., Milwaukee, Milwaukee County 

From a quiet mid-19th-century farming community to a bustling industrial center along Kinninckinnic Avenue in only twenty years, Bay View's industrial transfor­mation could not have occurred without the contributions of hundreds of immi­grant workers who poured into the community's foundries, brickyards, machine shops, tanneries, and a glass factory, seeking employment in the last quarter of the 19th century. The first industrial workers in Bay View were recruited from Sheffield, England, for their knowledge of steel production, but over the years other immigrant workers from the British Isles, Ireland, Germany, Poland, and Italy, among others, would make Bay View one of the most ethnically diverse communities in Milwaukee.

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[Source: McBride, Sarah Davis. History Just Ahead (Madison:WHS, 1999).]