29 questions at America's gate

Chapter

1899 – 1913

Emigration rate, Nagy-Küküllő

93.1 per 10,000

Romanians from Hungary, 1900–1913

98,175

Share of natural increase, Nagy-Küküllő

109.6%

Before the First World War, most Romanian emigrants travelled as Hungarians or Austrians: Transylvania belonged to Hungary, Bukovina to Austria. America counted them separately only by “race or people” – and under that heading 82,704 Roumanians were admitted between 1899 and 1910, the 23rd immigrant race in the tables.

They came from a handful of counties. The Hungarian statistics for 1899–1913 put Nagy-Küküllő (Târnava Mare) first at 93.1 emigrants per 10,000 inhabitants – more people than the county's natural increase – followed by Kis-Küküllő at 72.3, Temes at 69.5, Fogaras at 64.5 and Szeben at 55.3. Hunyad, for all its industry, sent almost no one: 7.9 per 10,000.

Land pressure, recruiters' promises and the letters of those who had gone before did the pushing. From Hungary alone, 98,175 ethnic Romanians reached the United States between 1900 and 1913 – and each sailing carried the addresses of uncles and cousins who had sailed earlier.

Meanwhile In 1911 the Dillingham Commission's Dictionary of Races gave ROUMANIAN its own entry, on page 107.

Chapter

1904 – 1914

Cunard's guaranteed traffic

30,000 a year

Austro-Americana ships in the manifests

28

Cabin-class share of all arrivals

12–20%

In 1904 Hungary signed Cunard to a direct emigrant line from Fiume to New York, guaranteeing 30,000 passengers a year – and the great majority of Hungary's emigrants, Transylvanians among them, did sail Cunard via Fiume. The three ships in our manifest sample all made that run.

Others went north by rail: emigrants from Austria-Hungary reached Bremen and Hamburg as easily as the Adriatic ports, sailing Norddeutscher Lloyd and HAPAG. From Trieste the Austro-Americana line ran its own emigrant service from June 1904, and Holland-America carried Jewish fugitives from Romania via Rotterdam.

Almost all Romanian emigrants travelled steerage, in the dormitory decks below the waterline. Only cabin passengers were inspected aboard ship in the harbour; everyone else was ferried to Ellis Island. Across all arrivals, 12–20% travelled cabin class – the Romanian-specific share was never tabulated.

Meanwhile The Ultonia's October 1904 sailing reached New York with Banat villagers bound for Cincinnati, Catasauqua and New York.

Chapter

1892 – 1924

Manifest columns after 1907

29

Processed on 17 April 1907

11,747

Ultimately excluded

about 2%

The manifest was written before the ship sailed, by the shipping line's clerks: name, age, village, destination, and – after 1903 – “race or people”, plus whether the passenger was a polygamist or an anarchist. The Act of 20 February 1907 stretched the form to 29 columns on a two-sided sheet, adding the nearest relative back home and a physical description.

At Ellis Island the steerage passengers filed past Public Health Service doctors in the line inspection. A glance, an eyelid everted in search of trachoma, and a chalk mark on the coat – a letter for the suspected defect – sent about 20% of arrivals aside for a closer look. The legal inspectors then cross-checked each traveller's answers against the manifest.

Almost everyone passed: about 2% were ultimately excluded and sent back. The busiest day of the whole Ellis Island era fell in the decade when 82,704 Romanians were admitted – 11,747 people processed on 17 April 1907, out of 1,004,756 that year.

Meanwhile The record day of the whole Ellis Island era – 11,747 people on 17 April 1907 – fell in the decade when 82,704 Romanians were admitted.

Chapter

1904 – 1916

First parish, St Mary, Cleveland

Aug 1904

Romanian weekly America, Cleveland

1 Sept 1906

Could neither read nor write

35%

Cleveland became the capital of Romanian America. Its St Mary parish, founded in August 1904, was the first Romanian Orthodox parish in the United States; the weekly America followed on 1 September 1906. The colony was chiefly Transylvanian, built in the years 1900–1915.

Youngstown's Holy Trinity parish held its first liturgy on 4 February 1906; Canton's St George was established on 12 October 1912; in Farrell, Pennsylvania, Romanians – mostly Transylvanian – had been arriving since about 1890 and founded the “Transylvania” society in 1905; Detroit's parish followed in 1916.

The manifests say who waited for them: an uncle in Cincinnati, a cousin in Steelton, an uncle in Bozeman, Montana. Of the Romanians admitted between 1899 and 1910, 28,266 of 80,839 aged fourteen and over – 35% – could neither read nor write; which also means 65% could.

Meanwhile Cleveland's America weekly was founded on 1 September 1906, the year Youngstown heard its first Romanian liturgy.

Chapter

1921 – 1924

Romania's quota, 1921 Act

7,419 a year

Romania's quota, 1924 Act

603 a year

Arrivals of 1850–1913 who returned

one in three

In 1921 Congress capped immigration by nationality: Romania got 7,419 places a year. Three years later the Johnson-Reed Act cut the formula to 2% of each nationality's 1890 population – and Romania's annual quota fell to 603, published in President Coolidge's Proclamation 1703 of 30 June 1924.

The flow had already thinned: 10,569 ethnic Romanians were admitted in 1921–1924, against 54,976 in 1911–1920 and 82,704 in 1899–1910. Added together, the official race tables give 148,249 admissions for 1899–1924 – our own sum, not a published total.

And many did not stay. One in three of all arrivals between 1850 and 1913 eventually returned to Europe. Romanian-specific return tables did not survive in the sources we could verify, so this page claims no exact Romanian share – only that going home was common, not exceptional.

Meanwhile The last full year before the war, 1914, brought 24,070 Romanian admissions – more than thirty-nine years of the 1924 quota.