More about "A Pittsburgh Wassail"

The concept for this compact disc grew out of my increasing awareness of Pittsburgh’s unique cultural heritage. I grew up in Los Alamos, New Mexico, a city that did not exist prior to the mid-1940s. Everyone living in the "Atomic City" was from somewhere else in the United States, making us all immigrants. There was little sense of heritage or cultural traditions, but it was a matter I never gave much thought.

When we moved to Pittsburgh in 1995, I found its ethnic communities and strong sense of cultural diversity very attractive. I loved the feeling of traditions maintained, of culture and differences celebrated, of connecting with people from very different backgrounds than mine. I decided to find out where Pittsburghers came from, why they came, and to what extent their sense of tradition has survived. Being a musician, I was particularly attracted to the musical traditions and my search yielded a welcome discovery of Christmas music new to me, and I suspect to many of you.

Why do people pull up stakes and leave their homes, family, and culture—all that they hold dear? What compels someone to come to a place where the customs are unfamiliar, nothing can be taken for granted and the language incomprehensible? Although the reasons can be as numerous as the people themselves, one common reason for immigration is the search for a better life. Whether it was the Harmonists, who came to Western Pennsylvania at the beginning of the nineteenth century to prepare for the millennial kingdom, or the Italian man, who immigrated in the 1950s in the belief that the streets of America were paved with gold, all came with a vision of a better future. These immigrants began the glassworks, worked in the boat yards, manned the steel mills, and fed the workers. The cultural and economic fabric of Pittsburgh is bound up in their lives.

When immigration to Pittsburgh is discussed or written about, interest often centers on the Eastern Europeans who came at the end of the nineteenth century to work in the mills and mines. While this is a fascinating subject in itself, it is only a part of the story. We tend to think of the people already here at that point as "native," but we should remember that their ancestors arrived around 1700. Many historians believe that the first non-Indian to see this area was the French explorer René Robert Cavelier, around 1670. In 1682 the French laid claim to all the tributaries of the Mississippi and the territory through which they flowed—a pretty impressive chunk of real estate.

Although the French quickly sent both missionaries and traders to the area, very few actually settled here. They were soon supplanted by Scotch-Irish settlers, who began coming to the region around 1700 in the push to settle the "West", and by Germans, who began coming in relatively large numbers around 1709. German immigrants soon made up a large part of the population in Pennsylvania—while they made up only 8.6% of the white population in the United States in 1790, they comprised 33% of the population of Pennsylvania. For many years Pennsylvania continued to be the destination of choice for German immigrants. As late as 1910, Germans were the largest ethnic group in Pittsburgh, making up nearly 14% of the population. A census taken at that time found that more Northside residents were native German speakers than were English speakers.

Other ethnic groups came, too. Scandinavian, Syrian, and Lebanese immigrants arrived and peoples from the Mediterranean area, particularly Italy and Greece, came in large numbers. Immigrants from China appeared as well. Between 1890 and 1900, the number of immigrants from Slavic countries more than doubled. Lithuanians, Rumanians, Russians, Croatians, Serbians, Bosnians, Macedonians, Poles, Ukrainians and Bulgarians made up half of the workforce in the mills of Pittsburgh in the early 1900s. World events of the twentieth century created waves of immigration—the Balkan Wars, Jews who left Germany, Poland, the Netherlands and other countries during the Third Reich, the Soviet annexation of Latvia, the Hungarian revolution.

The constantly changing fabric of ethnicity created Pittsburgh as we know it, and continues to make the city a vital and exciting place to live. I hope that this recording conveys a sense of the rich culture that is our heritage.

by Rebecca Rollett