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Title: Love at First Sight and an Arrangement for Life: Investigating and Interpreting a 1910 Hungarian Migrant Marriage

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2017

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Abstract: In May 1910, the New York Times published an article about an arranged marriage between two migrants from Austria-Hungary. “Hastens to Marry His Mother's Choice” was written as more than a charming story of love at first sight. Indeed, the reporter considered the love story an example of near instant assimilation of migrants into American culture. A deeper investigation of the life stories of the couple shows that they did understand some things about American life on the first day they met, namely, the need to falsely report the bride's age as 20 rather than 17. In other respects, the couple retained their ties to Central Europe, choosing to live and work in rural coal-mining villages dominated by migrants from Austria-Hungary. They experienced firsthand the good and bad of life as Americans: the high wages paid to migrant coal miners and the resulting higher standard of living than could be gained in Hungary, but also the violence of management-labor conflicts in the coal fields and the violence of the Ku Klux Klan against Roman Catholic migrants in the American Midwest. Over a lifetime, the couple changed their names from the Hungarian Mihály to “Mike” and from the Hungarian Piroska to “Pearl.” By the time of Piroska's death, her surviving children were so far removed from Hungarian life that they could not even spell their mother's maiden name.

Url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/jaustamerhist.1.1.0069

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Authors: Oberly, James, W

Periodical (Full): Journal of Austrian-American History

Issue: 1

Volume: 1

Pages: 29

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Family and Marriage, Migration and Immigration

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