While revolutionaries, merchants, and diplomats from the Spanish-speaking world passed through colonial and early national Philadelphia, the formation of resident Spanish-speaking communities in the city dates to the latter half of the 19th century, as Philadelphia became important in the manufacture of tobacco products and Cuban and Puerto Rican cigar makers settled in the area. In 1877, a Spanish-speaking local of the Cigar Makers International Union was formed. By the time of a 1923 survey on the “Spanish Colony of Philadelphia,” a significant portion of the city’s Spanish-speaking population worked in the tobacco industry, especially in the Cuban- and Spanish-owned shops of Southwark. Five cigar-making firms in the city were owned and operated by Spanish-speakers.
Another enclave of Spanish-speakers was concentrated in Northern Liberties, home to cigar-making factories as well as to the offices of the Cigar Makers International Union Local #165 (at 13th and Spring Garden Streets) and the Marshall Street Market, a center of community life. Between 1920 and 1960, the stretch of Marshall Street running north from Spring Garden to Girard Avenue was a hub of commercial activity, attracting many Spanish-speaking workers to the nearby cigar and garment factories. Today’s North 5th Street barrio is still connected geographically to this historic Marshall Street hub.
These labor immigrants remained invested and involved in the political struggles of their homelands. As early as 1865, Cubans and Puerto Ricans in Philadelphia jointly organized a local chapter of the Republican Society of Cubans and Puerto Ricans. Many cigar makers were involved in the “Cuba Libre” movement based in the United States during the 1890s and were prominent in the movement’s primary political organization, the Partido Revolucionario Cubano/Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC). By 1892, six clubs of the PRC had been formed and listed cigar makers among their members. [ii] Jose Martí briefly published out of Philadelphia in 1893.
Spaniards and Cubans were the largest Spanish-speaking groups in Philadelphia at this time, followed by Puerto Ricans and Mexicans. Smaller numbers were from South and Central America, especially from Colombia and Honduras. A survey on Philadelphia’s “Spanish-American colony” conducted for the Catholic Archdiocese in 1910 reported that there were roughly 2,000 Spanish-speakers dispersed throughout the city.[iii] 64 of these residents were Puerto Rican-born.[iv] By 1920, approximately 5,000 Spanish-speakers resided in Philadelphia; the majority of them lived and worked in the immigrant working-class neighborhoods of Southwark, Spring Garden, and Northern Liberties, among other Italian and Eastern European immigrants. In Spring Garden, 85 percent of the Spanish-speaking residents arrived in the United States between 1914 and 1919; 65 percent arrived between 1917 and 1919.
Two institutions supported these communities: “La Fraternal” and “La Milagrosa.” La Fraternal, or the Spanish-American Fraternal Benevolent Association, was established in 1908 and located at 4th and Pine Streets. It became one of the most important mutual aid societies for Spanish-speaking Philadelphia and lasted into the 1960s. In 1909, the Mission of the Miraculous Medal was created in the school building of Old St. Mary’s Catholic Church (at 4th and Spruce Streets, just one block away from La Fraternal), providing religious services in Spanish for the first time in Philadelphia. Marriage and baptism records for those early years indicate that cigar makers were among the early parishioners of La Milagrosa.Soon,the space at St. Mary’s was too small for the many parishioners, and representatives of the Spanish-speaking community asked the Archdiocese for assistance in securing permanent quarters. In 1912, a chapel was acquired in Spring Garden.
The presence of a Spanish-speaking parish drew more and more Latinos to the Spring Garden neighborhood. The 1920 census records a concentrated community and an expansion in the number of boardinghouses catering to Spanish-surnamed men, many of whom worked for cigar-making factories or in local industries such as the Baldwin Locomotive Works or the Pennsylvania Railroad. The census data also show an increase in women working outside of the home and an increase in the establishment of lodgings for single women.Women worked as clerks and some ran the boardinghouses in the neighborhood. As the population grew, so did La Milagrosa, and by the end of the decade it had become both the religious and social center of the community. Weekly Spanish-language Mass is still held there today.
Despite the Depression, the Spanish-speaking population of Philadelphia continued to grow; industrialization in the Philadelphia cigar industry fueled the continued immigration of Cuban and Puerto Rican cigar makers. Mexicans and Puerto Ricans found work at the Baldwin Locomotive Works Company, the largest manufacturer of train engines in the United States at the time. Located in Spring Garden, the factory’s Spanish-speaking employees most commonly worked as machinists. During World War II, the U.S. government contracted Mexican laborers to work on the railroads in Philadelphia; other Mexicans worked in agriculture in the surrounding area. A limited number of Puerto Ricans also came as contracted war workers, mostly to food processing plants in southern New Jersey.
This period also witnessed the formation of a Mexican club, Anahuac, and the inclusion of Latinos into the constituencies served by the International Institute (an immigration service center now known as the Nationalities Service Center). The three enclaves of Southwark, Spring Garden, and Northern Liberties continued to grow. By midcentury, Cubans and Puerto Ricans, rather than Spaniards, were the dominant groups among Spanish-speaking residents. Puerto Ricans overtook Cubans in population growth after 1945.
