AMERICA 1900-1910 -- 'THE NEWCOMERS' (Part 2)

SEIFERT

Posted By: David (email)
Date: 3/7/2004 at 21:12:23

'AMERICA 1900-1910'

'The Newcomers'

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'Old World Beauties Greeted by American Bachelors.'

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Under banner headlines like the one above, newspapers from coast to coast spread the joyful word that on September 27, l907, a steamship had docked in New York with a spectacular cargo from Europe - 1,002 unmarried girls. The Old World beauties came ashore to a hectic welcome. As photographers recorded their smiles the ladies were besieged by a crowd of bachelors and regaled by a band playing "Cupid's Garden" and "I Want You, Honey, Yes I do." Here, in excerpts from the New York World, are details of the happy landing:

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No marriage mart of the Orient where brides were merchandise ever presented so bewitching a picture as the decks of the "Baltic" yesterday when 1,002 beauties, colleens from Ireland, lasses from Scotland, maidens from Wales, girls from England and blondes from Scandinavia, rosy, dimpled and roguish eyed, marriageable every one, stood there, fascinated by their first glimpse of the New World.

"I like tall men and blondes," said Susan Thompson frankly, and then her companions all screamed and Susan laughed until she could hardly speak. "I have read much about Americans making good husbands."

Miss Agnes McGirr's home is in Edinburgh. "I want a man with dark hair," she chirped. "A city man? No, a farmer. A man who is making $1000 a year will do. That isn't too much to ask in this country is it? How old? Thirty. He has some sense, then."

"They tell me," remarked Nellie O'Brien from Loch Crae, Tipperary, "that there are no men in Pittsburgh but millionaires. I'm going there, and it's soon I'll be riding in my own carriage, I suppose."

As for the accomplishments of these girls, no list would be long enough to enumerate them, and no rash man so ungallant as to abridge them. They can cook, sing and play the piano, scrub, take care of a house and mind children, milk cows, raise chickens, weed garden beds, go to market, sew, patch and knit, make cheese and butter, pickle cucumbers and drive cattle.

No wonder when he heard they were coming a farmer out in Kansas wrote: "John Lee, Vice-President of the Merchantile Marine Steamship Company: Dear Sir: I am a widower with a couple of married daughters, but I want a new wife, who is to come out here to Kansas the minute the 'Baltic' gets in. There is only one other house near mine. She can tell my house by the green shutters. Tell her not to make a mistake."

To Be Continued. . .

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Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert
February 27, 2004