Waiting for Water: Service Discrimination and Polish Neighborhoods in Milwaukee, 1870-1910

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Water supply is a necessary component of modern urban life. Nineteenth century American cities discovered this need and took steps to meet it in a variety of fashions. Several east-coast cities had some sort of supply available by 1830; by the Civil War many midwestern cities had followed suit.1 After experiments with private suppliers, which almost always failed to produce either a profit for the utility or an adequate supply for the citizens, many cities decided that providing water should be a function of municipal government. This decision came about as the cities found that private purveyors of water were unwilling or unable to expand their services to accommodate new sections of the city or areas of high elevation where expensive auxiliary pumps were needed. New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, and Chicago all recognized by the mid-nineteenth century that provision of a potable water supply was necessarily a municipal function, as serving all the citizens was rarely, if ever, a profitable enterprise.2 One difficulty that most cities faced was how to provide services amid rapid urban expansion. Typically the middle and professional classes moved to the city's periphery, obtaining respite from congestion and from the influx of new immigrants to the cities after 1840. As these residents relocated, they wanted the same access to services such as paved streets, water, and sewerage as they had enjoyed in their more central location. Since these citizens were well able to pay for the services, the major difficulty for city officials lay in determining which of the new peripheral settlements should receive attention first?a problem whose solution usually depended on the relative political clout of the neighborhoods.3 The new immigrants, in turn, occupied the space vacated by the exiting middle class, until they too achieved sufficient economic