St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church and Cleveland's Lower Buckeye Road Area

Significant Hungarian immigration to the United States was halted during World War I and thereafter was severely curtailed with the passage of the National Origins Act of 1924.

The labor shortage in northern industrial cities like Cleveland that resulted from this curtailment of immigration from Europe was filled by African-Americans who migrated from the South during the "Great Migration" of 1915-1945.  Many of those migrating African-Americans came to Cleveland to seek work in factories and foundries including those in the Buckeye Road area.

Gradually, the population in the Lower Buckeye Road changed from primarily Hungarian-Americans to African-Americans.  Despite this population change, St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church remained a Hungarian ethnic church that continued to almost exclusively serve Hungarian Roman Catholics.  African-Americans living near the Church worshipped at a number of other denominational churches in the area.

The photographs above show (far left) African-American workers at the Eberhard Manufacturing Company in 1943; (left-center) a well-dressed middle-aged African-American walking down Buckeye Road in 1951 past the offices of Ward 23 Councilman Jack P. Russell; (right-center) Councilman Jack P. Russell, the son of Hungarian immigrants and President of Cleveland City Council from 1957-1964, speaking to some of  his African-American and white constitutents in 1962; and (far right) Union and U.S. Dept. of Labor officials advising African-American and other workers in 1964 following the closing of the foundry of the National Castings Company (formerly, the Cleveland Malleable Castings Company) at 10600 Quincy Avenue.