As of the 2010 United States census, there were 39,880 people, 15,361 households, and 9,329 families residing in the city of Holyoke, Massachusetts. The population density was 723.6/km (1,874/mi²). There were 16,384 housing units at an average density of 277.2/km (718.6/mi²).
The City of Holyoke has in its history, had a uniquely varied demography for its small population size. In the prime of the Second Industrial Revolution, native-born residents ranged between 18 and 38 percent, as successive waves of Colombian, Dominican, English, French-Canadian, Irish, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Russian, Puerto Rican, Scottish and many other groups emigrated to Holyoke throughout the city's first century.
Despite being a small city, only reaching a peak estimated population of 65,286 estimated in 1916, Holyoke had a unique demography among cities in the United States, having the 3rd highest foreign born population in the 1890 census, due to its syncretic culture industrial laborers. The proportion of immigrant residents was described in 1902 by journalist for the New-York Tribune as unequaled, noting "no other city in the country has so large a foreign population in comparison to its size", as the community made early efforts to both accommodate such numerous cultures, while fostering a sense of cultural assimilation, and Americanization.
Income For the period 2013–17, the estimated median annual income for a household in the city was $37,954, and the median income for a family was $46,940. Male full-time workers had a median income of $46,888 versus $41,406 for females. The per capita income for the city was $22,625. About 24.7% of families and 28.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 45.6% of those under age 18 and 19.8% of those age 65 or over.
As of 2017, the city had the most recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance per capita of any in Massachusetts, with 37% of residents receiving such benefits. Of all ZIP codes in the Commonwealth, including those of Boston, Holyoke had the third highest total households receiving such assistance, with the highest per capita of any of the state's 351 municipalities, representing 54% of all households. A 2020 study by the Urban Institute found Holyoke to be the least socioeconomically inclusive city in New England for minorities, despite them representing the largest group demographically. The report found between 2010 and 2015 the racial educational attainment gap narrowed by 30%, however homeownership declined slightly, and the proportion of working poor marginally increased.
Precolonial settlement
In the area around Holyoke and South Hadley Falls there were a number of tribes of native tribes, all belonging to the Algonquian peoples. Though records are sparse and incomplete, the area was settled by the Pocomtuc, sometimes referred to as the Agawam or Nonotuck. Little remains marking the legacy of the Connecticut Valley's indigenous population in Holyoke. One of the few notable examples was found during an early excavation for the canal system in 1847, when four skeletons were found by workmen in a makeshift tomb, all in the sitting position, facing eastward, with a mortar and pestle beside them, and a hollowed out underground chamber surrounding them. A number of burial sites would also be unearthed during the development of Depot Hill, and for a time DeRoy Park was known as Canonchet Park, as at least one such grave was found there. Other sites were discovered across the river where Bachelor Brook met the Connecticut, and in the early 20th century those who discovered those sites posited that artifacts might exist on the shores by Highland Park. Ultimately the presence of the tribes to the west of Springfield and Hadley would keep many of the earliest pioneers from permanently settling in the 17th century.
In the early 20th century, many Amerindian artifacts were uncovered and exhibited by local architect W. J. Howes, who would lead lectures on tribe archaeology at the Holyoke Scientific Association and was a recipient of many gifts of pottery and arrowheads found by people in the valley.
Ethnography
Holyoke had witnessed such staggering growth from its founding until about 1900, that by 1902 the New-York Tribune reported the city contained 80% either first or second-generation immigrants, claiming that when adding the latter, no other city in the United States had as many residents per capita of foreign origin. At the time of writing, early efforts of Americanization had begun, with the city being described both by the Tribune and the Commonwealth's offices as being at the forefront of teaching immigrant groups English as a second language, as well as history, and civics. The groups involved in these efforts to foster a common Holyoke community amongst the different ethnic groups included private companies like William Skinner & Sons, with the Skinners introducing the Skinner Coffeehouse meeting hall that year, as well as the local YMCA, the Chamber of Commerce, and Holyoke Public Schools, all providing classes, events, and other social gathering opportunities.
Even as the Second Industrial Revolution drew to a close, the successive waves of immigration to the city seeking jobs and inexpensive housing continued. Originally settled by Yankee English, Irish Protestants and a few freemen, the first wave of immigration was largely Irish Catholics with a smaller demographic of Scots, followed by waves French and French-Canadians, then English and English Canadians, Germans, Italians, Poles, Jews, and smaller groups of Chinese and Greeks. From the mid-20th century onward came a large wave of Puerto Rican denizens, and by the end of the 20th century smaller groups of Colombians, Dominicans, and Mexicans had settled in the city. Because of these large immigration movements throughout the decades, as well as changes in American culture at large, and the many contributions of Holyoke to American culture such as volleyball, Holyoke has throughout its history had a varying syncretic culture as the result of disparate groups and traditions.
African-Americans
As of 2010, there were 1,867 African-American or black residents living in Holyoke, and an estimated 11,539 according to the 2017 American Community Survey. Black families have resided in Holyoke since its days as Ireland Parish, with one of the earliest records being the marriage of Bushman Fuller and his bride Miss Flora Parry, on February 7, 1778. Fuller, a freeman who had previously been a slave to one Joseph Ely of West Springfield, purchased his wife's freedom for $100 at the time, or $1 per bushel of wheat. The two would become part of a small but active black community that resided to the west of what is today called Elmwood in modern-day the Jarvis Avenue/Homestead Avenue neighborhoods. When the Congregationalists joined the Baptists in the Baptist Village meetinghouse, according to an 1890 account of the city's church history, members of the black community "were cordially received and were treated with great kindness by both the pastor and people". Though segregated, a section of the pews was set aside for them at the front rows by the pulpit, in the southwest section of the sanctuary. Flora Fuller would go on become a prominent member of the Baptist Village community, serving as a village nurse to its earliest residents, providing aid to the sick. Flora Fuller's daughter, Clorilla, would marry a William Jarvis, of the family for whom Jarvis Avenue is so-named.
The community remained relatively small but other families would arrive to the city after its founding as Holyoke, seeking work in the mills and factories there. By 1926 a survey of churchgoers showed 67 black Protestant parishioners, and an African Methodist Episcopal Church had opened in The Flats. This church, affiliated with a counterpart in Springfield, would be defunct before World War II. In 1957, the New Hope Church of God in Christ parish was established under the leadership of Bishop C. W. Franklin and his wife Mother Elouise Franklin. Moving from a storefront to a permanent home in the former Hermannshalle in 1973, the church remains extant in South Holyoke today, christened as the Mother Elouise Franklin Church. For several years the black Bethlehem Baptist Church had been meeting in the old Lutheran Church building in South Holyoke after the Lutheran move to their current church on Northampton Street in 1955. Over the next several years the Baptist Church would take part in dialogue with the Greater Holyoke Council of Churches, as part of a survey and broader panel for public discussion of the issues facing black Holyoke families. In 1961 the city's public schools would accept 3 black students, along with 6 others attending Springfield and West Springfield, after Prince Edward County, Virginia closed its public schools to avoid implementing court-mandated integration. This action led to 1,700 black children being unable to attend private white schools and through a nationwide effort by the American Friends Service Committee, working with the local Greater Holyoke Council of Churches, funds were raised for the schooling of these additional three pupils at Holyoke Public Schools. When the Reformed Church on Sargeant Street merged with the other Congregational churches in 1963, their former building, also previously used by German immigrants, became the home of the Bethlehem Baptist Church, which resides there today.
The 1960 US Census would record 148 black households, representing in total about 1% or about 500 individuals of the 52,689 population at that time. Within a decade two of the school district's own native sons went on to become household names. The first, Jim Jennings, would go on from Holyoke High School to play for Rutgers University as a running back in the early 1970s. The other, Kenny Gamble would go on from being a running back for Colgate University to being the inaugural recipient of the Walter Payton Award, playing for the Kansas City Chiefs thereafter for four seasons. Gamble would later be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2002.
In 1983, after discussion between Mayor Proulx and the NAACP, the City agreed to set up a Minority Action Committee, including the city's affirmative action officer, Victor Douglas, and the NAACP-appointed Louis Owens, an electrician and outspoken candidate for city council, who agreed with the mission of the body as a means to lobby for improved housing and economic opportunities for the city's black and Hispanic community.
In 2018 a doctoral candidate in UMass Amherst's Afro-American Studies Department, Erika Slocumb, began documenting and archiving accounts of black Holyoke history, with support from the Wistariahurst Museum and funding by Mass Humanities. Slocumb's work, Reliquary of Blackness: Documenting Black History in Holyoke was among those selected to be featured in the National Council on Public History's 2020 national conference.
Though not necessarily identified with the handle African-American, generally used to refer to the descendants of former enslaved black peoples, additionally in single-ancestry responses in 2017, 323 people identified as Subsaharan Africans, including 100 Zimbabweans, 93 Liberians, and 44 Kenyans, and 148 as non-Hispanic West Indians, including 88 Jamaicans and 44 Haitians.
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