relative lack of Armenians in Pittsburgh

[Tallysmom]

Originally Posted by Doowlle34

This was an interesting question to me so I took a quick dip in the newspaper archive, but no slamdunk article. Some interesting facts about Pittsburgh's Armenian-American community:


1. Although we did not have a large community, there was definitely a small, vibrant one.

2. No doubt, the most prominent member was David Shakarian, the founder of GNC. Shakarian's 1984 obituary reflects that he was born in East Liberty, graduated from Peabody High School, and was one of 5 children of parents who "left their native land because of persecution from Turkish soldiers". Forbes had estimated Shakarian's wealth at $350 million shortly before he died.

3. The community was large enough such that, in 1964, an Armenian Archbishop, Nion Manogian, visited Pittsburgh to celebrate mass.

4. Throughout the late 60s through the 80s, there are several references to the local Armenian-American Social Club, including a great photo from 1977 of Armenian-Americans dancing at the Stephen Foster Memorial in Oakland to celebrate their annual Christmas Party. An article from the early 80s includes a photo of three local Armenian-American women making "Khorovatz" (ground meat kebab), for an Armenian food festival.

5. Most articles from 1977 onward reference the efforts of the local Armenian-American community to raise money to fund an Armenian nationality room at the Cathedral of Learning. The community finally succeeded in their goal in 1988, and an article about the opening of the room indicates that there were "around 100" Armenian American families in the Pittsburgh area.

That’s sort of sounds like I might be right. We don’t have a large Armenian population, because they didn’t have anyone here to come to.

I haven’t had to do a lot of research on people coming over in the late 1880s. early 1900s because pretty much everybody in my family was here before the Revolutionary War. But the few that I did, I have the ship manifest, they’re available on ancestry.com, and probably other places, but the people coming over either had someone they were coming to, or someone to sponsor them, and they had money in their pocket.

I was just watching a Henry Gates genealogy show on PBS, and he was talking about if people came here destitute, with no sponsor, they were often deported.

[yofie]

Thing is, partly, that in the Armeniapedia list of Armenian churches, I see no less than two such churches in the Cleveland area next door but not a single one in Pittsburgh.

[Doowlle34]

The 1988 article on the Armenian nationality rooms says this: "But since there are no Armenian churches in the Greater Pittsburgh area, most of the families attend mainline Protestant churches, such as Episcopal, Bapist and Presbyterian."

When the Archbishop came to Pittsburgh in 1964, he celebrated mass at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in the Highland Park neighborhood. Not sure why Armenian-Americans tended to favor these mainline Protestant churches over other Eastern Orthodox churches, but that seems to have been the case in Pittsburgh.

Although I'm sorry that this still does not answer your original question, in terms of why Armenian immigration to Pittsburgh did not achieve the critical mass such that a dedicated place of worship was established.

[yofie]

Because Armenians mainly belong to an Oriental Orthodox Church, which is different than simply an Eastern Orthodox Church. Those two broad types of Orthodox Churches actually have little to do with one another and, as far as I know, have been in conflict of kind or another on theology and things like that. I guess, then, that the Armenians - as members of an Oriental Orthodox Church, would be more comfortable in a Protestant church than in an Eastern Orthodox one.

Disclaimer: I myself am Jewish (indeed, a religious one), but I know quite a bit about different religions/ethnicities, including the different Orthodox Churches.

[Herodotus]

As many have pointed out, foreigners tend to go where others of their type already have a foothold. It's tough settling in a land where few speak your language, or share your culture. There is obviously a level of comfort to be gained if you go somewhere where friends and relatives, or even just your countrymen have settled. Why Pittsburgh never achieved a critical mass of Armenians, who knows? Considering that they're a fairly small group, it may have just happened by chance.