As Holyoke matured, it began to diversify industrially. Four and a half miles of canals were dug by pick and shovel through the lower wards, and all types of products were manufactured along their banks. Steam pumps, blank books, silk goods, hydrants, bicycles and trolleys were among a growing list of goods being shipped all over the world.

Holyoke was a city built on opportunities. Irish immigrants, the first and largest wave of immigrants, began entering Holyoke in the 1840s, finding employment working on the Holyoke dam and canal system. The second largest immigrant group into Holyoke after the Irish was French Canadian, most of who came from the 1870s to the 1880s. Those who crossed the Canadian border into Holyoke first sent back enthusiastic accounts of America along with more money than the families at home had ever seen.  German families came mostly to Holyoke in the 1860s. They were textile workers from the Rhineland and Saxony, highly trained in hand weaving and with experience in making woolens for German markets. The first Italians came to Holyoke in the late 1880s. Records show most Italians were involved in the confectionary and fruit stores established between 1882 and 1900 in Holyoke were mostly on High and Main Street. Mass Polish immigration began after the close of the Civil War and the end of the 1863 Polish Revolt for independence. The Portuguese first arrived in Holyoke in the early 1900s, drawn by the work in the textile mills.