Czech and Slovakian immigrants
Czech and Slovakian immigrants have played a significant role in American history, particularly during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Approximately one-sixteenth of all European Czechs and a substantial portion of Slovaks immigrated to the United States during this period, with many seeking better economic opportunities and escaping hardships at home. The first Czechs arrived in the 17th century, while significant Slovak immigration began in the late 1800s. A large number of Czech immigrants settled in urban areas, taking on various labor roles, while Slovaks often worked as unskilled laborers in industries like coal mining and steel production.
Both groups maintained strong cultural identities, forming fraternal organizations, newspapers, and religious communities, though they were often divided along religious lines. World War I marked a turning point, leading to the establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918, which fostered further immigration and cultural flourishing in the U.S. However, restrictive immigration laws in the 1920s limited new arrivals. By the late 20th century, while the number of individuals claiming Czech and Slovak ancestry remained significant, assimilation trends shifted cultural practices, especially among younger generations. Today, Czech and Slovak communities are primarily concentrated in the Upper Midwest, with a lasting cultural presence, particularly in places like Texas, where festivals and heritage celebrations continue to honor their rich history.
Subject Terms
Czech and Slovakian immigrants
SIGNIFICANCE: During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, about one-sixteenth of all European Czechs immigrated to America, while the Slovaks made up the sixth-largest group of immigrants during this period of the “new immigration.” Eventually, about one-fifth of the entire Slovak nation arrived, trailing only the Poles in numbers among all Slavic immigrant groups in the United States.
The overwhelming majority of Slovak and Czech immigrants arrived in the United States during the fifty years prior to the outbreak of World War I. The first immigrant from the Czech lands, Herrman Augustin, arrived in 1633 and eventually owned a large estate in Maryland; the first known Slovak in America, Andrej Jelik, arrived around the mid-eighteenth century. A small group of religious dissenters from the Czech lands, known as Moravians, arrived before the American Revolution. Members of both ethnic groups fought in the American War of Independence and the U.S. Civil War.
Czechs and Slovaks Before World War I
A few Czech immigrants continued to arrive over the next two centuries after 1633. Following the failed 1848 revolutions in the Habsburg monarchy, the first sizable number of Czechs came to the United States, with a steady flow by the late 1850s, who usually came as family groups initially attracted by the lure of cheap land. Besides farming, by the turn of the century, about one-half of Czech immigrants in America lived in urban settings, where they worked as small businessmen and as skilled and unskilled laborers. By the onset of World War I in 1914, approximately 350,000 highly skilled and mostly literate Czechs had settled in the United States.
The Slovaks began to immigrate to America in large numbers during the late 1870s to escape problems of overpopulation and unemployment at home. The overwhelming majority of these poorly educated agricultural workers found work as unskilled laborers in coal mines and heavy industry, especially steel mills, where, by 1909, about 10 percent of all iron- and steelworkers were Slovak. They usually came as single men expecting to earn enough money to return home and purchase land prior to realizing the new economic benefits of America. By the 1880s, Slovak women began to arrive to satisfy the need for spouses, while married men either returned home or sent funds to bring their families to the United States. More than 60 percent of all Slovak immigrants returned at least once to the old country before the war. It is estimated that 650,000 Slovaks lived in the United States in 1914.
Both groups flourished in the United States. Wherever a community of Czechs and/or Slovaks could be found, thriving ethnic newspapers, fraternal and cultural clubs and organizations, and parishes arose. However, these entities remained separated along Roman Catholic and Freethinker lines for the Czechs, while the Slovaks were even more divided among Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Byzantine-rite (Uniate or Greek-rite) Catholics.
World War I and Afterward
The start of World War I in August 1914 effectively cut off Slovak and Czech immigration, but ethnic leaders of both groups in the United States realized that the war presented an opportunity for greater freedoms for their homelands against the Austrian Germans and the Hungarians. Leaders of the American Czechs and Slovaks met in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1915, to propose a common, independent state after the war. In May 1918, the Pittsburgh Pact updated the Cleveland Agreement, calling for the new joint state. The American Czechs and Slovaks collected hundreds of thousands of dollars for relief efforts of their co-nationals abroad and the new Czecho-Slovakia/Czechoslovakia, enlisted in foreign armies and the U.S. Army after the United States entered the war in 1917, and actively supported the war effort against the Central Powers. Their work paid off with the proclamation of the Czechoslovak Republic in October 1918.
Despite the creation of the new country with greater opportunities for ethnic Czechs and Slovaks, immigration resumed after the war. The numbers rose steadily until the immigration laws of the 1920s effectively limited the total number of immigrants from Czechoslovakia to about three thousand annually. The 1920s and 1930s marked the height of Slovak and Czech cultural life in the United States. However, without the influx of numerous new immigrants, both groups began to acculturate and assimilate, with the second and third generations from the mass immigration period becoming more American. These generations lost interest in the language and the old country ways of their parents and grandparents, preferring to speak English and marrying spouses from other ethnic groups. This trend accelerated after World War II, with people leaving their old ethnic neighborhoods, parishes, and organizations for the suburbs, where the Czech and Slovak Americans retained only aspects of their forefathers’ culture, usually concerning holiday celebrations. Although there was a brief surge in immigration after the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948 and the Soviet invasion of the country in 1968, these immigrants were largely professional people and intellectuals who had little in common with the earlier arrivals.
According to the 1990 U.S. Census, almost 1.9 million Americans professed Slovak ancestry, about 1.2 million Americans claimed Czech roots, while approximately 300,000 considered themselves Czechoslovakian. The 2000 U.S. Census saw a slight decline for the Czech Americans, while the Slovak response was close to 800,000, nearly a 58 percent drop in ten years. This decline probably resulted from “Slovak” being listed as an example category in the 1990 U.S. Census and not the subsequent one, while Czechoslovakian ancestry claims rose by 40 percent, or 140,000 people, in 2000.
The 2010 US Census omitted questions about ancestry; however, according to the American Community Survey for 2013, there are more than 1.5 million people who reported having Czech ancestry, about 300,000 people reporting Czechoslovakian ancestry, and about 750,000 people reporting Slovak ancestry living in the United States that year. Although Eastern European immigrants accounted for the largest share of European immigration to the United States in 2016, neither the Czech Republic nor Slovakia was in the top five countries where people emigrated. Those claiming Czech or Slovak ancestry remained concentrated in the Upper Midwest of the United States, though large communities existed in New York and Texas. According to the American Community Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2021, 1,252,833 people in the United States claimed Czech ancestry, while 594,844 people claimed some connection to Slovak descent.
According to the 2020 Census, nearly 200,000 Texans claimed Czech ancestry. Czech cultural influence in central Texas remained pervasive well into the twenty first century. The original Czechs immigrants were part of a central European wave of migration into Texas where settlers would immigrate often not as individuals but as many from the same villages in Europe. These settlers, which included a large number from Germany, settled into small communities in Central Texas but strived to maintain their language and other cultural aspects. Many road signs and billboards could be found in their native languages, and construction techniques showed a distinctive architectural quality. Many Czech communities continued to speak native languages as a primary form of communication well into the twentieth century.
During the American Civil War, Czech immigrants faced conscription into the Confederate army. Many other Czechs opposed slavery and sought ways to avoid military service and declined to support the Confederate cause. Czech festivals in Central Texas originated in the nineteenth century, still occur annually in the 2020s, and serve as great tourist draws.
Bibliography
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