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Cleveland's Czech community is one of the area's oldest European ethnic groups, with a presence in the area even before the Civil War. It is almost a geographical accident that Czechs arrived in Cleveland, where they would have stopped on the way to Czech or Bohemian communities in Nebraska, Iowa, and Wisconsin. From 1850 to 1870, the Czech community grew from 3 families to 696, according to The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. Many found work making barrels for John D. Rockefeller's fledgling Standard Oil Company, while others found their way in professional life, including the arts. Their neighborhoods show their migration from Cleveland's central city to its outlying areas and suburbs including neighboring Geauga County. Today they continue to support three Czech halls and participate in the Czech gymnastic movement-Sokol. The photographs in Cleveland Czechs give readers a glimpse of those neighborhoods and their importance to Cleveland's history.
Cleveland's Slovaks can best be characterized as survivors. Many survived ethnic persecution and poverty so they could have a chance at something better. Beginning with a small core of immigrants seeking work aboveground rather than in the coal mines of neighboring states, Cleveland's Slovak community grew through a giant chain migration. Their neighborhoods flourished close to their jobs and their churches. Many of the ancestors of today's Slovaks came to the United States classified as Hungarians. In their hearts, though, they knew what they were and what language they spoke. They held on to their native language even as they learned English and unwaveringly encouraged their children to strive for the opportunity America offered. According to the 2000 census, 93,500 northeast Ohioans claim Slovak heritage. The photographs in Cleveland Slovaks show their neighborhoods and family life and give readers an appreciation of the community's legacy.
Reviews the history of the Bohemians, Moravians and Silesians in Europe and the forces that led them to emigrate to Cleveland. Traces immigration patterns of the Czechs in the U.S. and particularly their settlements in Cleveland, Ohio. It includes historic information on Catholic churches, Protestant churches, the Jewish Chevra Kadisha Congregation, freethinker organizations, Sokol, Bohemian National Hall, Delnicke Telocvicne Jednoty (DTJ), Karlin Hall, Prokop Velky Fresh Air Camp, Slapnicka’s Grove, and Czech Cultural Garden. Reviews the history of music and drama societies including the Lumir-Hlahol-Tyl and Vojan Singing Societies, Vcelka Czech Drama Society, the Furdek Dramatic Society, the Hruby Conservatory of Music, and others. Briefly summarizes the history of Czech fraternalism, newspapers, radio broadcasting, breweries and other activities. It provides a history of the Cleveland Czechoslovak Legionnaires who fought in WWI and those in Cleveland who provided foreign relief during the war in support of the struggle to form the new country of Czechoslovakia.
As the Czech ambassador to the United States, H. E. Petr Gandalovic noted in his foreword to this book that Mla Rechcgl has written a monumental work representing a culmination of his life achievement as a historian of Czech America. The Encyclopedia of Bohemian and Czech American Biography is a unique and unparalleled publication. The enormity of this undertaking is reflected in the fact that it covers a universe, starting a few decades after the discovery of the New World, through the escapades and significant contributions of Bohemian Jesuits and Moravian brethren in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the mass migration of the Czechs after the revolutionary year of 1848, and up to the early years of the twentieth century and the influx of refugees from Nazism and communism. The encyclopedia has been planned as a representative, a comprehensive and authoritative reference tool, encompassing over 7,500 biographies. This prodigious and unparalleled encyclopedic vade mecum, reflecting enduring contributions of notable Americans with Czech roots, is not only an invaluable tool for all researchers and students of Czech American history but is also a carte blanche for the Czech Republic, which considers Czech Americans as their own and as a part of its magnificent cultural history.
The Story of My Life, originally published in Czechoslovakia in 1928, is the engaging and informative autobiography of Frank Vlchek, a Czech immigrant who became a successful businessman in Cleveland, Ohio, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The youngest of fourteen children, Vlchek was born to peasant parents in Budyn, southern Bohemia, in 1871. After attempting a career in blacksmithing in Bohemia, at the age of seventeen he decided to follow his two older sisters to Cleveland, home to America's second-largest Czech community. Vlchek worked a variety of unsatisfactory jobs during his first years in Cleveland. In 1895 he opened his own smithing operation, which after a long struggle was transformed into a successful corporation that specialized in the manufacture of toolkits for automobiles. acquisitions, and the successes and travails of his operation. Vlchek was often able to travel home to Czechoslovakia, and during those trips he noted the different cultural and political attitudes that had evolved between Czechs and their Czech American cousins. Vlchek's memoir provides a rare primary source about Czech immigrants. It also offers insight into a self-made man's life philosophy, illustrates relations between ethnic groups in Cleveland during the 1880s, and demonstrates the assimilation of a late-nineteenth-century immigrant in America. Readers interested in immigration history as well as the history of Cleveland will enjoy this fascinating autobiography.
The contribution to the development and culture of America by the immigrants from the territory of former Czechoslovakia, be they Czechs or Slovaks, or Bohemians, as they used to be called, has been enormous. Yet little has been written about the subject. This compendium is part of an effort to correct this glaring deficiency. In this compendium, the focus is on religion, law and jurisprudence, business and entrepreneurship and the notable people in the government, with the narration and assessment about the Czechoslovak American explorers, adventurers and pioneers who paved the way for the colonists and settlers who followed them. An important role among them played the social movement activists. some of whose ideas won the respect and ultimately acceptance by general population, to which subject an entire section has been devoted. Among other, you will find among them abolitionists, freethinkers. suffragists, civil & human rights activists, environmentalists and conservationists, climate change activists, philanthropists, inventors and even futurists or futurologists. Their innovative ideas, inevitably, led to the rise of the plethora of Czech and Slovak American leaders, encompassing, practically, every aspect of human endeavor. As stated in the Foreword, this reference will serve as a powerful research tool for many years to come for scholars and all Czechs and Slovaks on both sides of the Atlantic.
Trace your Eastern European ancestors from American shores back to the old country. This in-depth guide will walk you step-by-step through the exciting--and challenging--journey of finding your Polish, Czech, or Slovak roots. You'll learn how to identify immigrant ancestors, find your family's town of origin, locate key genealogical resources, decipher foreign-language records, and untangle the region's complicated history. The book also includes timelines, sample records, resource lists, and sample record request letters to aid your research. In this book, you'll find • The best online resources for Polish, Czech, and Slovak genealogy, plus a clear research path you can follow to find success • Tips and resources for retracing your ancestors’ journey to America • Detailed guidance for finding and using records in the old country • Helpful background on Polish, Czech, and Slovak history, geography, administrative divisions, and naming patterns • How the Three Partitions of Poland and the Austro-Hungarian Empire affect genealogical research and records • Information on administrative divisions to help you identify where your ancestors' records are kept • Sample letters for requesting records from overseas archives • Case studies that apply concepts and strategies to real-life research problems Whether your ancestors hail from Warsaw or a tiny village in the Carpathians, The Family Tree Polish, Czech and Slovak Genealogy Guide will give you the tools you need to track down your ancestors in Eastern Europe.
This book features a panorama of the lives of selected personalities, whose roots had origin in the Czech lands and who, in the US, reached extraordinary success and who, with their activities, substantially influenced the growth and development of their new homeland. It is a saga of plain, as well as powerful, people whose influence and importance often exceeded the borders of the US. A great portion of included individuals may be unknown to readers since it concerns persons whose Czech origin was usually not known. The book covers the total period from the times of the discovery of New World to the end of the twentieth century. During the selection, little concern was given to nationalistic or ethnographic criteria, the only prerequisite was that the respected individuals were either born on the territory of the Czech lands or were descendants of emigrants from the Czech lands. The image on the front cover is a portrait of Augustine Herman, Lord of Bohemia Manor, the first documented Czech immigrant in the United States. The portrait comes from his famous Map of Maryland and Virginia, dated 1670. The colorful story of his life would be unbelievable if made into a movie. Pioneer, merchant, explorer, surveyor, map maker, patriot, rebel, diplomat, and finally Lord! Read more about him in the book.