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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.
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.
Bohemian composer Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959) was exceptionally prolific, composing over 400 imaginative, well-crafted, and diverse pieces, including symphonies, operas, ballet scores, and other orchestral works. For 12 years (1941-1953), he lived in America, during which he enjoyed a brilliant reputation, and his works were played by nearly all the major orchestras. Yet today, his works are rarely performed. In Bohuslav Martinu: The Compulsion to Compose, F. James Rybka provides a documented explanation for Martinu's amazing output: he had Asperger syndrome. Indeed, Martinu is believed to be the first composer ever to be documented, albeit retrospectively, with an autistic spectrum disorder. In this unique biography, Rybka follows Martinu's life from his birth in Policka, Bohemia to his composition studies with Albert Roussel, his escape from Nazis, and his rise as an internationally recognized composer with premieres of his works in Boston, Prague, London, and Basel. As Rybka explains how the dynamics of Asperger Syndrome affected the composer's work, readers will more fully appreciate Martinu's accomplishments and legacy. Containing important letters and photographs, this book will inspire and inform those impacted by autism but will also be of interest to music scholars and students alike.
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.