In some cities, as for instance Cedar Rapids, and in some states, as
for instance Nebraska, Bohemians are a large enough element in the
population to be fairly well known; but they are not so numerous in
the United States as a whole, as to be clearly present to the minds
of most people. New Yorkers may have seen with interest the National
Hall of the Bohemians, Clevelanders may be familiar with the Schauffler
Missionary Training School, persons familiar with industrial conditions
in Chicago may be aware of the great Bohemian colony there, the largest
in the country; but in general if people know anything about Bohemians
they probably “know a great many things that aren’t so,” misled by the
fact that the French word for Gipsies is Bohemians, much as our word
for the American aborigines is Indian.
Yet from the colonial period individual Bohemians have come to this
country, and in 1906, the latest year for which I have estimates, the
Bohemian group was put at a round half-million.
Some of these early settlers are picturesque and not unimportant
figures like Heřman and Phillipse, but it was not till the disturbed
period of 1848 that Bohemians came to this country in appreciable
numbers. At this time there was a triple ferment in Bohemia: first, a
desire for political independence; second, a resurrection of national
self-consciousness symbolized by the revival of the Bohemian language,
the use of which among cultivated people had been abandoned for German;
and third, a spirit of religious questioning and vehement challenge of
current Christianity, largely due to reaction against the influence of
a corrupt Austrian clericalism.
Another possible influence was the discovery of gold in California in
1849, which is said to have brought Bohemian gold-seekers and to have
stimulated the activity of ship agents. The census of 1850 mentions
87 natives of Austria (out of 946 in the United States) as then in
California; these were probably Bohemians. Throughout the fifties and
early sixties there was a pretty steady outflow from Bohemia, most of
it directed to the United States. This early emigration was a movement
of settlers, whole families going together.
With 1867 came a fresh impulse to emigration. Besides the newly granted
right to emigrate freely, the disastrous war with Prussia in 1866 gave
added reasons for going, while in the United States the Civil War was
over and everything invited the settler.
The earliest colony of Bohemians was in St. Louis, where in 1854 they
had already established a Catholic church, and this city has always
remained an influential Bohemian centre.
More important, however, was the movement to the states further
West--the largest numbers settling in Wisconsin, later Iowa, later
Nebraska and the two Dakotas, though a considerable settlement
also grew up in Cleveland. In general, however, in Ohio, Indiana,
and Illinois land was already too dear for the newcomers, and they
continually settled further west as the years went on. In the early
days they either went overland from the Eastern ports or up the
Mississippi River. One of the reasons for so many Bohemians as well
as Germans, Scandinavians, Poles, and Belgians being attracted
to Wisconsin was undoubtedly the attitude of that state toward
immigration. A fact that is easily forgotten in the present state
of feeling in regard to immigration is the eager and official
solicitation of immigrants that was carried on for years by various
states. Wisconsin, like many other states, appointed a Commissioner
of Immigration to stimulate the inflow. In 1852 the first man to fill
this office reported to the Governor that he had been in New York
distributing pamphlets in English, German, Norwegian, and Dutch,
describing the resources of the state.
After four years this state canvass for immigrants was suspended for a
time, but in 1864 the Wisconsin Legislature memorialized Congress for
the passage of national laws to encourage foreign immigration on the
ground that labor was scarce, owing to the war, and that wages had more
than doubled. Whether or not as a consequence of this request, Congress
did in the same year pass an act to encourage immigration, which,
however, was repealed in March, 1868.
Again, in 1879, Wisconsin established a State Board of Immigration
to increase and stimulate immigration, with authority to disseminate
information. The official circulars mentioned as inducements the
following points: climate, rich lands at a nominal price, free schools
and a free university, equality before the law, religious liberty,
no imprisonment for debt, and liberal exemption from seizure by a
creditor, suffrage and the right to be elected to any office but that
of governor or lieutenant-governor on one year’s residence, whether a
citizen or not (intention to become one having been declared); and
full eligibility to office for all actual citizens. “There is never
an election in the state,” one circular continues, “that does not
put some, and often very many, foreign-born citizens into office.
Indeed, there is no such thing as a foreigner in Wisconsin, save in
the mere accident of birthplace; for men coming here and entering into
the active duties of life identify themselves with the state and her
interests, and are to all intents and purposes American.” We are told
“The language above used is, except in rhetoric, identical” with that
in an edition of 1884.
Besides this direct encouragement by the state “a similar canvass was
maintained by counties and land companies, and at a later stage by
railway companies, some of them sending agents to travel in Europe.” Of
such solicitation at the very beginning of Bohemian immigration I found
tradition still mindful in the old country. Thus immigrants have felt
themselves directly and officially invited and urged to come, and it
is not surprising that one often finds them aggrieved and hurt at the
tone of too many current references making foreigners synonymous with
everything that is unwelcome.
Many of the Bohemians were pioneers in the unbroken wilderness, and a
very large part were farmers. A large proportion, however, had trades,
and this is characteristic of Bohemian immigration in general. The
common estimate is that one-half of the Bohemians in the country are
living in country places, occupied either with farming or with some one
of the various employments incident to rural life, from shoemaking to
keeping store or acting as notary public. If the comparison be extended
to all groups of foreign parentage, Bohemia shows a larger proportion
engaged in agriculture than any foreign countries except Switzerland,
Denmark, and Norway, surpassing even Germany and Sweden. It is
interesting to note that Italy has a very low rank in this regard; even
Poland and Russia surpass her, lowered as their place is by the large
non-agricultural Jewish element, and only Hungary is below her.
As to the quality of Slavic farming, one naturally hears different
reports. I suspect that the American often thinks the Pole or Bohemian
a poor farmer because he works on a different plan, while the
foreigner, used to small, intensive farming, thinks Yankees slovenly
and wasteful. Especially when he takes up old, worn-out farm lands, he
has small respect for the methods of his predecessor, who, he says,
“robbed the soil.”
The American business agent of a Bohemian farming paper, already
quoted, could not say enough in praise of the Bohemian farmers.
They farmed better than the Americans. They invested freely in farm
machinery. Nothing was too good or too big for them. In the eastern
half of Butler County, Nebraska, there were seventeen big steam
threshing outfits among Bohemians--something to which you could find
nothing parallel in the same area anywhere in the United States. The
Bohemian paper of which he was agent had seven times more advertising
of farm implements than any other paper in the United States, he said.
While the above statements are those of an interested party, all the
available evidence points the same way. It would seem, moreover,
as though in certain lines, new to us and familiar in Europe, the
immigrant should be able to supply very valuable skill. This seems to
be especially the case in the sugar-beet industry, in which the labor
of Bohemians, who understand beet culture well, is much sought.
Of Bohemian women at work, nearly a quarter were in 1900 servants and
waitresses, and more than another quarter workers at tailoring or in
tobacco. This corresponds to the fact that many Bohemians in the cities
are engaged in the two latter branches; many too are mechanics or
trades-people, often carrying on a small business of their own.
The Bohemians, like other Slavic groups in this country, are much given
to organizing into societies. Many of their associations are small
local affairs of the most various sorts. In a New York Bohemian paper I
found a list of 95 local societies among this group of perhaps 45,000
people. Many were mere “pleasure clubs,” to use the current East Side
phrase, while many were lodges of various of their great “national”
societies. Of these large national societies the most remarkable is
the society founded by the Bohemians at St. Louis in 1854, under the
name of the Bohemian-Slavonic Benevolent Society, or as it is commonly
called, by the initials of this name in the vernacular, the Č. S. P. S.
In the religious controversies which soon divided American Bohemians
into two camps, this came to represent the free-thinking, anti-Catholic
side. It numbers about 25,000 members.
The Sokols, which correspond to the German “Turnerbunds” or gymnastic
societies, are as popular and widespread as they are desirable. They
give opportunity for exercise dignified by a sense of the relation
between good physical condition and readiness for service to one’s
country. Women and children, as well as the men, have their own
divisions, classes, and uniforms, and the Sokol exhibitions are
important and very pretty social events. In Prague, in the summer of
1906, the Bohemian Sokols had an anniversary international meet, at
which the American societies were also represented, and performed
evolutions, literally in their thousands, in the open air.
Theatricals, whether given in some local hall or in a regular theatre
hired for the occasion, are, as in Europe, a favorite employment
for Sunday afternoons or evenings. Classic pieces, both literary
and operatic, are much enjoyed; for instance, among the Bohemians,
Smetana’s opera, “The Bartered Bride,” is often given. On the other
hand, one will see a very simple spontaneous little exhibition given
with the greatest abandon and delight by a club of hard-worked,
elderly women, whose triumphs are hugely enjoyed by their families and
neighbors. It is an especial pleasure to them to reproduce the pretty
costumes of their old-world youth. Worthy of especial mention are
the club called Snaha (Endeavor), of Bohemian professional women in
Chicago, and the clubs organized for reading and study among Socialists
of different nationalities.
There are numerous Bohemian papers and periodicals, including the
Bohemian “Hospodář” (“Farmer”) of Omaha and the “Ženské Listy” of
Chicago, the latter being an organ of a woman’s society, printed
as well as edited by women. It is not devoted to “beauty lessons”
and “household hints,” but to efforts toward woman’s suffrage and
the “uplifting of the mental attitude of working-women.” Its 6,000
subscribers include distinguished Bohemians all over the country, men
as well as women.
In religion the Roman Catholics claim a large number of Bohemians, but
there is a substantial Protestant minority; outside the church fold is
the numerous and very interesting group of Free-Thinkers.
The Bohemians are among the most literate of our immigrants. Taking
the data for 1900, which I happen to have worked out, we find that of
immigrants of all nationalities of fourteen years and over, those not
able to both read and write were 24.2 per cent.; among the Germans
5.8 per cent.; among the Bohemians and Moravians only 3.0 per cent.;
among Scandinavians, under 0.8 per cent. Certainly to supply only about
one-half as many illiterates per hundred as the Germans is a notable
record.
All of this is quite borne out by the impression one gets of Bohemians
both in the United States and in Bohemia. In development and
conditions they rank with the immigrant from northwestern Europe. The
struggle with the Germans is in a sense the master-thread in their
whole history, and this contact, even though inimical, has meant
interpenetration and rapprochement. No other Slavic nationality is more
self-conscious and patriotic, not to say chauvinistic, in its national
feeling, and at the same time none begins to be so permeated with
general European culture and so advanced economically.
As to character, if it is impossible to indict a whole people, so is it
impossible to draw a portrait of such a collective group. Nevertheless,
no one can doubt that one characteristic of the countrymen of Smetana
and Dvořák is their noble gift for music. Their sense of color, too, is
very marked, and they, beyond all people I know, love the dance. Yet
with all their “gemüthlich” and temperamental qualities I find them
reserved, delicate, shy, intensely family-loving, cherishing privacy.
The Bohemians are a people of high conscientiousness, and by nature
loyal. In the Civil War their anti-slavery feeling and their devotion
to their new country both were shown, and the first company that went
from Chicago to fight for the Union is said to have been a Lincoln
Rifle Company that some young men of that nationality had organized in
1860. The dominating feature in the great Bohemian National Cemetery
in Chicago is the soldiers’ monument, just such a monument as stands
on every village common in New England; and perhaps nothing so much
as this visible sign of blood shed in the same cause bridges the
difference of national feeling.
They are interested in ideas for their own sake, as are the Latin
peoples, and especially in questions of religion. The older people
love their past, their language, their old home, yet they cannot hand
on these interests in their pristine intensity to the younger people,
absorbed in the life about them, dropping their Bohemian speech and
ways and gradually, only gradually, completing the transition to the
New World and its ways.
NOTE.--I have to thank the publishers of my book, _Our Slavic
Fellow-Citizens_, for permission to borrow here and there from its
pages.