Drawing of the United States of America in Mohorjev koledar for the year 1894.     The majority of Slovenes came to America between the years 1890 and 1924. In 1910, 1,353.148 persons in the Austrian monarchy chose Slovene language as their language of communication. According to the 1910 American census, which took into consideration the mother tongue, 183.431 persons declared they speak Slovene language, of those 123.631 of the first and 59.800 of the second generation. They were employed in mines, factories, on farms, as foresters; many became innkeepers and shopkeepers, a few moved up the social ladder before 1914, yet to a larger extent, and especially those of the second and successive generations, not sooner than between the two World Wars. In 1990, 124.477 Americans declared themselves of Slovene descent, and ten years later the number rose to 176.691.

Slovenski narodni dom (Slovene national home), St Clare Ave., Cleveland, Ohio.   A Slovene church and school, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, 1924.   A group of pilgrims on the monastery hill in Lemont, Illinois. They called the place the “American Brezje”.   In an American-Slovene inn in America.           “Mlada Slovenija (Young Slovenia) in America”.   Some Slovenes from the settlement of Greater New York (A. Burger, A. Češarek, K. Adamič, G. Tassotti, J. Rems (from left to right)).   Slovene fishermen in Minnesota.   The choral society Domovina, New York, N. Y.             Coal miners coming from work.   Woodcutters in the Northwest part of the United States.   A rally of the Kranjsko-slovenska Katoliška jednota, Pueblo, Colorado, July 5th 1898.               A Slovene and a Tyrolian priest in America, 1911 (New Hradec, North Dakota).   Slovene buffalo hunters from vicinity of Ptuj. »Life is good, only food is bad because the damned buffalos are old and tough. Cordial greetings to all, from the American Prleki” 1914 (Chicago, Illinois)   »This is how I look in the miner uniform!« wrote Janko Š. to his teacher Marija Č. in Lonjer at Trieste, 1914 (Sweetwater, Wyoming).   Alois G. from Millwaukee, Wiscounsin, sends a postcard to his friend in Carniola in 1925.             John Rebolj, travelling tradesman with gold, Glancoe, Ohio.   American soldier J. Gorše   A Slovene woman at hunting in the jungle of the state of Minnesota.

© Institute for Slovenian Emigration Studies, Slovenian Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana | Ljubljana, Slovenia | 2007 | All rights reserved.