Slovene Americans or Slovenian Americans are Americans of full or partial Slovene or Slovenian ancestry. Slovenes mostly immigrated to America during the Slovene mass emigration period from the 1880s to World War I.
History
The first Slovenes in the United States were Catholic missionary priests in the early 19th century. Two of the earliest such missionaries were Anton Kappus and Frederic Baraga. Many of these early immigrants were bilingual Slovene-German speakers. Baraga's sister Antonija Höffern became the first Slovene woman to immigrate to the United States in 1837.
The peak of emigration from what is now Slovenia was between 1860 and 1914; during this period, between 170,000 and 300,000 left areas that are now part of Slovenia. By 1880 there were around 1,000 Slovene Americans, many of whom worked in the Upper Midwest as miners; within 30 years, about 30,000 to 40,000 Slovenian immigrants lived in the area of Cleveland, Ohio, the center of Slovene American culture. The early waves of migrants were predominantly single men, many of whom (over 36% in the period 1899–1924) returned home after earning money in the United States, mostly in unskilled labor. Many stayed, however, and Slovene women followed in settling in the United States.
In 1914, Cleveland was the third most-populous Slovene city in the world, after Trieste and Ljubljana. Within Cleveland, Slovene Americans developed their own cultural and social institutions, including Slovene-owned groceries, bars, furniture stores, clothing shops, and other businesses; Catholic parishes and elementary schools; mutual aid and fraternal societies; and even a Slovene bank (established in St. Clair, Cleveland in 2010). By the 1930s, five out of 32 members of the Cleveland City Council were Slovene. Most Slovene Americans living in Cleveland eventually moved to the city's suburbs, although cultural institutions within the city limits remain significant. The Cleveland metropolitan area remains home to the largest population of Slovenians in the world outside of Slovenia.
Later Slovene arrivals migrated to the industrial cities or to mining towns in the Upper Midwest, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Two later periods of increased immigration to the United States were the years immediately after World War I (1919–1923) and World War II (1949–1956). Slovene post–World War II migrants consisted primarily of political refugees fleeing Josip Broz Tito's Communist regime in Yugoslavia; this group of migrants was generally older and better educated than earlier waves of Slovene migrants.
Among Slovene immigrants, some were devoutly Catholic, while others were secular and anticlerical, with some holding liberal or socialist views. The division between the two groups was a prominent feature of Slovene-American communal life for much of the 20th century. A minority of Slovene immigrants practiced the Lutheran faith. Most Lutheran Slovenes lived in the Prekmurje region, under Hungarian rather than Austrian rule; when members of this group immigrated to the United States, they maintained a distinct identity called Windish. The largest Windish settlement in the United States was in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Demographics
Large concentrations
Cleveland, Ohio
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pueblo, Colorado
Denver, Colorado
Johnstown, Pennsylvania
Chicago, Illinois
Joliet, Illinois
Indianapolis, Indiana
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Eveleth, Minnesota
Hibbing, Minnesota
The Slovene population in the United States has been historically concentrated in the Great Lakes and Northeastern United States including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota; as well as Colorado. According to the 2000 census, the five states with the largest Slovene populations were: Ohio – 59,683 Pennsylvania – 19,006 Illinois – 15,519 Minnesota – 10,420 California – 9,489
These five states are followed, in descending order, by Colorado, Michigan, Florida, New York, Texas, Indiana, Washington, Kansas, Maryland, West Virginia and Utah, again according to the 2000 census. The state with the smallest Slovene American population is North Dakota (107). There is no American state without Slovene descendants among its population.