Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place during the 1930s, beginning in the United States. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, it was the longest and most widespread depression of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the Great Depression is used as an example of how intensely the world's economy can decline; the Great Depression started in the United States after a major fall in stock prices that began around September 4, 1929, became worldwide news with the stock market crash of October 29, 1929. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product fell by an estimated 15%. By comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession; some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s. However, in many countries the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II; the Great Depression had devastating effects in countries both poor. Personal income, tax revenue and prices dropped, while international trade plunged by more than 50%.
Unemployment in the U. S. rose to 25% and in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities around the world were hit hard those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was halted in many countries. Farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by about 60%. Facing plummeting demand with few alternative sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as mining and logging suffered the most. Economic historians attribute the start of the Great Depression to the sudden devastating collapse of U. S. stock market prices on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday. However, some dispute this conclusion and see the stock crash as a symptom, rather than a cause, of the Great Depression. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 optimism persisted for some time. John D. Rockefeller said "These are days. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have gone. Prosperity has always returned and will again." The stock market turned upward in early 1930. This was still 30% below the peak of September 1929.
Together and business spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. On the other hand, many of whom had suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut back their expenditures by 10%. In addition, beginning in the mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U. S. By mid-1930, interest rates had dropped to low levels, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment were depressed. By May 1930, automobile sales had declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices in general began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930. A deflationary spiral started in 1931. Farmers faced a worse outlook. At its peak, the Great Depression saw nearly 10% of all Great Plains farms change hands despite federal assistance; the decline in the U. S. economy was the factor. Frantic attempts to shore up the economies of individual nations through protectionist policies, such as the 1930 U.
S. Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in other countries, exacerbated the collapse in global trade. By 1933, the economic decline had pushed world trade to one-third of its level just four years earlier. Change in economic indicators 1929–32 The two classical competing theories of the Great Depression are the Keynesian and the monetarist explanation. There are various heterodox theories that downplay or reject the explanations of the Keynesians and monetarists; the consensus among demand-driven theories is that a large-scale loss of confidence led to a sudden reduction in consumption and investment spending. Once panic and deflation set in, many people believed they could avoid further losses by keeping clear of the markets. Holding money became profitable as prices dropped lower and a given amount of money bought more goods, exacerbating the drop in demand. Monetarists believe that the Great Depression started as an ordinary recession, but the shrinking of the money supply exacerbated the economic situation, causing a recession to descend into the Great Depression.
Economists and economic historians are evenly split as to whether the traditional monetary explanation that monetary forces were the primary cause of the Great Depression is right, or the traditional Keynesian explanation that a fall in autonomous spending investment, is the primary explanation for the onset of the Great Depression. Today the controversy is of lesser importance since there is mainstream support for the debt deflation theory and the expectations hypothesis that building on the monetary explanation of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz add non-monetary explanations. There is consensus that the Federal Reserve System should have cut short the process of monetary deflation and banking collapse. If they had done this, the economic downturn would have been much shorter. British economist John Maynard Keynes argued in The General Theory of Employment and Money that lower aggregate expenditures in the economy contributed to a massive decline in income and to employment, well below the average.
In such a situation, the economy reached equilibrium at low levels of economic activity and high unemployment. Keynes' basic idea was simple
Italian Americans
Italian Americans are citizens of the United States of America who are of Italian descent. Italian Americans are the fourth largest ethnic group of European Americans behind German Americans, Irish Americans and English Americans. About 5.5 million Italians immigrated to the United States from 1820 to 2004. In 1870, there were fewer than 25,000 Italian immigrants in America, many of them Northern Italian refugees from the wars that accompanied the Risorgimento—the struggle for Italian unification and independence from foreign rule which ended in 1871. Immigration began to increase during the 1870s, when more than twice as many Italians immigrated than during the five previous decades combined; the 1870s were followed by the greatest surge of immigration, which occurred between 1880 and 1914 and brought more than 4 million Italians to the United States, the majority being from Southern Italy and Sicily, with many having agrarian backgrounds. This period of large-scale immigration ended abruptly with the onset of the First World War in 1914 and, except for one year, never resumed.
Further immigration was limited by several laws Congress passed in the 1920s. 84% of the Italian immigrants came from Southern Italy and Sicily, still rural and agricultural, where much of the populace had been impoverished by centuries of foreign misrule, an oppressive taxation system imposed after Italian unification in 1861. After unification, the Italian government encouraged emigration to relieve economic pressures in the South. After the American Civil War, which resulted in over a half million killed or wounded, immigrant workers were recruited from Italy and elsewhere to fill the labor shortage caused by the war. In the United States, most Italians began their new lives as manual laborers in eastern cities, mining camps and farms; the descendants of the Italian immigrants rose from a lower economic class in the first generation to a level comparable to the national average by 1970. The Italian community has been characterized by strong ties to family, the Roman Catholic Church, fraternal organizations, political parties.
Italian navigators and explorers played a key role in the exploration and settlement of the Americas by Europeans. Christopher Columbus, the explorer who first reached the Americas in 1492–1504, was Italian. Another notable Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, who explored the east coast of South America between 1499 and 1502, is the source of the name America. England's claims in North America were based on the voyages of the Italian explorer John Cabot and his son Sebastian Cabot in the early 16th century. In 1524 the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano was the first European to map the Atlantic coast of today's United States, to enter New York Bay. A number of Italian navigators and explorers in the employ of Spain and France were involved in exploring and mapping their territories, in establishing settlements. In 1539, Marco da Nizza, explored the territory that became the states of Arizona and New Mexico; the first Italian to reside in America was Pietro Cesare Alberti, a Venetian seaman who, in 1635, settled in what would become New York City.
A small wave of Protestants, known as Waldensians, who were of French and northern Italian heritage, occurred during the 17th century. The first Waldensians began arriving around 1640, with the majority coming between 1654 and 1663, they spread out across what was called New Netherland, what would become New York, New Jersey and the Lower Delaware River regions. The total American Waldensian population that immigrated to New Netherland is unknown. Henri de Tonti, together with the French explorer LaSalle, explored the Great Lakes region. De Tonti founded the first European settlement in Illinois in 1679, in Arkansas in 1683. With LaSalle, he co-founded New Orleans, was governor of the Louisiana Territory for the next 20 years, his brother Alphonse de Tonty, with French explorer Antoine Cadillac, was the co-founder of Detroit in 1701, was its acting colonial governor for 12 years. Spain and France were Catholic countries and sent many missionaries to convert the native American population. Included among these missionaries were numerous Italians.
In 1519-25, Alessandro Geraldini was the first Catholic bishop in the Americas, at Santo Domingo. Father François-Joseph Bressani labored among the Algonquin and Huron Indians in the early 17th century. Between 1687 and 1711, the southwest and California were explored and mapped by Italian Jesuit priest Eusebio Kino; the Taliaferro family from Venice, was one of the first families to settle in Virginia. Francesco Maria de Reggio, an Italian nobleman who served under the French, came to Louisiana in 1751 where he held the title of Captain General of Louisiana until 1763. Another colonial, merchant Francis Ferrari of Genoa, was naturalized as a citizen of Rhode Island in 1752, he died in 1753 and in his will speaks of Genoa, his ownership of three ships, cargo of wine and his wife Mary, who went on to own one of the oldest coffee houses in America, the Merchant Coffee House of New York on Wall Street at Water St. Her Merchant Coffee House moved across Wall Street in 1772, retaining the same patronage.
Today, the descendants of the Alberti/Burtis, Fonda, Reggio an
Illinois's 1st congressional district
Illinois's first congressional district is a congressional district in the U. S. state of Illinois. Based in Cook County, the district includes much of the South Side of Chicago, continues southwest to Joliet. From 2003 to early 2013 it extended into the city's southwest suburbs until reaching the border of Will County, covered 97.84 square miles, making it one of the 40 smallest districts in the U. S.. The district had a population, 65% African American, the highest percentage of any congressional district in the nation, it includes the home of former President Barack Obama. The 1st is a majority-minority district, has been since at least the 1920s. Since redistricting by the state legislature after the 2010 census, it is 51.3% African American, 40.6% white, 9.8% Hispanic population. The district is represented by Democrat Bobby Rush, re-elected in 2016, has been elected continuously in the 1st district since 1992. In 2011, following the 2010 census, the state legislature redistricted, it expanded the district to cover parts of Will Counties.
After redistricting, all or parts of Alsip, Blue Island, Calumet Park, Country Club Hills, Dixmoor, Evergreen Park, Frankfort Square, Manhattan, Merrionette Park, Mokena, New Lenox, Oak Forest, Oak Lawn, Orland Hills, Orland Park, Palos Heights, Riverdale, Tinley Park, Worth are included. The representative for these districts were elected in the 2012 primary and general elections, the boundaries became effective on January 3, 2013; the district was adjacent to the 2nd District to the east and south, the 7th District to the north, the 3rd and 13th Districts to the west, bordered the 11th District at its southwest corner. The district's northeast border followed Lake Michigan's shoreline for a mile; the district was created following the 1830 U. S. Census and came into existence in 1833. S. House of Representatives with representative elected on an at-large basis; the district included Southwestern Illinois until 1853. It included the state's northern edge until 1863. Since that time, the district has included all or part of Cook County.
Historical populations reflected waves of immigration into the area: previous majority populations were ethnic Irish and east European. Beginning in the mid-19th century, the Irish were the first to establish their physical and political control of the area within the city's South Side; the current 1st district has a minority-majority population: 51.3% of the residents are African-American. It has been represented in Congress by African Americans since 1929. Tens of thousands of African Americans moved to Chicago from the rural South in the Great Migration, they were confined by discrimination to the South Side of Chicago and replaced ethnic whites who moved out to suburbs. This has been one of the most reliably Democratic districts in the country, although not to the extent that it was during the 1980s, when more than 90% of the district's residents were black; the district has not elected a Republican to the U. S. House of Representatives since 1932. After the civil rights movement gained support from national Democratic Party for major legislation to restore constitutional rights, including the franchise in the South, most African Americans shifted to support the Democratic Party.
Democratic congressional candidates receive over 80% of the vote here. Based in Chicago, the district includes the neighborhoods of Auburn Gresham, Burnside and Greater Grand Crossing; the district's area south of 95th Street is entirely west of Interstate 57. The district includes the municipalities of Crestwood, Evergreen Park, Midlothian and Robbins, nearly all of Alsip, Blue Island and Oak Forest, parts of Calumet Park, Markham, Orland Hills, Orland Park, Palos Heights, Tinley Park and Worth, some small sections of Country Club Hills and Riverdale. In the twentieth century after the Great Migration from the South and concentration of blacks on the South Side due to de facto residential segregation, the district became the nation's first with a black-majority population. Since the 1920s, it has included the central area of Chicago's South Side African-American community. Over 85% of the district's residents were black during the period from the 1950s through the 1980s, but redistricting since that time – which redrew the district lines with the goal of maintaining three Chicago districts with black populations exceeding 60% – has reduced the percentage of black residents in the district to 70% in the 1990s.
The current figure is 65%. Outward migration has caused the South Side's population to decrease over the years, the district was expanded geographically to the southwest to gain residents as the state's congressional delegation has been reduced in numbers due to population changes and reapportio
United States
The United States of America known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U. S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D. C. and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico; the State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean; the U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The diverse geography and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century; the United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776; the war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties; the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.
By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power; the United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Sweeping civil rights legislation, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U. S. Moon landing; the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, it is a representative democracy.
The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, other international organizations. The United States is a developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for a quarter of global GDP; the U. S. economy is post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U. S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, worker productivity.
The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, is a leading political and scientific force internationally. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci; the first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq. to George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort; the first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the'United States of America'".
The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be'The United States of America'". In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence; this draft of the document did not surface unti
Lower West Side, Chicago
Lower West Side is a community area on the West Side of Chicago, United States. It is three miles southwest of its main neighborhood is Pilsen; the Heart of Chicago is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of the Lower West Side. In the late 19th century, Pilsen was inhabited by German, Polish and Czech immigrants. Czech immigrants were the most prominent and named the district after Plzeň, the fourth largest city in what is now the Czech Republic, they replaced the Germans and Irish who had settled there before them, in the mid-nineteenth century. These German and Irish residents lived in poor conditions throughout the 1850s and ‘60s; the Pilsen area was overcrowded and suffered from flooding, lack of indoor plumbing, illness. A cholera outbreak that killed hundreds led the German and Irish residents to move in search of better living conditions; the population included smaller numbers of other ethnic groups from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, such as Slovaks, Slovenes and Austrians, as well as immigrants of Polish and Lithuanian heritage.
Many of the immigrants worked in surrounding factories. Like many early 20th century American urban neighborhoods, Pilsen was home to both wealthy professionals and the working class, with the whole area knitted together based on the ethnicities of Slavic descent, who were not welcome in other areas of the city. Although there was some increase in the Hispanic presence in the late 1950s, it was not until the early 1960s that there was a great spurt in the numbers of Latinos in Pilsen; this was due to the displacement of Latinos from the neighborhood UIC occupies, south of Hull House, from other urban revitalization projects. In 1970, Latinos became the majority population in Pilsen, with about 25,000 people out of the community's 43,341 people surpassing the population of people of Eastern European descent. In particular, Mexicans made up about 36% of the residents of Pilsen in 1973. In the 1980s, the Mexican-origin population grew. During that decade 95% of the people in Pilsen had some Mexican descent, 80% of the overall population of Pilsen were first or second generation immigrants from Mexico and Mexican-Americans.
Mexican growth continued into the 1990s. During that decade 40% of the Mexican-origin population in Pilsen had migrated directly there from Mexico, about 33% of the Mexican-origin population in the Chicago area lived in Pilsen; as of 2005 many of the newer residents of the neighborhood were not Latino, it is projected that the neighborhood will continue to become more diversified in the years ahead. The non-Latino population in Pilsen is still a minority as of the 2010 Census; the Chicago Housing Authority's plan for transformation of the ABLA projects has spilled over into Pilsen proper, with the now nearly complete Chantico Loft development, Union Row Townhomes, as well as the defunct Centro 18 on 18th Street in East Pilsen. Infill construction of condominiums and single-family homes is now in full force on the east side of the neighborhood, as Pilsen becomes one of the next major development areas for infill construction; some local advocacy groups, including one led by Michael A. Martone, have formed urging the neighborhood's alderman to curtail gentrification to preserve the Mexican-American culture.
The Lower West Side includes two neighborhoods. It contains several areas considered to have historic significance including the Schoenhofen Brewery Historic District, part of the Cermak Road Bridge Historic District, part of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal Historic District, the South Water Market; the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal Historic District is part of the Illinois Waterway Navigation System Facilities multiple property submission. R. H. P. May 2012, it consists of the South Branch of the Chicago River. According to the results of a 1978 survey which asked residents the name of their neighborhood and its boundaries, the approximate borders for the Heart of Chicago neighborhood are the BNSF Railway to the north, South Ashland Avenue to the east, Interstate 55 to the south, South Western Avenue to the west; the Pilsen neighborhood is a working class, residential neighborhood and gateway for immigrants coming to the City of Chicago. The area was settled by Czech immigrants to the United States who named the district after Plzeň, a city in what is now the Czech Republic.
According to the results of a 1978 survey which asked residents the name of their neighborhood and its boundaries, the approximate borders for Pilsen neighborhood are West 16th Street to the north, the Dan Ryan Expressway to the east, Interstate 55 to the south, South Ashland Avenue to the west. In 2006, Pilsen Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places; the Schoenhofen Brewery Historic District is centered on the former site of the Peter Schoenhofen Brewing Company at 18th and Canalport Avenue. Seventeen buildings once occupied the site when the brewery reached maximum capacity in 1910 at 1,200,000 barrels a year. Two of the remaining buildings demonstrate the change in architectural styles that occurred at the turn of the century in the United States; the facility manufactured Green River. The brewery district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 27, 1978 and the Administration Building and Powerhouse were designated Chicago Landmarks on July 13, 1988.
The South Water Market relocated to the Lower West Side in 1925. As of 2014, the five block facility had been redeveloped into the University Commons condominiums. According
Illinois House of Representatives
The Illinois House of Representatives is the lower house of the Illinois General Assembly, the bicameral legislature of the U. S. state of Illinois. The body was created by the first Illinois Constitution adopted in 1818; the House consists of 118 representatives elected from individual legislative districts for two-year terms with no limits. S. census each representative represents 108,734 people. The state legislature has the power to make laws and impeach judges. Lawmakers must be at least 21 years of age and a resident of the district in which they serve for at least two years. U. S. President Abraham Lincoln, who oversaw the American Civil War and the end of slavery in the United States, got his start in politics in the Illinois House of Representatives; the Illinois General Assembly was created by the first Illinois Constitution adopted in 1818. The candidates for office split into political parties in the 1830s as the Democratic and Whig parties, until the Whig candidates reorganized as Republicans in the 1850s.
Abraham Lincoln began his political career in the Illinois House of Representatives as a member of the Whig party in 1834. He served there until 1842. Although Republicans held the majority of seats in the Illinois House after 1860, in the next election it returned to the Democrats; the Democratic Party-led legislature worked to frame a new state constitution, rejected by voters After the 1862 election, the Democratic-led Illinois House of Representatives passed resolutions denouncing the federal government's conduct of the war and urging an immediate armistice and peace convention, leading the Republican governor to suspend the legislature for the first time in the state's history. In 1864, Republicans swept the state legislature and at the time of Lincoln's assassination at Ford's Theater, Illinois stood as a solidly Republican state. From 1870 to 1980, Illinois' lower house had several unique features: The House comprised 177 members. Elections were conducted using cumulative voting. Though not constitutionally mandated, the two parties had an informal agreement that they would only run two candidates per district.
Thus, in most districts, only four candidates were running for three seats, guaranteeing not only that there would be a single loser, but that each party would have significant representation—a minimum of one-third of the seats —in the House. In most cases outside Chicago, this system assured that the district's minority party would win a seat; the Cutback Amendment was proposed to abolish this system. Since its passage in 1980, representatives have been elected from 118 single-member districts formed by dividing the 59 Senate districts in half; each representative is "associated" with a senator. Since the adoption of the Cutback Amendment, there have been proposals by some major political figures in Illinois to bring back multi-member districts. A task force led by former governor Jim Edgar and former federal judge Abner Mikva issued a report in 2001 calling for the revival of cumulative voting, in part because it appears that such a system increases the representation of racial minorities in elected office.
The Chicago Tribune editorialized in 1995 that the multi-member districts elected with cumulative voting produced better legislators. Others have argued that the now-abandoned system provided for greater "stability" in the lower house; the Democratic Party won a majority of House seats in 1982. Except for a brief two-year period of Republican control from 1995 to 1997, the Democrats have held the majority since then; the first two African-American legislators in Illinois were John W. E. Thomas, first elected in 1876, George French Ecton, elected in 1886. In 1922, Lottie Holman O'Neill became the first woman elected to the Illinois House of Representatives. In 1958, Floy Clements became the first African American woman to serve as state Representative. In 1982, Joseph Berrios became the first Hispanic American state representative. Theresa Mah became the first Asian American to serve in the Illinois House when she was sworn into office January 10, 2017; the Illinois House of Representatives meets at the Illinois State Capitol in Illinois.
It is required to convene on the second Wednesday of January each year. Along with the Illinois Senate and governor, it is vested with the power to make laws, come up with a state budget, act on federal constitutional amendments, propose constitutional amendments to the state constitution; the Illinois House of Representatives holds the power to impeach executive and judicial officials. A person must be a U. S. citizen and two-year resident of an electoral district of at least 21 years of age to serve in the Illinois House of Representatives. Members of the House cannot hold other public offices or receive appointments by the governor while in office; the current Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives is Michael Madigan, who represents the 22nd district. The Democratic Party of Illinois holds a majority of seats in the House. Under the Illinois Constitution, the office of minority leader is recognized for the purpose of making certain appointments. Jim Durkin, representing the 82nd district holds the post.
Clerk of the House: John W. Hollman Chief Doorkeeper: Lee A. Crawford Parliamentarian: Justin Cox Assistant Clerk of the House: Bradley S. Bolin As of January 2019, the 101st Ge
Czech Americans
Czech Americans, known in the 19th and early 20th century as Bohemian Americans, are citizens of the United States who are of Czech descent. Czechs originate from the Czech lands, a term which refers to the majority of the traditional lands of the Bohemian Crown, namely Bohemia and Czech Silesia; these lands over time have been governed by a variety of states, including the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Austrian Empire and the Czech Republic. Germans from the Czech lands who emigrated to the United States identified as German American, or, more as Americans of German Bohemian descent. According to the 2000 US census, there are 1,262,527 Americans of full or partial Czech descent, in addition to 441,403 persons who list their ancestry as Czechoslovak; the first documented case of the entry of Czechs to the North American shores is of Joachim Gans of Prague, who came to Roanoke, North Carolina in 1585 with an expedition of explorers organized by Sir Walter Raleigh. Augustine Herman was the first documented Czech settler.
He was a surveyor and skilled draftsman, successful planter and developer of new lands, a shrewd and enterprising merchant, a bold politician and effective diplomat, fluent in several languages. After coming to New Amsterdam he became one of the most influential people in the Dutch Province which led to his appointment to the Council of Nine to advise the New Amsterdam Governor Peter Stuyvesant. One of his greatest achievements was his celebrated map of Maryland and Virginia commissioned by Lord Baltimore on which he began working in earnest after removing to the English Province of Maryland. Lord Baltimore was so pleased with the map that he rewarded Herman with a large estate, named by Herman "Bohemia Manor", the hereditary title Lord. There was another Bohemian living in New Amsterdam at that time, Frederick Philipse, who became famous, he was a successful merchant who became the wealthiest person in the entire Dutch Province. Philipse was from Bohemia, from an aristocratic Protestant family who had to leave their native land to save their lives, after the Thirty Years' War.
The first significant wave of Czech colonists was of the Moravian Brethren who began arriving on the American shores in the first half of the 18th century. Moravian Brethren were the followers of the teachings of the Czech religious reformer and martyr Jan Hus, Petr Chelčický and Bishop John Amos Comenius, they were true heirs of the ancient "Unitas fratrum bohemicorum" - Unity of the Brethren, who found a temporary refuge in Herrnhut in Lusatia under the patronage of Count Nikolaus Zinzendorf. Because of the worsening political and religious situation in Saxony, the Moravian Brethren, as they began calling themselves, decided to emigrate to North America; this group started coming in 1735, when they first settled in Savannah, in Pennsylvania, from which they spread to other states after the American Revolution Ohio. The Moravians established a number of settlements, such as Bethlehem and Lititz in Pennsylvania and Salem in North Carolina. Moravians made great contributions to the growth and development of the US.
Cultural contributions of Moravian Brethren from the Czech lands were distinctly notable in the realm of music. The trumpets and horns used by the Moravians in Georgia are the first evidence of Moravian instrumental music in America. In 1776, at the time of the Declaration of Independence, more than two thousand Moravian Brethren lived in the colonies. President Thomas Jefferson designated special lands to the missionaries to civilize the Indians and promote Christianity; the free uncultivated land in America encouraged immigration throughout the nineteenth century. The first major immigration of Czechs occurred in 1848 when the Czech "Forty Eighters" fled to the United States to escape the political persecution by the Austrian Habsburgs. During the American Civil War, Czechs served in both the Confederate and Union army, but as with most immigrant groups, the majority fought for the Union. Immigration reached a peak in 1907, when 13,554 Czechs entered the eastern ports. Unlike previous immigration, new immigrants were predominantly Catholic.
Although some of the anticlericalism among Czechs in Europe did come to the United States, on the whole Czech Americans are much more to be practicing Catholics than Czechs in Europe. By 1910, the Czech population was 349,000, by 1940 it was 1,764,000; the U. S. Bureau of the Census reported that nearly 800,000 Czechs were residing in the U. S. in 1970. Since this figure did not include Czechs, living in the U. S. for several generations, it is reasonable to assume. The top 50 U. S. communities with the highest percentage of people claiming Czech ancestry are: Conway, ND 55.2% West, TX 40.9% Oak Creek NE 38.2% Wilber, NE 37.3% Shiner, TX 32.1% Montgomery, MN 30.9% Lonsdale, MN 30.5% Wheatland, MN 29.9% Tyndall, SD 29.5% David City, NE 28.0% Montgomery, MN 26.3% Franklin, WI 26.1% Lanesburgh, MN 25.2% Granger, TX 25.1% Port Costa, CA 24.0% Schulenburg, TX 23.7% New Prague, MN and Erin, MN 23.5% Wahoo, NE 22.7% Carlton, WI 22.4% Wallis, TX 22.0% Hallettsville, TX 21.5% Hale, MN 20.8% Montpelier, WI 19.7% Flatonia, TX 19.5% West Kewaunee, WI 19.2% Schuyler, NE and Webster, NE 19.0% Gibson, WI 18.9% Hillsboro, WI 18.4% Kossuth, WI 18.2% Lexington, MN 18.1% Mishicot, WI 16.9% Kewaunee, WI and North Bend, NE 16.7% Franklin, WI 15.9% Oak Grove, WI and Caldwell, TX 15.7% Lake Mary, MN 15.4% Solon, IA 15.2% Mishicot, WI 15.0% Helena, MN 14.9% Marietta, N
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