Czech - Slovak Immigration

The first large group of Czech immigrants began arriving in 1735 with the coming of a group of Moravian Brethren in Savannah, Georgia.

The first major immigration wave occurred in 1848 when the Bohemian "Forty Eighters" fled to the United States to escape political persecution by the Habsburgs. By the late 1850s there were an estimated 10,000 Bohemians living in the United States. Chicago, tied to the West by rail and more readily accessible to immigrants, became the most populous Bohemian settlement. By 1870, other cities with Bohemian concentrations included St. Louis, Cleveland, New York, and Milwaukee. Another large wave of Bohemians migration to America occurred in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when Midwestern farmland was widely available at low prices. Most came from Bohemia and Moravia, and were called "Bohemians" in the early part of the 20th century.

Between 1880 and the mid-1920s, approximately 500,000 Slovaks immigrated to the United States. More than half of Slovak immigrants settled in Pennsylvania. Other popular destinations included Ohio, Illinois, New York and New Jersey. Also, Slovak, Arkansas was founded in 1894 by the Slovak Colonization Company.