The Slavic diaspora library: the Slovak-American example (1).

Ference, Gregory C.

The inter-war period (1918-39) represents the "golden age" of nonacademic Slavic language libraries in the United States. Despite the immigration quotas adopted by the U.S. Congress in the 1920s, Slavic life in the United States flourished for millions of immigrants who arrived largely before the beginning of World War I. Although these restrictions severely limited immigrants from East Central Europe, a small stream continued to enrich the established Slavic communities throughout the country. Wherever a sizable number of a particular Slavic group could be found, fraternal organizations, ethnic parishes, cultural activities, and vernacular newspapers and publishing houses abounded. Slavic-American immigrants and their offspring maintained close ties to their former homelands, keeping the cultures and languages alive usually, at least, by forcing first-generation offspring to attend classes in their parent's native tongue(s).

World War II and the falling of the Iron Curtain effectively halted Slavic emigration, cutting a vital link for the continued growth and well-being of Slavic-American life. Some immigrants continued to arrive, especially after traumatic events, such as the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, but their numbers remained small, and these people added little to ethnic life in America. Although cultural exchanges between the two continents resumed after the war, Cold War political considerations and realities usually tainted such events, further causing Slavic life in America to stagnate.

The advent of suburbia and the posterity of the postwar era destroyed the "glue" of churches and fraternal organizations that held many Slavic ethnic neighborhoods together. By the mid-1960s, urban flight, a natural decline in the numbers of the original immigrants, and the unwillingness of Americanized second- and third-generation Slavic-Americans to maintain ethnic ties, especially with the stigma of communism attached to the homelands of their forefathers, rang the death-knell for many ethnic communities. When the Iron Curtain rose in the late 1980s, and thus permitted Slavic emigration to resume on a small scale, the newly arrived immigrants tended to avoid established ethnic organizations, finding them old-fashioned and quaint.

The Slovak experience in America did not differ from this general trend. Thomas J. Shelley presents a good overview of the rise and fall of one such enclave in Slovaks on the Hudson: Most Holy Trinity Church, Yonkers, and the Slovak Catholics of the Archdiocese of New York, 1894-2000 (Washington, DC: The Catholic University Press, 2002). Very few Slovak-American communities survive today, despite the fact that after Poles, the Slovaks rank second numerically in immigration statistics among all Slavs arriving in the United States before 1919. (2)

Background to Emigration

Due to the general repression of the Slovaks and other non-Magyar minorities in Austria-Hungary after 1867, it has been readily assumed that these people would seek a way to escape their oppression. Hence the large number of immigrants, especially to the United States. Actually, for the most part, official suppression had little to do with such emigration. Other factors, including overpopulation, a lack of good farmland, unemployment, and poverty overshadowed the policies of the Hungarian government.

In a little over one and a half centuries prior to the mass migration of Slovaks, the population of Slovakia rose rapidly, from approximately 700,000 in 1720 (3) to around 2,500,000 by 1850. Over the next sixty years, it increased about sixteen percent to 3,000,000, (4) with the Slovaks estimated to be one-fifth of the entire population of Hungary in 1910. (5)

This growth of the overwhelmingly agrarian Slovaks led to the subdivision of their peasant landholdings into smaller plots that eventually could no longer support subsistence farming. The largely mountainous topography of Slovakia worsened this condition, causing land-less peasants and dwarf landholders to become seasonal farm laborers on the large estates. Farm mechanization threatened these jobs, since one reaper could minimally complete the work of fifteen men. (6)

Cottage industries also suffered as industrialization swept across the empire and caused widespread unemployment. (7) Slovaks looked for jobs in the industrial cities of the monarchy. As a consequence, by 1910 the number of Slovak laborers had risen to 20.3 percent in industry and dropped to 61.8 percent in farming. (8)

Overpopulation and the impact of industrialization on cottage crafts and agriculture resulted in a surplus of inhabitants which infant industrialization in the empire could not employ. Bad harvests in the 1870s and the 1873 depression aggravated this situation further. Slovaks had no recourse but to look outside Austria-Hungary for work, and increasingly turned to the United States. (9) They started to come in large numbers in the 1880s, and became part of the "new" immigration, namely those people entering America from East Central and Southeastern Europe.

Unlike many of the other Slavic groups, for the most part Slovaks came to the United States with little intention to settle permanently. They emigrated to earn as much money as quickly as possible, and return to the Old Country with their hard-earned wages to purchase farm land. (10) Many immigrants sent letters from America containing large sums of money to improve the lives of their loved ones in Hungary and also described the advantages of life here as compared to home." Thus, this new-found prosperity in a poverty-stricken area often convinced others to leave. Many Slovaks also earned enough after several years to return home as "bohdci" (rich men), captivating their fellow countrymen with the money to be earned abroad. In fact, many of these "bohdci" re-emigrated, some making the trip several times before deciding to settle permanently in America due to the economic advantages. It is estimated that sixty percent of all immigrant Slovaks eventually returned to Europe at least once. (12)

Number of Slovaks in America

The largely rural Slovaks settled mainly in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern regions, particularly in western Pennsylvania and the area around Cleveland, taking low skilled jobs in heavy industry, such as coal mines and steel mills. (13) These jobs gave them year-round employment with wages five to six times higher than in Hungary. For example, a person working in heavy industry could expect to earn in one day what he would have received in one week at a seasonal farm job in the Old Country." The statistics report that sixty-eight percent of the Slovak immigrants between 1899 and 1913 had agricultural qualifications, yet almost ninety percent took jobs in industry. (15) In 1909, Slovaks comprised approximately ten percent of all iron and steel workers in the United States. (16)

However, the total number of Slovak immigrants to America will never be known. Officially, 480,286 Slovaks arrived in the United States between June 30, 1899, and the end of 1919, making the Slovaks the sixth largest group of immigrants during this period. Of all the Slavic groups entering the United States, only the Poles, with over one million, outnumbered the Slovaks. (17)

A better indicator of the degree of Slovak immigration to America would be the 1920 census, listing a total of 619,866 persons, (18) but this cannot be considered accurate since the takers often confused Slovenes and Slovaks or placed them in wrong categories, for example "Slavs." (19) By studying Slovak villages and their population fluctuations between 1871 and 1914, the Slovak demographer Jan Sveton estimated that 650,000 emigrated. As such, this number is generally accepted as the most accurate meaning that approximately one-fifth of the entire Slovak nation emigrated from the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. (20)

Life in America

Slovaks settled in thirty-seven states, in almost seven hundred different communities, (21) and contributed to the diversity of American society. As in the case of other foreigners, when numbers permitted, they tended to be concentrated in neighborhoods with their co-nationals. If their numbers sufficed, they established their own churches and fraternal and cultural organizations, as well as newspaper offices and publishing houses. Virtually all these institutions contained some sort of library for the parishioners, members, or business interests.

The Slovaks, unlike the Poles or any other Slavic group, are split religiously into four major denominations. By 1910, Roman Catholics made up approximately seventy percent, Lutherans fourteen percent, and Calvinists and Byzantine-Rite Catholics five percent and seven percent, respectively, (22) with this division being seen throughout American Slovak life. Slovak neighborhoods could contain several churches, based on religious as well as geographic differences from the homeland. Herein lies one of the major weaknesses of the Slovak community in the United States: a lack of a greater cohesiveness of the nation. This easily transferred itself to the Slovak-American libraries. Thus, each church congregation would have its own library built upon these old world regional and denominational biases. At times, parishioners would duplicate the holdings of the other houses of worship, being too snobbish to perhaps pool their resources with others who seemed not quite the same as them.

As these immigrants continued to enter the United States, Slovak ethnic churches and congregations proliferated. In 1920, over 176 Roman Catholic, 29 Lutheran, and 6 Calvinist churches existed, (23) increasing to over 300 (241 Roman Catholic, 48 Lutheran, 9 Calvinist and the remaining Byzantine-Rite) ten years later. (24) Slovaks established many of these churches to maintain regional differences found in the Old Country. As such, several congregations of the same denomination could stand in one area, but for the most part they refused to cooperate with each other in collective efforts.

Fraternal-beneficial organizations also flourished and suffered from the same malady as the churches. By 1920, over one-third of American Slovaks belonged to one or more organizations. (25) The earliest Slovak immigrants usually joined an existing Czech or Polish society that could best serve their needs without alienating them due to religious or other factors. These Slovaks soon learned the benefits and advantages of these organizations, and began to offer the same to an exclusively Slovak clientele. (26)

These groups quickly became centers of social and educational activity. They organized picnics, dances, theatrical productions, athletic events, collected books, and subscribed to periodicals. The educational purposes of fraternal and church organizations alike were the maintenance of the Slovak tongue and the teaching of the language and culture for subsequent generations. The core of the activity naturally revolved around the library.

Due to freer political views in the United States, Slovak consciousness flourished in the United States through ethnic churches, organizations, publishing, and journalism in a manner unknown back home, where the Hungarian government with its magyarization policies largely stopped this trend. Newspapers, in particular, caused the Magyar authorities serious worries. The governor of Abov county in northern Hungary remarked in a 1905 memorandum that "one stream of Pan-Slavism comes from Turciansky Svaty Martin and the other from America." (27) Once again, the Slovak library stood at the center of this movement. If not for the American branch of the Slovak family and its renaissance in the United States, many historians have argued that the Slovaks would have been completely assimilated by the Magyars. (28)

Together with their libraries, these three entities--the church, fraternal organizations, and publishing/journalism--actively cultivated national consciousness and strove to aid their beleaguered conationals in the Old Country. According to the Slovak historian Stefan Vesely:

 The greatest majority of our compatriots who came to America
 began to live especially culture wise there. Indeed at home they
 knew only misery which drove them overseas. There they began
 to meet in societies, read newspapers and books, and listen
 to lectures. No one forbade them, and no one restricted them.
 They could be educated in the maternal language. (29)

This sentiment and attachment remained strong even after the establishment of the Czechoslovak state in 1918. The interwar years saw the height of Slovak ethnic awareness in the United States as the immigrants matured, married, and raised families. Many of them sent their children to be educated partially in Slovak-American schools or in weekend Slovak language classes.

The end of World War II marks the beginning of the decline of the Slovak identity in America. The postwar era saw the expansion of suburbia, which caused many old ethnic neighborhoods to decay. Furthermore, second- and third-generation baby-boomers no longer wanted to learn the language of their forefathers nor marry Slovak-American spouses. They had Americanized due to the forces of American pop culture, becoming true products of the "melting pot." In a recent piece in the journal Slovensko, the vice president of the cultural organization Matica Slovenska, based in Martin, Slovakia, noted this trend not only in the United States but elsewhere when he lamented that the number of Slovaks outside Slovakia had continued to decline. (30)

As the years progressed, the nationality in America languished, and with it, so did the cultural and religious organizations, the newspapers/publishing, and libraries, most of which remained in transitional neighborhoods whose inhabitants were fleeing to suburbia. Usually only the elderly remained, and, as such, the need for such things as Slovak libraries diminished with the natural decrease of the population. One such example would be the Slovak community in Philadelphia, an area that traditionally did not contain a large number of Slovaks. In 1930, the Slovak population stood between 8,000-10,000 in a city numbering around 1.5 million residents. (31) Although a sizable group, it never became a homogeneous entity. No section of the city can be identified as Slovak, but rather the Philadelphia community could be considered "translocal," including not only people living in various parts of the city but also those who inhabited communities located some distance away or even in other states. (32) Although several small Slovak clubs existed and one Lutheran and two Roman Catholic churches served the people, the Philadelphia Slovak community can be described as interfaith and transregiona1. (33) The Slovak Hall Association, founded in 1921, served as a blanket organization where Slovaks mixed indiscriminately without regard to religion, home address, or county of origin. Its building, at Randolph Street and Fairmont Avenue in Philadelphia, became the site of all sorts of "translocal" social gatherings including plays, dances, and gymnastics. The Slovak Hall also provided instruction in the Slovak language and contained a library of Slovak- and Czech-language and Slovak-, Czech- and Czechoslovak-related materials numbering approximately 2,500 volumes. Although not a large collection, the non-denominational Slovak Hall library held few religious materials in its holdings; the three Slovak congregations housed small amounts of religious literature, all within a short distance of the Slovak Hall.

After World War II, urban renewal demolished the original Slovak Hall, forcing it to relocate in a former Russian Orthodox church several blocks away. Later, the Slovak Hall increased membership and library holdings when the Czechs of the Philadelphia Bohemian Hall voted to merge with it. Though seemingly a stroke of good luck, this consolidation indicated a greater malaise stalking ethnic organizations. The Slovak Hall, in a "marginal" neighborhood since the mid-1950s, suffered declining interest on the part of elderly stockholders and their Americanized heirs, causing the board to close its doors in 1979. However, at least nineteen years earlier, due to dwindling patronage, the Hall's library stopped purchasing materials, reduced services, and finally ceased operations in 1965. At this point, the members relocated the library's holdings, locking them away on the third floor, where they suffered water and smoke damage due to a fire. With the demise of the Slovak Hall, several board members decided to send the library to Pennsylvania State University, choosing this location because several of their children attended this institution. This proved a rather ironic move since Penn State has never taught the Slovak language nor is it known for its Slavic language department or its commitment to East Central European studies. Many of the materials, most of which were in poor condition due to the fire, misuse, and/or the acidic content of the paper, were boxed and removed from the premises. The fate of the majority of the items, a great number of which were Slovak and Czech translations of English-language classics published in the United States, has never been ascertained. (34) Whether the well-meaning people actually sent the materials to Penn State or the university found them too common and/or in too bad shape to add them to its collection remains unknown. The residual items, filling less than four shelves in a standard bookcase, came into this author's possession when the Slovak Hall closed in 1979.

Other Slovak libraries suffered similar fates or worse. When interest waned or the organization disbanded, many simply discarded their library holdings rather than take the time and effort to find a new home for the materials. Although many of the ethnic churches and organizations still function, their membership or parish is only marginally Slovak. For example, in Philadelphia the two Roman Catholic churches merged as membership became almost wholly non-Slovak, while the Lutheran church ceased operation after years of serving a non-Slovak congregation. Libraries take up vast amounts of space and are usually the first to suffer when cutbacks are necessary. In many cases, the library rooms could better be utilized for other functions, rather than being occupied by books and other items that few cared about and even fewer could read.

Today most of the libraries once affiliated with Slovak parishes and fraternal organizations have disappeared. Yet there still remain some libraries--the main offices of the fraternals have tended to keep their libraries if not augment them, though usually with English-language materials, since the overwhelming majority of members have no knowledge of or experience with the Slovak language. An example would be the Slovak Evangelical Union, now the United Lutheran Society, which changed its name to appeal to a wider segment of American society. It retained its library when it moved its headquarters from Pittsburgh to Ligonier, Pennsylvania in the late 1970s. However, most of the collection has remained boxed up, and there is no access device to these materials. Hence, it has become a "mystery" collection. Although officials of the organization have stated their intention to reassemble the collection, its future remains doubtful, (35) and a recent inquiry found that the situation has not changed. (36)

Another example is the collection of the First Slovak Catholic Union. Although connected with the Slovak Museum and Archives in Middletown, Pennsylvania, the collection is housed in a separate turn-of-the-last-century printing plant with a leaky roof. Rather than repair the structure, officials of the Union have occasionally indicated that they would like to raze it, without any thought as yet being given to the fate of the collection. The situation has not changed since this was first made known in 1989, and at various times the Slovak Studies Association has expressed to the organization its concern about the collection. (37)

Finally, there are still-functioning Slovak libraries, such as the Jankola Library housed at the Sacred Heart Villa in Danville, Pennsylvania and the Slovak Institute at St. Andrew Svorad Abbey in Cleveland. Both have become cultural centers for the study of Slovaks in America and abroad. They are treasure houses of archival, printed, and non-print materials related to Slovakana. Both libraries are private organizations that have been helped in the past by noted Slovak-Americans with contributions, most recently by Victor Mamatey, professor emeritus of history at the University of Georgia, who donated 404 Slovak titles to the Slovak Institute. (38) They have also served as links between Slovakia and the United States by establishing exchange programs, particularly with the Matica Slovenskd, that functioned irregularly even during the height of communism in Czechoslovakia. (39)

The two collections duplicate many materials since they are both operated by Roman Catholic religious orders: the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius and Benedictine monks. But they also hold unique items. At one time the Slovak Institute, dedicated in 1952, held the only signed copy of the Pittsburgh Pact of 1918, which created the state of Czechoslovakia; (40) after the Velvet Revolution, the Institute donated the document to Matica Slovenska. The Jankola Library, founded in 1968, owns some single issues of the newspaper Jednota from 1891 and 1893 which cannot be found in the collection of the First Slovak Catholic Union, the publisher of Jednota. It also holds complete runs of Slovak-American literary annuals such as Narodny Kalendar, Kalendar Jednota, Sbornik Sokol, and many others. Bound newspapers number over 175 volumes, while over 10,000 volumes have been cataloged since 1968 under the Dewey Decimal system. (41) However, the library contains over 30,000 volumes, (42) and boasts it holds the largest collection of Slovak reference materials in the United States. (43) This points to the main problem facing the two libraries: their staffs. Until recently, both libraries were faithfully run by their founders, Sister M. Martina Tybor of the Order of Cyril and Methodius and the Benedictine monk Father Andrew Pier. The two, born in America, continued their work, often alone, well into their eighties, though retired. After their deaths, the future of the libraries appeared precarious, but both religious orders decided to continue to support them. The missions of the two institutions now focus more on genealogical research, and their duty to the public appears inadequate. The Slovak Institute claims to be open five days a week from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., but asks for advance notice before one makes a visit and seeks prior knowledge of the purpose of the research. (44) The Jankola Library can only used by appointment. (45)

Conclusion

The fate of these two libraries and others like them remains the primary concern. Until now the two religious orders have graciously permitted the libraries to operate. Will they be so inclined in the future, especially if interest continues to wane? If so, will there be someone within the orders with adequate knowledge of the Slovak language who can assume responsibility for maintaining and enhancing the collections? Or will they disappear like the Slovak Hall's library or suffer the fate of the materials of the United Lutheran Society? These and other Slovak libraries need to be assessed and cataloged; at the same time, the histories of these valuable assets must be written before they vanish forever.

The Slovak-American experience is not unique. The same processes have occurred and are occurring at an alarming rate with the libraries of other ethnic groups in the United States, whether Russian, Czech, or Chinese. As librarians and historians we owe it to these institutions to attempt to record their valuable service in this country before it is too late.

(1) This basis of this chapter arises from a paper presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) in Miami, Florida, in November 1991, on the panel, "The Historical Development of Slavic Libraries/Reading Rooms." The panel also included Murlin Croucher.

(2) U.S. Department of Labor, Reports of the Department of Labor: 1919. Report of the Secretary of Labor and Reports of Bureaus (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1920), 369, 487.

(3) Robert A. Kann and Zdenek V. David, The Peoples of the Eastern Habsburg Lands, 1526-1918, A History of East Central Europe, vol. 6 (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1984), 247.

(4) William V. Wallace, Czechoslovakia, Nations of the Modern World (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1976), 62.

(5) Jan Hanzlik, "Zaciatky vystahovalectva zo Slovenska do USA a jeho priebeh az do roku 1918, jeho priciny a nasledky," in Zaciatky ceskej a slovenskej emigracie do USA v obdobi I. internacionaly: Zbornik stati, Josef Polisensky (Bratislava: Slovenska academia vied, 1970), 50.

(6) Ibid., 71-72.

(7) Ibid., 63.

(8) Ladislav Tajtak, "Slovak Emigration and Migration in the Years 1900-1914," Studia Historica Slovaca 10 (1978): 48.

(9) Hanzlik, "Zaciatky vystahovalectva zo Slovenska do USA," 72.

(10) Julianna Puskas, Emigration from Hungary to the United States Before 1914, Studia Historica ASH, no. 113 (Budapest: Akademiai Kiado, 1975), 7.

(11) Ibid., 79.

(12) John Bodnar, The Transplanted: A History of Immigration in Urban America, Interdisciplinary Studies in History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985),153, 166.

(13) M. Mark Stolarik, "Slovaks," in Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, ed. Stephan Thernstrom (Cambridge, MA and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980), 928.

(14) Puskas, Emigration from Hungary to the United States Before 1914, 16.

(15) Ibid., 7.

(16) Hanzlik, "Zaciatky vysfahovalectva zo Slovenska do USA," 80.

(17) U.S. Department of Labor, Reports of the Department of Labor, 369, 486-487.

(18) U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920. Volume 11. Population 1920. General Report and Analytical Tables (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1922), 973.

(19) Ibid., 968.

(20) Marian Mark Stolarik, "Slovak Migration from Europe to North America, 1870-1918," Slovak Studies 20 (1980): 22.

(21) Carl Wittke, We Who Built America: The Saga of the Immigrant (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1940), 417.

(22) Slovenska vlastiveda, 5 vols. (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied a umeni, 1943-48) 1: 197. See also June Granatir Alexander, The Immigrant Church and Community: Pittsburgh's Slovak Catholics and Lutherans 1880-1915 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987), 4.

(23) Stolarik, "Slovak Migration," 50.

(24) Stolarik, "Slovaks," 932.

(25) M. Mark Stolarik, "From Field to Factory: The Historiography of Slovak Immigration to the United States," International Migration Review 10: 1 (Spring 1976): 86.

(26) Stefan Vesely, "Prve slovenske spolky v Spojenych statoch americkych," Slovaci v zahranici 4-5 (1979):11-14.

(27) M. Mark Stolarik, "The Slovak Press in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries, with Particular Emphasis on the Slovak-American Press, 1885-1918," prepared for the conference on "The Role and Function of the Media in Eastern Europe," Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, November 9-11, 1984,1; Stolarik, "Slovak Migration," 80.

(28) Joseph F. Zacek, "Nationalism in Czechoslovakia," in Nationalism in Eastern Europe, ed. Peter F. Sugar and No Lederer (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969), 187-88.

(29) Vesely, "Prve slovenske spolky v Spojenych statoch americkych," 12.

(30) Stanislav Bajanik, "Editorial," Slovensko 26: 3-4 (Fall-Winter 2004): 2.

(31) Robert Michael Zecker, "'All Our Own Kind Here': The Creation of a Slovak-American Community in Philadelphia, 1890-1945," (unpublished PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1998), 8.

(32) Ibid., iv.

(33) Ibid., 321.

(34) Paul J. Ference, Financial Director of the Slovak Hall Association 1972-79, interview by author, October 27, 1991, October 15, 2005.

(35) Letter to Gregory C. Ference from Andrew Zoman, President of the United Lutheran Society, November 3, 1984.

(36) Telephone conservation with Jerry Hauser, Secretary Treasurer of the United Lutheran Society, October 31, 2005, written transcript in possession of the author.

(37) John Berta, "Report to the Slovak Studies Association," Chicago, November 3,1989.

(38) "News from the Members: Victor S. Mamatey," The Czech and Slovak History Newsletter: Bulletin of the Czechoslovak History Conference 29: 2 (Fall 2005): 29.

(39) "Jankola Library and Slovak Archives American-Slovak Research Center in Danville, Pennsylvania," Brochure, November 30, 1977.

(40) Jozef Valencik, "Ora et Labora," Slovensko 15: 5 (May 1991): 10-11.

(41) Sister M. Martina Tybor, "Jankola Library," brochure.

(42) Lubica Bartalska, "Slovenske tlacene slovo v Jankolovej kniznici v Danville," Jednota, July 10, 1991, 15.

(43) Montour County Genealogical Society, "2005 MCGS Meetings and Program Schedule," www.rootsweb.com/-pamcgs/aboutus.htm (accessed October 30, 2005).

(44) "Business hours for the public," www.slovakinstitute.com (accessed October 30, 2005).

(45) "Jankola Library," Zornicka 62: 766 (October 2004):12.