Charles Jonas (Wisconsin politician)

Charles Jonas (born Karel Jonáš - October 30, 1840 – January 15, 1896) was a Czech journalist, linguist and political activist, who became a Wisconsin journalist and politician.

The Karel Jonas House in Racine, Wisconsin was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 1, 1982. It is located at 1337 North Erie Street.

Karel Jonáš was born in Malešov, Bohemia. He studied at what was then the Bohemian School of Science and Polytechnic Institute in Prague, as well as attending lectures at Charles University in Prague. A strong Czech nationalist and friend of Vojtěch Náprstek, he fled Bohemia in 1860 after clashes with the authorities, moving via Bremen to London, where he continued to work as a journalist. In March 1863 he emigrated to Racine, Wisconsin, just south of Milwaukee (where Náprstek had been the first Czech to publish a periodical in the United States); there he edited and published the Czech language newspaper Slavie.

Jonas was skeptical of Abraham Lincoln and the policies of the Republican Party (which he saw as too centralist), and he gradually came to be affiliated with the Democrats. He was appointed to the Board of Managers of the Wisconsin Industrial School for Boys (a reform school) for 1874-1877, serving only through 1875.

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