Slovene Americans
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (171,923) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin | |
| Languages | |
| English language, Slovene | |
| Religion | |
| Roman Catholic, Lutheran |
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.
The first Slovenes in the United States were missionary priests. Two of the earliest such missionaries were Fr. Anton Kappus and Fr. Frederick Baraga (Gobetz, 2009). In the 1730s some Slovenes settled in small farming communities in Georgia. There were a few Slovene soldiers who fought in the American Revolution. Slovene priests built some of the first churches and schools in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and neighboring parts of Canada. Many of these early immigrants were bilingual Slovene-German speakers (Shipman, 1912). Until the 1880s there was a small number of Slovene immigrants to the United States.
Between 1880 and World War I, the largest numbers of Slovenes immigrated to America. Most of these came between 1905 and 1913, although the exact number is impossible to determine because Slovenes were often classified as Austrians, Italians, Croats, or under other, broader labels, such as Slavonic or Slavic. These later 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) (Susel, 1980). Most Slovene immigrants to the United States were of the Catholic faith; however, a minority practiced the Lutheran faith (Susel, 1980). The Cleveland metropolitan area is home to the largest population of Slovenians in the world outside of Slovenia.
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