Slavic and East European Collections: Slavic New York: Slavs

The earliest immigration of Slavs to the United States began before the American Civil War. However, the largest influx occurred within the thirty years before the outbreak of World War I. This wave of Slavic immigration was so significant that it overshadowed the Irish and German immigration of earlier decades. Initially, accurate figures of languages or nationalities were not kept, and immigrants were merely credited to the countries from which they came.

Between 1899 and 1910, the total immigration into the United States was about ten million, and of these, the Slavs formed about 20 percent or approximately two million people. By the outbreak of World War I, five and a half to six million Slavs lived in the United States. They sought better economic opportunities than those available in their home countries. Largely uneducated and primarily focused on sending money back to their families, many briefly passed through New York before finding work in steel mills, mines, and factories in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, and other states.

General works on Slavic and East European immigration to the United States

• Our Slavic fellow citizens / Emily Greene Balch  (1910)
• Peasant pioneers; an interpretation of the Slavic peoples in the United States / Kenneth D. Miller (1925).
• High Adventure: A Story of Slavic Pioneers in America / by Fjeril Hess (1925)
• The Slavic Immigrant Woman / Bessie Olga Pehotsky (1925)
• South Slavic Immigration in America / by George J. Prpic (1978)
• Overseas migration from east-central and southeastern Europe, 1880-1940 / edited by Julianna Puskás (1990)
• The great departure: mass migration from Eastern Europe and the making of the free world / Tara Zahra (2016)
• From a multiethnic empire to a nation of nations: Austro-Hungarian migrants in the US, 1870-1940 / Annemarie Steidl, Wladimir Fischer-Nebmaier, James W. Oberly (2017)
• On many routes: internal, European, and transatlantic migration in the late Habsburg Empire / Annemarie Steidl (2021)

Slavic events and organizations in New York City

• Constitution and by-laws of the American Russian-Slavonic Democratic Club, inc. New York. (1926?)
• První Slovanský kongres v Americe, 1920 / ředitel, Joseph Goričar.
• Journal of the Slavonic-American Day held in the city of New York, Sept. 16th, 1934.
• Souvenir Journal, 3rd American Slav Congress, Manhattan Center, New York, September 1946.
• Slavic Heritage Council of America, Inc., 1985.

Slavic periodicals published in New York City

• Slavia. "A semi-annual review devoted to life and culture of people hailing from lands of Slavs--Czecho-Slovaks, Poles, Jugoslavs: Serbs-Croats-Slovenes, Russians, Ukrainians, and Bulgarians." The Library holds v. 1, no. 1 (summer 1934).
• Press release. (Slavonic Committee for Democracy, Inc.), New York. The Library holds 1941.
• Press release (New York, Slavonic Committee for Democracy). The Library holds: June-September 1942
• Slavonic bulletin "The voice of the Slav World." The Library holds: v. 1, no. 1-27 (July 9, 1941-Jan. 7, 1942)
• The Slavonic Monthly (New York, Slavonic Committee for Democracy). The Library holds: v. 1-2, no.10 (Nov. 1941-Nov. 1946).
• The Slavic American (New York, American Slav Congress). Library holds: v.1-2, no.[3] (fall, 1947-winter, 1949)