migration and emigration

     All though the history of the United States there has been migration of people from the Atlantic states and from foreign countries to the Western territories and states. The pioneers of Iowa were a part of this westward movement, some making permanent homes in Iowa, others staying only a short time before they continued the westward march. A large number of Mormons, who had been cruelly forced to leave Missouri and Illinois, made settlements in Iowa in the forties and fifties, but most of them soon left the State to settle permanently in Utah. During the gold rush to California, a number of Iowans went there, some staying, others returning. Oregon at the same time received many settlers from Iowa. There was also emigration from Iowa to Kansas and Nebraska, and later to the Dakotas and Canada. Since the eighties and nineties, a steady stream of well-to-do Iowans have gone to California where they have organized to perpetuate the memories of Iowa.

    Despite this emigration the population of the State has been constantly growing. It is now (1956) over two and a half million. The increase is due to more births than deaths and to immigration from other states and the European countries. The immigration from the home states was heavy until after the Civil War, whereas the immigration from Europe was especially strong during the three decades following the war period.

"American letters"

     So important for the development of the State was this immigration considered, that a State Immigration Commissioner was appointed in 1860, and a Commission of Immigration was formed in 1870. The commission distributed pamphlets in the Eastern states and in the counties of northern Europe, describing the most convenient routes to Iowa, its fertile lands, its good climate, its democratic government, etc.

    Another important method of encouraging immigration to Iowa from Europe was the "American letters," which the foreigners already in the State wrote to their relatives in the homelands. To the people in the European countries, where the price of good land was very high, and where it was considered an honor to be a landowner, it seemed almost like a fairy tale to learn that good land in Iowa was sold for $1.25 an acre or even given away as homesteads.

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And compared with the wages paid in Iowa, especially during the peak of railroad construction, the wages paid in Europe were extremely low. Thus, while religious and political conditions sometimes drove Europeans emigrants to Iowa, many more came attracted by high wages and cheap fertile lands. Others came in quest of adventure -- to try life under new horizons.

    There were foreigners among the first settlers in Iowa, but there was no larger immigration from Europe until in the forties and fifties; and the heaviest European immigration did not occur until the seventies, eighties and nineties; after which it declined until the Quota Laws after the First World War reduced it to a mere trickle.

All sorts of people make a world -- and a state

     Most of the foreign immigrants who came to Iowa were from northern Europe. They were British, Germans, Scandinavians, Bohemians, Hollanders, Swiss, and Belgians. The Scotch, the Irish, and the Welsh at first made up the largest part of the immigrants; later the Germans and the Scandinavians were the most numerous.

    The British among whom we may also include some Canadians, were all English-speaking, though some of them, particularly the Welsh, also spoke their own native tongue. This made it easier for them to associate with the native Americans in churches and societies.

An English colony

     An interesting English settlement in Iowa was founded by the Close Brothers, wealthy Englishmen who bought large tracts of land in Plymouth County. This land was laid out into farms, which were improved with buildings and then rented out to English immigrants. Young Englishmen came to this settlement from England to learn farming. As true Englishmen, they had fox hunts, played cricket, organized an English amusement club, and an English church where prayers were offered up for Queen Victoria, the very popular queen then ruling Great Britain.

    Most of the English settlers became permanent residents, and, as most other foreign residents in Iowa, in due time American citizens.

A new Schleswig- Holstein

     The Germans in Iowa have come from all of the 26 states of the former German Empire, but the immigrants from northern Ger-....

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....many were far in excess of those from southern Germany. The northern German immigrants were mostly Schleswig-Holsteiners, Mecklenburgers, and Hanoverians. Immigration from Germany rose rapidly in the fifties, and again after the Civil War. The immigrants settled in large numbers in the towns along the Mississippi and spread out into rural settlements in many parts of the State, especially in Dubuque and Scott counties. In the northwest such names as Westphalia, Schleswig and Holstein remind us of this immigration. Enough immigrants came from the little independent German country of Luxemburg to populate several settlements, one of which in Dubuque County was named Luxemburg. So many Schleswig-Holsteiners settled in Scott County that it has been called a new Schleswig-Holstein. Two Schleswig-Holsteiners, N. J. Rusch and Hans Reimer Claussen were active in Iowa politics, the former became lieutenant governor and the latter a State senator.

    The German organized churches, both Catholic and Protestant, and numerous cultural societies. They were particularly enthusiastic about their musical and gymnastic societies. Scores of German newspapers were published in Iowa, mostly weeklies but also some dailies. Of the dailies, the Der Demokrat, in Davenport, had a larger circulation than any of the others.

    German became the most popular foreign language in the Iowa high schools, and through the influence of prominent Germans, it was also taught as a foreign language in some elementary schools. German Lutherans built colleges in Clinton and Waverly and a seminary to educate ministers in Dubuque. The seminary still operates and also Wartburg college at Waverly, with which the Clinton college was merged.

Bohemians or Czechoslovakians

     The Czechoslovakians are made up of two national groups -- Czechs or Bohemians, the larger group, and Slovaks. Both are Slavic people, closely related by language and race to the Russians, but by religion and culture to Western Europe.

    Immigration from Bohemia began a little later than from Germany. The immigrants formed rural settlements in Johnson and Linn and other counties. Many of them located in Cedar Rapids where they organized churches, Catholic and Protestant, fraternal and gymnastic societies and published newspapers.

    The beautiful little town of Spillville in Winneshiek county is largely inhabited by Bohemians. The noted Bohemian, Antonin....

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.... Dvorak, lived there when he wrote some of his fine musical compositions. Another Bohemian, Dr. Bohumil Shimek, was a professor at the Iowa State University.

Hollanders at Pella and Orange City

     The Hollanders are racially akin to the Germans, and their language is much like Low German. They are frequently called Dutchmen, but they prefer the name Hollanders themselves, or Netherlanders. The story of the first Hollanders in Iowa is very interesting, partly because it recalls the story of the Pilgrims in New England; and partly because it has been so well told by pioneer Hollanders and their descendants -- Dr. Jacob Van der Zee and Cyrenus Cole. At the time of the Pilgrims, Holland or the Netherlands, was the most hospitable country in Europe to refugees from other countries. But in the first half of the nineteenth century, the Dutch

Hollander pioneers at Orange City

government persecuted Separatists as formerly England had done. A group of these Separatists decided to emigrate; and under the leadership of their minister, the Reverend Henry P. Scholte, they came to Iowa in 1847, locating in Marion County, where they opened farms and founded the town of Pella. A prosperous settlement grew up around this town. The Hollanders of Pella later spread into new settlements in Sioux county. There they laid out Orange City and several smaller towns. Dutch newspapers were issued in Pella and Orange City, and a Dutch academy was located at the later place. At Pella, the Hollanders in 1916 took over Central College, which...

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.... had been founded by the Baptists. The Iowa Hollanders have organized a number of congregations of the Dutch Reformed Church and the Christian Reformed Church. And since 1935 the Tulip Festivals in the springtime have drawn visitors to Pella and Orange City from far and near.

A New Sweden in Henry County

     In 1843 a small Swedish settlement was planted in Jefferson County at a place know, at least for a while, as New Sweden. The leader, Peter Kassel, wrote so temptingly of his new Iowa home

Swedish Lutheran church, Swedesburg, Henry County

that many Swedish immigrants soon joined him there. Swedesburg in Henry County became the social center of this settlement. One group of immigrants missed the road to New Sweden and ended up in Boone County, where they began the second Swedish settlement near Swede Point. The name was later changed to Madrid. Other Swedish immigrants settled in Webster and Montgomery counties. Large groups located in West Burlington, Des Moines, and in Sioux City. The Swedish immigrants organized Lutheran congregations, built churches and published Swedish-language newspapers. The public library building in Boone was presented to the city as a gift....

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....from State Senator C. J. A. Ericson, who came to this country at the age of 12 "a barefooted Swedish boy with a brave heart, a good brain, and willing hands."

The Norwegians at Decorah

     A Norwegian settlement was planted on Sugar Creek in Lee County in 1840. It never became very large. The large influx of Norwegian immigrants to Iowa began about a decade later. In the spring of 1852 a caravan of 50 ox teams carrying immigrants from Wisconsin under the direction of their pastor, The Reverend Claus Laurits Clausen, arrived in Mitchell County. Many later comers built homes in Worth, Winnebago and other counties, but especially in Winneshiek County.

Main building of Luther College, Decorah. About 1930

    Decorah in Winneshiek County has become one of the outstanding centers of Norwegian American culture, with its Lutheran churches, Luther College, the Norwegian American Museum, and the weekly Decorah Posten (The Decorah Post), the most widely read Norwegian newspaper today in the United States. It also has many subscribers in Canada, and even in Norway, Europe.

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Norwegian "Friends"

     There is a beautiful story of a small group of Norwegian Friends (Quakers), who emigrated to Iowa and settled in Hamilton County. They named their settlement Stavanger after a Norwegian town by that name. The Norwegian Friends were soon in close association with the American Friends in Iowa, and in a few years there was some emigration from the Stavanger settlement to other Friends' settlements in Iowa.

The Danes at Fredsville -- the village of peace

     The last group of Scandinavians to settle in Iowa were the Danes. In 1854, Peder Nicolaisen and family from Copenhagen, Denmark and a few friends bought land near Luzerne in Benton County. Though these immigrants braved the hard knocks of pioneer life courageously, their settlement never grew to be large enough for any kind of organization -- church or society.

The folk high school at Elk Horn, Shelby County. Built in 1878

    In the later sixties Danish immigrants began to move into Grundy and Shelby counties. The settlement in Shelby County centered around the village of Elk Horn, but soon spread into Audubon County around what became Kimballton. A Danish folk....

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�high school arose at Elk Horn and later Grand View College in Des Moines, now a junior college and seminary.

    The Danish immigrants in Grundy County named their social center Fredsville, meaning the village of peace. A creamery was built there in 1883. For this, a Danish immigrant, J. Slifsgaard, had imported a centrifugal cream separator the previous year. It was the first cream separator of this kind not only in Iowa but in the United States. A later characteristic Danish settlement grew up around Ringsted in Emmet County. Like the Swedes and Norwegians, the Danes organized many Lutheran, some Baptist, and a few Methodist and Adventist churches. But the Danes organized more literary, social, and gymnastic societies than the other Iowa Scandinavians.

    Clinton became the center of not a little Danish literary activity during the pastorage (1883-1900) of the Reverend F. L. Grundtvig, who wrote some of the finest poetry ever written in Iowa.

The Jews

     The Jews constitute one of the smaller groups in the State, though by no means the least influential because of their business interests and business enterprises. Among the earliest Jews in the State were immigrants from Germany, who spoke German in addition to their own Yiddish, a modern form of Hebrew containing many words from other languages. Later Jewish immigrants have come largely from Russia, or countries occupied by Russia. The first Jewish synagogue (congregation) in Iowa was organized between 1855 and 1858. Des Moines has the largest Jewish congregations in the State.

New Buda in Decatur County, just a dream

     The beginning of a Hungarian settlement was made in Decatur County in 1850. The settlers were Hungarian fugitives, who had been compelled to leave their native country after an unsuccessful revolution. They dreamed of founding a beautiful town, which they wished to be called New Buda. It was never built, but the name is perpetuated in one of the townships of Decatur County.

Icaria, a French colony

     A french co-operative community existed near Corning in Adams county from 1853 to 1895. The members had come from France and first lived in Nauvoo, which they had purchased from Mormons.

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The Frenchmen named their colony Icaria. It did not thrive, the membership dwindled, and in 1895 the group disbanded.

Peaceful Amana

     German immigrants formed several co-operative communities in Clayton County and one in Iowa County. The Clayton County colonies lasted only a few years, but the Iowa County colony in a reorganized form is still flourishing, and is one of the most unique communities in the United States. It is called Amana or the Community of True Inspiration. Its origin dates back to 1714. Until 1843 the members of the community lived in Germany.

View in one of the Amana villages

Coming to the United States, they first settled near Buffalo in the State of New York. In 1854 the community purchased about 3,300 acres of meadow and woodlands along the Iowa River east of Marengo. There they built seven villages -- Amana, East Amana, West Amana, South Amana, Middle Amana, High Amana and Homestead (not named by the Amana people). Most of the villages are in Amana Township.

    In some ways the Amana people are like the Quakers. They do not believe in taking oaths, nor in wars, and they dress plainly. Most of the people live in the villages, only a few on farms. Before....

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....re-organization in 1932, most of the houses were unpainted. But the Amana people have always had a keen sense of order and beauty. They have well-kept and lovely gardens with an abundance of lovely flowers.

    As a result, at least partially, of the Depression in the twenties and early thirties, a re-organization of the community took place in 1932. The Church remained the Community of True Inspiration, but the economy of the colony- the farms, stores, and shops - was organized as a business corporation, in which the members of the former community were given shares of stock.

    But the seven villages remain much as before. A spirit of calm and thrift pervades the whole Amana scene, and the faith remains that the future will link up harmoniously with the past.

Questions and Exercises: Distinguish between immigrant and emigrant. To what states did many Iowa people emigrate? Why did so many immigrants from Europe come to Iowa? To what churches did most of the immigrants belong? Why did the Hollanders leave their native land? Who were the Close Brothers? What language did the Welsh speak besides English? Who was Antonin Dvorak? Hans R. Claussen? C. J. E. Ericson? J. Slifsgaard? F. L. Gruntvig? What is Yiddish? What is the other name for Amana? Name the Amana villages. How was Amana changed in 1932?