(Author's note: This essays draws heavily from Dorothy Schwieder’s Iowa: The Middle Land.)
Waves of immigrants swarmed onto the Iowa prairies to settle the state from river to river in the 19th century. The foreign-born began arriving in Iowa before the territory was organized or legally opened to American settlement. Miners from the Great Britain and Ireland gravitated to the Dubuque area to mine lead in the 1820s. The numbers swelled in the 1830s with the opening of eastern Iowa following the Black Hawk War. Through the remainder of the century, western Europe provided the bulk of immigrants to Iowa. While their experiences varied somewhat from nationality to nationality, their decisions to move relocate to the Midwest were often motivated by similar factors.
Historians often describe immigration in terms of push-pull factors. Push factors are difficult or threatening conditions in the native country that make relocation seem the best choice. The growth of the population, poverty, hunger, political oppression and a bleak future induced many to sell whatever they had and book passage to America. Famine in Ireland and Norway in the 1840s and in Sweden in the 1860s sent many families to port cities to book cheap passage. Failed political revolutions against repressive governments in central Europe put many into jeopardy. Dutch, Norwegians, and Swedes resented religious repressions by the state church. British miners tried unsuccessfully to escape dangerous conditions in coal mines and were drawn to the emerging mining industry in the Hawkeye State. Many in the German states feared the military draft. By far, however, the chief motivating factor was economic. Rising debt, monopolies, and restrictive inheritance laws made the status quo unsustainable, and packing up for America came to seem the best option.
Many immigrants responded to the “pull” of reports of the fertile Iowa prairies. Immigration began to pick up in the decade before the Civil War but swelled to flood stage in the decades following the end of the conflict. The Iowa census records 20,969 foreign-born Iowa residents in 1850. Given that the Iowa population was heaviest in the eastern third of the state in 1860, it is not surprising that new arrivals were concentrated in ten counties along the Mississippi River and adjoining those. Dubuque and Scott (Davenport) had the largest numbers, especially of Germans. By 1870, the number of foreign-born had risen ten-fold to 304,692. It reached its peak twenty years later at 324,069 residents in 1890 who had been born abroad. The immigrant influence was actually much stronger when one considers that the numbers do not include the children born to immigrants with large families.
For the most part, the nation welcomed the newcomers. As the population pushed west across the prairies and Great Plains, it displaced Native American tribes sometimes leading to bitter conflicts, but treaties with tribes had led to their removal for the most part before the arrival of American settlers. There was little hesitation by eager pioneers to appropriate the land for agriculture. An acre of land was selling for $1.25 from the U.S. government. Steamships and railroads began making travel safer and easier for those who could afford it, and those companies began promoting immigration to boost the Iowa population. The State of Iowa opened immigration offices and published printed materials in native languages extolling the opportunities in Iowa. Low taxes, religious and political freedom, and the promise of healthy living conditions beckoned immigrants from many lands. While a majority of settlers to Iowa came from the eastern states and the Upper South, soon immigrants and their children, most from western Europe, became a factor in every county in the state. They brought with them their own religious beliefs, language, and customs and often settled in ethnic enclaves, urban and rural. The state began to resemble more of a vegetable stew than a creamy homogenous soup. Newspapers, churches, and stores conducted business in the language of their customers and members. While most were eager to learn to function in English-speaking America, they were not all ready to give up the native traditions.
Germans provided the most immigrants to 19th century Iowa. Germany was not yet the unified nation it would be by 1900 but was a collection of independent divisions like Prussia and Bavaria. Democratic forces trying to overthrow long-established conservation aristocracies failed in many areas, and fearing reprisals, liberal advocates sought refuge in immigration.
Most Germans came to Iowa to farm. The Catholic Church in northeast Iowa helped to direct many to parishes where they could be served by local priests. Iowa’s river cities, especially Davenport and Dubuque, attracted large German settlements who could sail through the Great Lakes and take a train from Chicago or enter through New Orleans. Those fleeing political persecution were called the 48ers (1848). They included professionals and skilled craftsmen who set up their businesses here. The Turnerians were German social organizations who promoted “sound minds in sound bodies” and established clubs for physical activities like gymnastics and boxing as well as singing and debate societies. They are credited with introducing physical education into the public-school curriculum.
They also helped to acclimate recent arrivals to issues in American society and became an important political force. In an era when Prohibition was a dominating factor in Iowa politics, Germans became leading advocates against restrictions on the production and sale of alcohol, especially beer, or on Sunday recreations. The “Continental Sunday” for Germans was a time to socialize with friends, attend concerts, or attend beer gardens with their families. Many American Protestant groups not only opposed alcoholic beverages in any form but wanted the Sabbath to be observed as a time of prayer and quiet contemplation at home. In addition to the river cities, Carroll County and the surrounding area became a German center in western Iowa.
Ireland was the home of the second largest contingent of immigrants to early Iowa. Much of the Irish countryside was owned by absentee English landlords who extracted heavy rents. When the Irish potato beetle began destroying the main source of food in the 1840s, many rural Irish families faced actual starvation. Immigration to the United States became a flood. Burgeoning factories in the East and the need for railroad and canal workers and other unskilled labors opened job opportunities in low-wage occupations. Like other groups, farming was what many immigrant families hoped to do, and many were successful. They too settled in Iowa river towns, especially Dubuque, and also in Emmetsburg in north central Iowa. Their attachment to the Catholic Church, again especially in northeastern Iowa, provided economic and social support. Several convents and monasteries recruited nuns and priests who taught in private Catholic schools, operated orphanages, and medical facilities. The Irish, like the Germans, opposed prohibition and became a major component of the Democratic Party. The Protestant-Catholic tensions were one of the major social divisions in the state for the first century of Iowa’s statehood.
The British from England, Scotland and Wales together were the third largest immigrant group by 1890. While part of the British Empire but not from the British Isles itself, Canadians had added another 21,000 to the Brits by 1890. With a common history and language, these groups assimilated into Iowa culture easily.
All three British countries contributed miners to the coal industry. In the 1840s, the collapse of a movement among British miners to improve working conditions and income brought hundreds from there and later from Scotland and Wales. All three groups became an important component of the union movement, particularly in the United Mine Workers of America. Of Iowa Welsh ancestry, John L. Lewis headed the Congress of Industrial Organizations in the 1930s that helped to organize millions of workers in the lower-skilled industries. The Welsh carried their love of singing to the Hawkeye state with the organizations of choral societies.
Four English brothers, led by William Close, provided a unique and colorful experiment in LeMars in northwest Iowa. The younger sons of a prominent and well-connected British family, they purchased a large tract of land in Plymouth County with the intention of recreating the English social scene in Iowa. Polo, golf, steeple chasing, toboggan sledding and riding to the hounds were other popular sporting events. of the Le Mars Brits. While not a social success—the British upper-class transplants were not interested in the hard and dirty work of farming and renters were hard to find when surrounding acres were still fairly cheap, it paid off financially for the investors who sold off their holdings and moved on.
Three Scandinavian groups contributed to Iowa’s 19th Century population explosion. Norwegians took the early lead among the three groups, recording 5,688 residents by 1860, a number that peaked at 27,078 in 1890. Again, farming was the preferred occupation. They tended to settle in the hilly and wooded parts of northeast Iowa that resembled their homeland. Winneshiek County became a cultural and educational center and led to the establishment of Luther College in Decorah. A Norwegian-language newspaper, The Decorah Posten, was a long running publication with subscribers both in the U.S. and Norway. The Lutheran Church had been the state church of Norway and continued to retain a large following among the immigrants, but some new arrivals had resented the rigidity and conservatism of the hierarchy and explored several other Protestant denominations in the States.
Sweden also contributed to Iowa’s frontier diversity. From 1870 to 1890, Iowa residents born in Sweden grew threefold from some 11,000 to 30,000, its peak year. In addition to farming, some Swedish immigrants secured employment in Iowa’s coal mines whose output fueled railroad engines, factories and homes.
The first permanent Swedish settlement in the United State, New Sweden, was founded by Peter Cassell in 1846 in Jefferson County in southeast Iowa. It became a magnet for new Swedish arrivals. Confusing directions sent one later group mistakenly up the Des Moines River until they reached Fort Des Moines. Finding no New Sweden, they continued a distance further and settled in what became the community of Madrid. Iowa land in eastern Iowa became more expensive following the Civil War, but western Iowa still had farmland available at cheaper rates. With railroad lines penetrating southwestern Iowa, several new Swedish settlements opened there, including the community of Stanton that celebrates its Swedish heritage.
One practice that promoted Swedish migration (as it did for several other groups) was sponsorship. A Swedish miner would sponsor a younger relative to come to the States to work alongside him in the coal mines and together earn enough money to bring over additional family members. Swedish wives would take in boarders providing meals, housing, laundry, and a temporary home until the new arrivals could establish their own families. For many, mining was only a seasonal occupation so they would maintain small farming operations during the summer. Most immigrant groups traveled with families and settled among those who shared their language and culture.
The Danes began appearing in Iowa later than the two other Scandinavian groups. In the 1880s alone, the number of Iowa residents born in Sweden jumped from 6,900 to 15,500. Danish immigration reached its peak later than the others until there were 18,020 in 1920 who had migrated from the homeland. As could be predicted, their numbers were strongest in southwest Iowa which was less heavily settled than the eastern counties. Elk Horn became a cultural center and today boasts the Danish-American Immigrant Museum. They were eager to preserve their language and culture. Grand View College in Des Moines was sponsored by the Lutheran Church. A division grew among Danish Lutherans between the so-called “Happy Danes” and the “Pious Danes.” The former enjoyed dancing, theatrical performances and the arts while the latter emphasized religious contemplation and meditations.
The most cohesive group among Iowa immigrants were the Dutch. Beginning in 1847, a contingent of Dutch settlers led by Henry Scholte purchased a large tract of land in Marion Country and established the community of Pella. They were escaping religious repression in Holland and found Iowa much more to their liking. Scholte was both a minister of the Reformed Church and the community political leader who directed land sales and other local issues. Agriculture was their primary occupation, and as good farmers, they were soon exporting products to St. Louis and beyond. They cultivated connections with like-minded believers back home and encouraged them to join the Iowa enterprise. The greatest decade of Dutch migration came in the 1870s, as railroads were opening up the last remaining corner of the state, entrepreneurs purchased tracts of land in northwestern Iowa and attempted to duplicate the success of the Pella settlement. Orange City and surrounding areas became another center of Dutch influence and remains so to this day as the annual tulip festivals attract large numbers of tourists. The 1880s saw the arrival a new wave of Dutch immigrants.
Though not from northern or western Europe, the Czechs also deserve mention. Smaller in numbers than other groups, Czech families settled in east central Iowa and Cedar Rapids. Many were farmers, but there were also skilled craftsmen who joined the migration. Two Czech brothers lived in the Czech community of Spillville in northeast Iowa and spent their winters carving incredibly intricate wooden clocks. The Bily Clock Museum remains open today with a collection of their works. In 1893, famed Czech composer Antonin Dvorak spent a summer in Spillville where he continued his musical output. The cemetery by their Catholic Church has a wonderful example of the metal crosses typical of the tradition.
Many rural and urban neighborhoods continued preserve and take pride in their European origins. World War I created efforts to eliminate so called “hyphenated Americans” on the theory that if they continued Old World traditions and language in the New World, they could not be fully American. Germans were the primary target, but all ethnic groups experienced some sense of pressure to conform to “American” values.
Author’s Note: Much of this information comes from pp. 91-106 in Dr. Dorothy Schwieder’s excellent one-volume survey of Iowa history, Iowa: The Middle Land. A chart of census records for various immigrant groups is located in Dr. Leland Sage’s A History of Iowa on p. 92.
Author’s Note: Much of this information comes from pp. 91-106 in Dr. Dorothy Schwieder’s excellent one-volume survey of Iowa history, Iowa: The Middle Land. A chart of census records for various immigrant groups is located in Dr. Leland Sage’s A History of Iowa on p. 92.