The “Forty-Eighters” period refers to the revolutionary wave of 1848 in Europe. Political reforms led to political instability and triggered large emigration from Europe to Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States (US). The US at that time encountered high economic growth that attracted labourers from all over the world. This project will study the emigration of the Czechs and Slovaks to the US in the period 1850-1910. It will explore the economic and political motives of migration using about 325,000 individual records of emigrating individuals.

The study takes data from American census records available in Ancestry and IPUMS (the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series) databases. The individual records of Czech and Slovak immigrants to the US are obtained first at the time of arrival and then over ten-year periods. Data includes detailed information about gender, age, birthplace, mother tongue, occupation, industry, and education. The research will emphasize the personal characteristics and social networks of migrants that affect the labour market performance and the duration of migration in the host country.

Keywords: Czech and Slovak Migration to the US, Forty-Eighters, ancestry

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