![Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus and Vice President Dick Cheney in Vilnius, Lithuania](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Lithuanian_President_Valdas_Adamkus_and_Vice_President_Dick_Cheney_in_Vilnius%2C_Lithuania.jpg)
Lithuanian Americans refers to
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
citizens and residents who are
Lithuanian and were born in
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
, or are of Lithuanian descent.
New Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
New Philadelphia is a borough in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,060 at the 2020 census.
Geography
New Philadelphia is located at , (40.720594, -76.117295), approximately northwest of the city of Philadelphia ...
has the largest percentage of Lithuanian Americans (20.8%) in the United States. Lithuanian Americans form by far the largest group within the
Lithuanian diaspora
Lithuanians ( lt, lietuviai) are a Balts, Baltic ethnic group. They are native to Lithuania, where they number around 2,378,118 people. Another million or two make up the Lithuanian diaspora, largely found in countries such as the Lithuanian Ame ...
.
History
It is believed that Lithuanian emigration to the United States began in the 17th century when
Alexander Curtius
Alexander Carolus Curtius ( lt, Aleksandras Karolis Kuršius) was a Lithuanian nobleman and scholar purported to be the first Lithuanian immigrant to The New World. He founded the first Latin school in New Amsterdam in 1659 and became its headm ...
arrived in
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam ( nl, Nieuw Amsterdam, or ) was a 17th-century Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading ''factory'' gave rise ...
(present day
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
) in 1659 and became the first Latin School teacher-administrator; he was also a physician.
After the fall of the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Crown of the Kingdom of ...
in 1795, most of Lithuania was incorporated into the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
. The beginnings of industrialization and commercial agriculture based on
Stolypin's reforms, as well as the abolition of serfdom in
1861
Statistically, this year is considered the end of the whale oil industry and (in replacement) the beginning of the petroleum oil industry.
Events
January–March
* January 1
** Benito Juárez captures Mexico City.
** The first steam-p ...
, freed the peasants and turned them into migrant-laborers. The pressures of
industrialization
Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...
,
Lithuanian press ban
The Lithuanian press ban ( lt, spaudos draudimas) was a ban on all Lithuanian language publications printed in the Latin alphabet in force from 1865 to 1904 within the Russian Empire, which controlled Lithuania proper at the time. Lithuanian-lan ...
,
general discontent,
suppression of religious freedom and poverty drove numerous Lithuanians, especially after the famine in 1867–1868, to emigrate from the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
to the United States continuing until the outbreak of the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. The emigration continued despite the Tsarist attempts to control the border and prevent such a drastic loss of population. Since Lithuania as a country did not exist at the time, the people who arrived to the U.S. were recorded as either Polish, German or Russian; moreover, due to the
language ban in Lithuania and prevalence of
Polish language
Polish (Polish: ''język polski'', , ''polszczyzna'' or simply ''polski'', ) is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group written in the Latin script. It is spoken primarily in Poland and serves as the native language of the Poles. In a ...
at that time, their Lithuanian names were not transcribed in the same way as they would be today. As a result, information about Lithuanian immigration before 1899 is not available because incoming Lithuanians were not registered as Lithuanians.
Only after 1918, when Lithuania established its independence, the immigrants to the U.S. started being recorded as Lithuanians. This first wave of Lithuanian immigrants to the United States ceased when the U.S. Congress passed the
Emergency Quota Act
__NOTOC__
The Emergency Quota Act, also known as the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, the Per Centum Law, and the Johnson Quota Act (ch. 8, of May 19, 1921), was formulated mainly in response to the larg ...
in 1921, followed by the
Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and National Origins Act (), was a United States federal law that prevented immigration from Asia and set quotas on the number of immigrants from the Eastern ...
. The Immigration Act of 1924 was aimed at restricting the Eastern Europeans and Southern Europeans who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s.
![Waterbury Lithuanian school](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Waterbury_Lithuanian_school.jpg)
A second wave of Lithuanians emigrated to the United States as a result of the events surrounding
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
– the
Soviet occupation of Lithuania
The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were invaded and occupied in June 1940 by the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Stalin and auspices of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that had been signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet ...
in 1940 and the
Nazi occupation
German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 ...
that followed in 1941. After the war's end and the subsequent reoccupation of
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
by the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, these
Displaced Persons
Forced displacement (also forced migration) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: displaced "as a result of persecution, conflict, g ...
were allowed to immigrate from DP camps in Germany to the United States and to apply for
American citizens
Citizenship of the United States is a legal status that entails Americans with specific rights, duties, protections, and benefits in the United States. It serves as a foundation of fundamental rights derived from and protected by the Constituti ...
hip thanks to a special act of Congress which bypassed the quota system that was still in place until 1967. The
Displaced Persons Act
The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 authorized for a limited period of time the admission into the United States of 200,000 certain European displaced persons (DPs) for permanent residence.
This displaced persons (DP) Immigration program emerged fro ...
of 1948 ultimately led to the immigration of approximately 36,000 Lithuanians. Before that, the nationality quota was only 384 Lithuanians per year.
Lithuanian Americans today were still a relatively small ethnic group in 1990, since there were 842,209 Lithuanian Americans according to the U.S. Census; of these, 30,344 were foreign-born and 811,865 were born in the United States. This number was up from the 1980 figure of 742,776. The five states with the largest populations of Lithuanian Americans in both 1980 and 1990 (in descending order) were Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and California.
Immigration of Lithuanians into the U.S. resumed after Lithuania regained its independence after the
dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
in 1990. This wave of immigration has tapered off recently with tougher U.S. immigration requirements and the
entry of Lithuania into the EU have made countries such as Ireland and the United Kingdom a more accessible option for potential Lithuanian emigrants.
Lithuanian Days in Pennsylvania is the longest-running ethnic festival in the United States.
Occupations
At the end of the 19th century Lithuanians differed from most immigrant groups in the United States in several ways. They moved to the U.S. not only to escape poverty, but also to avoid bitter religious, political and national persecution, and compulsory military service in the Russian army. They did not plan to remain permanently and become "Americanized." Instead their intent was to live in the U.S. temporarily to earn money, invest in property, and wait for the right opportunity to return to Lithuania. Official estimates were that 30% of the emigrants from the Russian provinces of
Poland–Lithuania returned home. When adjusted to include only non-Jews the number is closer to 50-60%. Lithuanian immigrants who mostly moved to the United States from
Imperial Russia
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...
lived in a social environment akin to early European feudal society, where classless Jews performed the essential middle roles of artisans, merchants and moneylenders.
American employers considered Lithuanian immigrants, like the
Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Ce ...
, as better suited for arduous manual labor in coal-mines, slaughterhouses, and steel mills, particularly in the primary stages of steel manufacture. Consequently, Lithuanian migrants were recruited for work in the coal mines of
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
and the heavy industries (steel mills, iron foundries, slaughterhouses, oil and sugar refineries) of the
Northeastern United States
The Northeastern United States, also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast, is a geographic region of the United States. It is located on the Atlantic coast of North America, with Canada to its north, the Southe ...
as well the
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...
cities of
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
,
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
,
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...
,
Buffalo,
Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...
, and
Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
. In Illinois, the state with the largest population of Lithuanian-Americans, "first-wave immigrants" also established communities of significance in Rockford and the coal-mining communities of Westville, Springfield (Auburn, Virden, Benld), East St. Louis, plus West Frankfort and Ledford in far Southern Illinois. One of the victims of the famous Herrin, Illinois, strike-breaking massacre was a coal-miner named Casper from Chicago, likely a Lithuanian immigrant.
So-called "second-wave" emigration after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
was very different from the previous wave. The people who went to the U.S. were escaping in order to avoid the
Soviet deportations to Siberian forced labour camps that were directed at certain social groups considered "enemies of the state" Many of these people constituted political, economical, and intellectual elite of the pre-war Lithuania and therefore were ultimately more qualified to find better jobs in the U.S. after U.S.-based education/training often obtained in night school while working factory jobs. Consequently, although some remained limited to factory jobs in Detroit or Chicago, many Lithuanians pursued careers in engineering, medicine, or education. Due to relentless oppression of Catholic clergy and religious orders by Soviet authorities, some clergy in predominantly Catholic Lithuania also moved to America.
Contributions
![DariusAndGirenasChicago](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/DariusAndGirenasChicago.JPG)
Many famous people in the United States are or have been aware of their Lithuanian ancestry, including famous movie director
Robert Zemeckis
Robert Lee Zemeckis (born May 14, 1952) is an American filmmaker. He first came to public attention as the director of the action-adventure romantic comedy ''Romancing the Stone'' (1984), the science-fiction comedy ''Back to the Future'' film tr ...
, actors
Ruta Lee
Ruta Lee (born Ruta Mary Kilmonis; May 30, 1935) is an American actress and dancer who appeared as one of the brides in the musical ''Seven Brides for Seven Brothers''. She had roles in films including Billy Wilder's crime drama ''Witness for th ...
, Blackie Dammett,
John C. Reilly
John Christopher Reilly (born May 24, 1965) is an American actor, comedian, musician, producer, and writer. After his film debut in ''Casualties of War'' (1989), he gained exposure through his supporting roles in '' Days of Thunder'' (1990), '' ...
,
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson (born Charles Dennis Buchinsky; November 3, 1921 – August 30, 2003) was an American actor. Known for his "granite features and brawny physique," he gained international fame for his starring roles in action, Western, and war ...
,
Brendon Small
Brendon Small (born February 15, 1975) is an American actor, stand-up comedian, animator, writer, director, producer, and musician known for co-creating the animated series ''Home Movies'' (1999–2004, with Loren Bouchard) and ''Metalocalypse'' ...
,
Jason Sudeikis
Daniel Jason Sudeikis ( ; born September 18, 1975) is an American actor, comedian, producer, and writer. In the 1990s, he began his career in improv comedy and performed with ComedySportz, iO Chicago (Improv Olympic), and The Second City. In 20 ...
, rock stars
Anthony Kiedis
Anthony Kiedis ( ; born November 1, 1962) is an American singer and songwriter. He is a founding member and lead vocalist of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. Kiedis and his fellow band members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fa ...
,
Brandon Flowers
Brandon Richard Flowers (born June 21, 1981) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and philanthropist, best known as the lead singer, keyboardist, and occasional bassist of the Las Vegas-based rock band the Killers.
In addition to his w ...
, and
Thalia Zedek
Thalia Zedek (born 1961) is an American singer and guitarist. Active since the early 1980s, she has been a member of several notable alternative rock groups, including Live Skull and Uzi (band), Uzi both of which, according to ''Spin (magazine) ...
, model Jurgita Valts, notorious criminal
Alvin Karpis
Alvin Francis Karpis (born Albin Francis Karpavičius; August 10, 1907 – August 26, 1979), a Depression-era gangster nicknamed "Creepy" for his sinister smile and called "Ray" by his gang members, was a Canadian-born (naturalized American) crim ...
, radio host
Tom Leykis
Tom or TOM may refer to:
* Tom (given name), a diminutive of Thomas or Tomás or an independent Aramaic given name (and a list of people with the name)
Characters
* Tom Anderson, a character in ''Beavis and Butt-Head''
* Tom Beck, a character ...
, scientist
Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas ( lt, Marija Gimbutienė, ; January 23, 1921 – February 2, 1994) was a Lithuanian archaeologist and anthropologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of " Old Europe" and for her Kurgan hypothesis, ...
, antiques dealer
Israel Sack, reality television personality
Aras Baskauskas
Aras Vydunas Baskauskas ''(Lithuanian: Baškauskas)'' (born September 26, 1981) is an American yogi, musician, and reality TV personality who won '' Survivor: Panama'' and competed in '' Survivor: Blood vs. Water''. He releases his music under th ...
, and Bishop Louis Vezelis, OFM. Current
Senate Minority Whip
The positions of majority leader and minority leader are held by two United States senators and members of the party leadership of the United States Senate. They serve as the chief spokespersons for their respective political parties holding t ...
Dick Durbin
Richard Joseph Durbin (born November 21, 1944) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Illinois, a seat he has held since 1997. A member of the Democratic Party, Durbin has served as the Senate Dem ...
is half-Lithuanian. Noted Catholic Archbishop
Paul Marcinkus
Paul Casimir Marcinkus (; January 15, 1922 – February 20, 2006) was an American archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church and president of the Institute for the Works of Religion, commonly known as the Vatican Bank, from 1971 to 1989.
Early ...
, who held a post at the
Vatican
Vatican may refer to:
Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum
The Holy See
* The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...
for a while, was an American whose father was Lithuanian. Famous skateboarder
Natas Kaupas
Natas Kaupas (born March 23, 1969) is an American former professional skateboarder. He grew up in South Santa Monica, California, in the area known as Dogtown, and is of Lithuanian descent. He is often referred to as one of the first true profe ...
, one of the innovators of street skating in the late 1980s and early 1990s, is of Lithuanian heritage. Others, such as
Robert Downey Jr.
Robert John Downey Jr. (born April 4, 1965) is an American actor and producer. His career has been characterized by critical and popular success in his youth, followed by a period of substance abuse and legal troubles, before a resurgence of ...
,
William Shatner
William Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor. In a career spanning seven decades, he is best known for his portrayal of James T. Kirk in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, from his 1965 debut as the captain of the starship USS Enterpri ...
,
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the ...
,
John Milius
John Frederick Milius (; born April 11, 1944) is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer. He was a writer for the first two ''Dirty Harry'' films, received an Academy Award nomination as screenwriter of ''Apocalypse Now'' (1979), a ...
,
J. D. Salinger
Jerome David Salinger (; January 1, 1919 January 27, 2010) was an American author best known for his 1951 novel ''The Catcher in the Rye''. Salinger got his start in 1940, before serving in World War II, by publishing several short stories in '' ...
,
Leo Penn
Leonard Francis Penn (August 27, 1921 – September 5, 1998) was an American actor and director and the father of musician Michael Penn and actors Sean Penn and Chris Penn.
Early life
Penn was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the son of Russi ...
,
Sean Penn
Sean Justin Penn (born August 17, 1960) is an American actor and film director. He has won two Academy Awards, for his roles in the mystery drama ''Mystic River'' (2003) and the biopic ''Milk'' (2008).
Penn began his acting career in televisi ...
,
Chris Penn
Christopher Shannon Penn (October 10, 1965 – January 24, 2006) was an American actor. He was the brother of actor Sean Penn and musician Michael Penn. Noted as a skilled character actor from a prominent acting dynasty, he was typically cast as ...
,
Michael Penn
Michael Daniel Penn (born August 1, 1958) is an American musician, singer and composer. He is noted for the 1989 single " No Myth", a top 20 hit in the US and successful in several other countries.
Early life
Penn was born in the Greenwich Vi ...
,
Don Rickles
Donald Jay Rickles (May 8, 1926 – April 6, 2017) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He became known primarily for his insult comedy. His film roles include ''Run Silent, Run Deep'' (1958) with Clark Gable, Carl Reiner's '' Enter La ...
,
Moe Howard
Moses Harry Horwitz (June 19, 1897 – May 4, 1975), known professionally as Moe Howard, was an American actor and comedian. He is best known as the leader of The Three Stooges, the farce comedy team who starred in motion pictures and television ...
,
Curly Howard
Jerome Lester Horwitz (; October 22, 1903 – January 18, 1952), known professionally as Curly Howard, was an American actor and comedian. He was best known as a member of the American comedy team the Three Stooges, which also featured his elder ...
,
Shemp Howard
Samuel Horwitz (March 11, 1895 – November 22, 1955), known professionally as Shemp Howard, was an American actor and comedian. He was called "Shemp" because "Sam" came out that way in his mother's thick Lithuanian Yiddish, Litvak accent.
He is ...
and
Pink
Pink is the color of a namesake flower that is a pale tint of red. It was first used as a color name in the late 17th century. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is the color most often associated with charm, politeness, ...
, had their Jewish ancestors come from Lithuanian lands. Author
Ruta Sepetys
Ruta Sepetys ( lt, Rūta Šepetys; born November 19, 1967) is a Lithuanian-American writer of historical fiction. As an author, she is a ''New York Times'' and international bestseller and winner of the Carnegie Medal.
She is a Rockefeller Foun ...
, an American of Lithuanian descent, traveled to Lithuania and interviewed people and then wrote an award-winning book, ''
Between Shades of Gray
''Between Shades of Gray'', a ''New York Times'' Best Seller, is the debut novel of Lithuanian-American novelist Ruta Sepetys. It follows the Stalinist repressions of the mid-20th century and follows the life of a teenage girl Lina as she is de ...
'', related to the hardships of Lithuanians during
Soviet occupation of their land.
Many American sport celebrities have Lithuanian heritage such as
Eleanor Dapkus
Eleanor V. Wolf (née Eleanore Dapkus; December 5, 1923 – June 6, 2011) was a center fielder and pitcher who played from through in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
Early years
Dapkus was born to Lithuanian parents, ...
,
Johnny Unitas
John Constantine Unitas (; May 7, 1933 – September 11, 2002) was an American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons, primarily with the Baltimore Colts. Following a career that spanned from 1956 ...
,
Vitas Gerulaitis
Vytautas Kevin Gerulaitis (July 26, 1954 – September 17, 1994) was an American professional tennis player, known as Vitas Gerulaitis. In 1975, he won the men's doubles title at Wimbledon, partnering with Sandy Mayer. He won the men's singles ...
,
Frank Lubin
Frank John Lubin ( lt, Pranas Jonas Lubinas; January 7, 1910 – July 8, 1999) was a Lithuanian-American basketball player. He played college basketball for the UCLA Bruins from 1928 to 1931. In 1997, Lubin was inducted into the UCLA Athletics Ha ...
,
Dick Butkus
Richard Marvin Butkus (born December 9, 1942) is an American former professional football player, sports commentator, and actor. He played football as a middle linebacker for the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL) from 1965 to ...
,
Dan Audick
Daniel James Audick (born November 15, 1954) is a former American football offensive lineman in the National Football League from 1977 through 1984. A second generation Lithuanian Americans, Lithuanian American, Dan was born into a large militar ...
,
Joe Jurevicius
Joseph Michael Jurevicius (born December 23, 1974) is a retired American football wide receiver. He was drafted by the New York Giants in the second round of the 1998 NFL Draft. He played college football at Penn State.
Jurevicius played for ...
,
Jack Sharkey
Jack Sharkey (born Joseph Paul Zukauskas, lt, Juozas Povilas Žukauskas, October 26, 1902 – August 17, 1994) was a Lithuanian-American world heavyweight boxing champion.
Boxing career
He took his ring name from his two idols, heavyweight ...
,
Johnny Podres
John Joseph Podres (September 30, 1932 – January 13, 2008) was an American left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB). He played in the majors from 1953 to 1969, spending most of his career with the Brooklyn / Los Angeles Dodgers. Podres ...
,
Mariel Zagunis
Mariel Leigh Zagunis (born March 3, 1985) is an American sabre fencer. She is a two-time Olympic champion in the individual sabre ( 2004 and 2008) and the first American to win a gold medal in Olympic fencing. She was Team USA flag bearer in t ...
,
Rose Namajunas,
Joe Arlauckas
Joseph John "Joe" Arlauckas (born July 20, 1965) is an American retired professional basketball player of Lithuanian descent. He played at the power forward position. Arlauckas is well-known for holding the record for the most points scored in a m ...
,
Rick Barry
Richard Francis Dennis Barry III (born March 28, 1944) is an American retired professional basketball player who starred at the NCAA, American Basketball Association (ABA) and National Basketball Association (NBA) levels. Barry ranks among the ...
,
Feliksas Kriaučiūnas
Feliksas Kriaučiūnas (Americanized his name as Phil Krause; August 18, 1911 – October 28, 1977) was a Lithuanian American basketball player and coach. He won two gold medals with Lithuania national basketball team and silver medal with Lithuan ...
and
James Laurinaitis
James Richard Laurinaitis (born December 3, 1986) is a former American football linebacker who played for the St. Louis Rams and New Orleans Saints of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Ohio State, where he was a ...
and others. Lithuanian Americans have also distinguished themselves in the arts such as
stained glass
Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...
artist and painter
Adolfas Valeška
Adolfas Valeška (15 March 1905, in Kybartai – 11 May 1994, in Kaunas, Lithuania) was a Lithuanian stained glass artist, painter, stage designer, and museum director who worked in Lithuania and in Chicago, Illinois.
Valeška graduated fr ...
as well as modern artists such as
Jonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas (; December 24, 1922 – January 23, 2019) was a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet, and artist who has been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema". Mekas' work has been exhibited in museums and at festivals worldwi ...
, the avant-garde filmmaker and
George Maciunas
George Maciunas (; lt, Jurgis Mačiūnas; November 8, 1931 – May 9, 1978) was a Lithuanian American artist, born in Kaunas. A founding member and the central coordinator of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers ...
, founder of the
Fluxus
Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...
movement.
Several fictional characters of Lithuanian birth who immigrated to the United States have prominently captured the American imagination. One is Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant around whom
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in seve ...
's
1906
Events
January–February
* January 12 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: A nationalistic coalition of merchants, religious leaders and intellectuals in Persia forces the shah Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to grant a constitution, ...
novel ''
The Jungle
''The Jungle'' is a 1906 novel by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair's primary purpose in describing the meat industry and its working conditions was to advance socialism in the United States. However, most readers wer ...
'' chronicles the life of the
Lithuanian community in Chicago and the treatment of workers in the
Chicago Stockyards. The second,
Hannibal Lecter
Dr. Hannibal Lecter is a Character (arts), fictional character created by the novelist Thomas Harris. Lecter is a serial killer who Human cannibalism, eats his victims. Before his capture, he was a respected Forensic psychiatry, forensic psychi ...
, the villain of ''
The Silence of the Lambs'' and ''
Hannibal
Hannibal (; xpu, 𐤇𐤍𐤁𐤏𐤋, ''Ḥannibaʿl''; 247 – between 183 and 181 BC) was a Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Puni ...
'', was born in Lithuania but later moved to the United States and took U.S. citizenship.
Marko Ramius
''The Hunt for Red October'' is the debut novel by American author Tom Clancy, first published on October 1, 1984, by the Naval Institute Press. It depicts Soviet submarine captain Marko Ramius as he seemingly goes rogue with his country's cutt ...
, the Soviet submarine captain in ''
The Hunt for Red October
''The Hunt for Red October'' is the debut novel by American author Tom Clancy, first published on October 1, 1984, by the Naval Institute Press. It depicts Soviet submarine captain Marko Ramius as he seemingly goes rogue with his country's cutt ...
'', is also described as "Lithuanian by birth" and as the "Vilnius Schoolmaster".
Distribution
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
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, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
has the largest Lithuanian community in the United States and with approximately 100,000 self-identified ethnic Lithuanians has the largest population of Lithuanians of any municipality outside Lithuania itself. The old "Lithuanian Downtown" in
Bridgeport
Bridgeport is the most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the fifth-most populous in New England. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonnoc ...
was once the center of Lithuanian political activity for the whole United States. Another large Lithuanian community can be found in the
Coal Region
The Coal Region is a region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is known for being home to the largest known deposits of anthracite, anthracite coal in the world with an estimated reserve of seven billion short tons.
The region is typically define ...
of
northeastern Pennsylvania
Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA) is a geographic region of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania that includes the Pocono Mountains, the Endless Mountains, and the industrial cities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, Hazleton, Nanticoke, and Carbon ...
, particularly in
Schuylkill County where the small
borough
A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.
History
In the Middle Ag ...
of
New Philadelphia has the largest
per capita
''Per capita'' is a Latin phrase literally meaning "by heads" or "for each head", and idiomatically used to mean "per person". The term is used in a wide variety of social sciences and statistical research contexts, including government statistic ...
percentage of Lithuanian Americans (20.8%) in the United States. There is also a large community of Lithuanian descent in the coal mining regions of
Western Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania is a region in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, covering the western third of the state. Pittsburgh is the region's principal city, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic ...
,
northern West Virginia Panhandle and
Northeastern Ohio tri-state area.
Grand County, Colorado
Grand County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 15,717. The county seat is Hot Sulphur Springs, Colorado, Hot Sulphur Springs.
History
When Grand County was ...
's Lithuanian-American community has the unusual distinction in that it is the only sizable immigrant population in an otherwise fairly homogeneous population in a rural, mountainous community. There is also a small but vibrant Lithuanian community in
Presque Isle, Maine
Presque Isle is the commercial center and largest city in Aroostook County, Maine, United States. The population was 8,797 at the 2020 Census. The city is home to the University of Maine at Presque Isle, Northern Maine Community College, Husso ...
. Many Lithuanian refugees settled in
Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...
after World War II; they constitute a community in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
. The majority of the Lithuanian community resides around the St. Casimir Lithuanian church in
Los Feliz
LOS, or Los, or LoS may refer to:
Science and technology
* Length of stay, the duration of a single episode of hospitalisation
* Level of service, a measure used by traffic engineers
* Level of significance, a measure of statistical significance ...
, in so-called "Little Lithuania.
The
states with the largest Lithuanian-American populations are:
#
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
– 87,294
#
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
– 78,330
#
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
– 51,406
#
– 51,054
#
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
– 49,083
Lithuanian-born population
Lithuanian-born population in the U.S. since 2010:
See also
*
Lithuania–United States relations
*
Destination Lithuanian America
*
American Lithuanian Cultural Archives
American Lithuanian Cultural Archives or ALKA ( lt, Amerikos lietuvių kultūros archyvai) is located at 37 Mary Crest Drive in Putnam, Connecticut next to the convent of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is d ...
*
European Americans
European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent Eu ...
*
Hyphenated American
In the United States, the term hyphenated American refers to the use of a hyphen (in some styles of writing) between the name of an ethnicity and the word "American" in compound nouns, e.g., as in "Irish-American". Calling a person a "hyphenated ...
*
Lithuanians in the Chicago area
Lithuanians in Chicago and the Chicago metropolitan area, nearby metropolitan area are a prominent group within the Origin of Chicago's "Windy City" nickname, "Windy City" whose presence goes back over a hundred years. Today the Chicago area pos ...
*
Our Lady of Vilnius Church
Our Lady of Vilnius Church was a Roman Catholic parish church located at 568–570 Broome Street, in Hudson Square, Manhattan, New York City, east of the entrance to the Holland Tunnel but predating it. It was built in 1910 as the national parish ...
References
Further reading
*
*
* Fainhauz, David. ''Lithuanians in the U.S.A.: Aspects of Ethnic Identity'' (Chicago: Lithuanian Library Press, Inc., 1991).
* Gedmintas, Aleksandras. “Lithuanians.” In ''American Immigrant Cultures: Builders of a Nation, Vol. 2,'' edited by David Levinson and Melvin Ember, (Macmillan, 19970 pp 588–96..
* Granquist, Mark A. "Lithuanian Americans." in ''Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America,'' edited by Thomas Riggs, (3rd ed., vol. 3, Gale, 2014), pp. 111–127
Online* Grazulis, Marius K. ''Lithuanians in Michigan'' ((Michigan State University Press, 2009).
* Kuzmickaitė, Daiva Kristina. ''Between Two Worlds: Recent Lithuanian Immigrants in Chicago (1998–2000).'' (Vilnius: Versus Aureus, 2003).
*
*
* Ališauskas, Arūnas. "Lithuanians" in
Thernstrom, Stephan; Orlov, Ann;
Handlin, Oscar, eds
''Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups'' Harvard University Press, , (1980
available to borrow online
External links
*
Baltics in BostonArchive. ''
WGBH-TV
WGBH-TV (channel 2), branded on-air as GBH or GBH 2 since 2020, is the primary PBS member television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship property of the WGBH Educational Foundation, which also owns Boston's sec ...
''. August 22, 1989.
Lithuanian Music Hall Association (Philadelphia)
{{Authority control
European-American society
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...