Welsh Americans

Welsh Americans
Americanwyr Cymreig

Thomas Jefferson • Abraham Lincoln Ray Milland • Bette Davis JP Morgan • Jack London • Jesse James
Regions with significant populations
Northeast; Rockies; the Southern United States
Languages
American English Welsh
Religion
Predominantly Christian Protestant Mormon Some Catholics
Related ethnic groups
British Americans (Cornish AmericansScottish Americans, Scots-Irish Americans, English Americans), Irish Americans

In the 2008 US Census community survey, an estimated 1.98 million Americans had Welsh ancestry, 0.6% of the total U.S. population. This compares with a population of 3 million in Wales. However, 3.8% of Americans bear a Welsh surname. Moreover, a particularly large proportion of the African American population have Welsh names. History shows that there is little evidence that the Welsh were among the slave-owning classes at this time, as most immigrants were poor. "If the Welsh were not numerically prominent in the ranks of the slave holders, how did African Americans come to make common use of Welsh names? In many cases these surnames just indicate the fact that African Americans shared with the Welsh the need to adopt fixed surnames at times when forenames commonly used in England had become usual in both groups. When fixed surnames became necessary, a father's name would tend to become a surname. John could become Jones and David, Davis or Davies. Names like this, therefore, need not necessarily be evidence of a Welsh connection." John Weston: Data Wales.

The proportion of the population with a name of Welsh origin ranges from 9.5% in South Carolina to 1.1% in North Dakota. Typically names of Welsh origin are concentrated in the mid Atlantic states, the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama and in Appalachia, West Virginia and Tennessee. By contrast there are relatively fewer Welsh names in New England, the northern mid West, and the South West.

There have been at least eight U.S. Presidents with Welsh ancestry including Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, James Garfield and Barack Obama. Confederate President Jefferson Davis was also of Welsh extraction.

Welsh emigration to the United States

'Welsh ancestry' Dark red and brown colors indicate a higher density. (see Maps of American ancestries)

The legend of voyages to America, and settlement there in the twelfth century, led by Madog, son of Owain Gwynedd, prince of Gwynedd, are now considered to lack historical basis.

However, John Cabot an Italian navigator who was one of the earliest people to visit North America from Europe did have Welsh crew members, whom he took on board at Bristol. A folk myth connected with this suggests that the name "America" came from "ap Meurig, Welsh for the son of Maurice." - but it is also possible it was derived from Amerigo Vespucci's first name. It has also been suggested that the name "America" is derived from the name of Richard Amerike or Ameryk (derived from ap Meurig, see above), a Welshman and wealthy Bristol merchant who was the chief investor in John Cabot's second transatlantic crossing in 1497.

Indiana

In the years surrounding the turn of the Twentieth Century, the towns of Elwood, Anderson and Gas City in Grant and Madison Counties, located northeast of Indianapolis, attracted scores of Welsh Immigrants, including many large families and young industrial workers.

Idaho

By the mid-nineteenth century, Malad City, Idaho was established. It began largely as a Welsh Mormon settlement and lays claim to having more people of Welsh descent per capita than anywhere outside of Wales [1].

Maryland

Five towns in northern Maryland and southern Pennsylvania were constructed between 1850 and 1942 to house Welsh quarry workers producing Peach Bottom slate. During this period the towns retained a Welsh ethnic identity, although their architecture evolved from the traditional Welsh cottage form to contemporary American. Two of the towns in Harford County now form the Whiteford-Cardiff Historic District.

Minnesota

In Blue Earth County in Southern Minnesota was among some of the earliest farming communities established by Welsh Immigrants in the Midwest.

Ohio

Mass emigration from Wales to the United States got under way in the nineteenth century with Ohio cities and towns such as Canal Dover, Niles and Gloucester being particularly popular destinations. It is also said that around 20% of the population of Utah are of Welsh descent.

In the early nineteenth century most of the Welsh settlers were farmers, but later on there was emigration by coal miners to the coalfields of Ohio and Pennsylvania and by slate quarrymen from North Wales to the "Slate Valley" region of Vermont and New York State.

Pennsylvania

In the late seventeenth century, there was a large emigration of Welsh Quakers to Pennsylvania, where a Welsh Tract was established. By 1700, the Welsh accounted for about one-third of the colony’s estimated population of twenty thousand. There are a number of Welsh place names in this area. There was a second wave of immigration in the late eighteenth century, notably a Welsh colony named Cambria established by Morgan John Rhys in what is now Cambria County, Pennsylvania.

On a plaque mounted on the east façade of the imposing Philadelphia City Hall, the following inscription is found:

Perpetuating the Welsh heritage, and commemorating the vision and virtue of the following Welsh patriots in the founding of the City, Commonwealth, and Nation: William Penn, 1644-1718, proclaimed freedom of religion and planned New Wales later named Pennsylvania. Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, third President of the United States, composed the Declaration of Independence. Robert Morris, 1734-1806, foremost financier of the American Revolution and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Governor Morris, 1752-1816, wrote the final draft of the Constitution of the United States. John Marshall, 1755-1835, Chief Justice of the United States and father of American constitutional law.

The Welsh were especially numerous and politically active in colonial Pennsylvania, where they elected 9% of the legislature. In the 19th century thousands of Welsh coal miners emigrated to the anthracite and bituminous mines of Pennsylvania, many becoming mine managers and executives. The miners brought organizational skills, exemplified in the United Mine Workers labor union, and its most famous leader John L. Lewis, who was born in a Welsh settlement in Iowa.

Tennessee

Following the American Civil War, 104 Welsh immigrant families moved from the Welsh Barony in Pennsylvania to East Tennessee. These Welsh families settled in an area now known as Mechanicsville, and part of the city of Knoxville. These families were recruited by the brothers Joseph and David Richards to work in a rolling mill then co-owned by John H. Jones.

The Richards brothers co-founded the Knoxville Iron Works beside the L&N Railroad, later to be used as the site for the World's Fair 1982. Of the original buildings of the Iron Works where Welsh immigrants worked at, only the structure housing the restaurant 'The Foundry' remains. In 1982 World's Fair the building was known as the Strohause.

Having first met at donated space at the Second Presbyterian Church, the immigrant Welsh built their own Congregational Church with the Reverend Thomas Thomas serving as the first pastor in 1870. However, by 1899 the church property was sold.

The Welsh immigrant families became successful and established other businesses in Knoxville, which included a company that built coal cars, several slate roofing companies, a marble company, and several furniture companies. By 1930 many Welsh dispersed into other sections of the city and neighboring counties such as Sevier County. Today, more than 250 families in greater Knoxville can trace their ancestry directly to these original immigrants. The Welsh tradition in Knoxville is remembered with Welsh descendants celebrating St. David's Day.

New York

Utica, New York, witnessed the development of one of the largest and certainly the most influential Welsh community in the United States. Suffering from poor harvests in 1789 and 1802 and dreaming of land ownership, the initial settlement of five Welsh families soon attracted other agricultural migrants, settling Steuben, Utica and Remsen townships.

Welsh culture in the United States

One area with a strong Welsh influence is an area in Jackson and Gallia counties, Ohio, often known as "Little Cardiganshire". The Madog Center for Welsh Studies is located at the University of Rio Grande. The National Welsh Gymanfa Ganu Association holds the National Festival of Wales yearly in various locations around the country, offering seminars on various cultural items, a marketplace for Welsh goods, and the traditional Welsh hymn singing gathering (the gymanfa ganu). The West Coast Eisteddfod, Welsh Festival of Arts, held in Los Angeles in 2011, celebrates Welsh heritage through art competitions, performance, outdoor marketplace, and a Welsh Leadership award. On a smaller scale, many states across the country hold regular Welsh Society meetings.

The American daytime soap opera One Life to Live takes place in a fictional Pennsylvania town outside of Philadelphia known as Llanview, Welsh for "Church View". (View in Welsh is actually "golygfa") The fictional Llanview is losely based on the Welsh settlements located in the Welsh Barony, or Welsh Tract, located north west of Philadelphia, PA.

Current Immigrants

While most Welsh immigrants came to the US before the 20th century, immigration has by no means stopped. Current expatriates (a recent notable example being Anthony Hopkins) have formed societies all across the country, including the Chicago Tafia (a play on "Mafia" and "Taffy"), and AmeriCymru.

External links

• A timeline of the history of Wales and details of some of the communities in the U.S. where Welsh influence is most important
• Patterns of Welsh settlement in the United States in the first half of the 20th century
• Madog Center for Welsh Studies, University of Rio Grande
• The Welsh in Pennsylvania
• BBC Wales: Welsh Comings and Goings: The history of migration in and out of Wales
• data-wales.co.uk: Emigration from Wales to America
• data-wales.co.uk: Why do so many Black Americans have Welsh names?
• Ninnau The North American Welsh Newspaper/Papur Cymry Gogledd America

See also

• List of Welsh Americans
• Canadians of Welsh descent
• Celtic music in the United States
• British American
• Cornish American
• English American
• Scottish American
• Scots-Irish American
• Maps of American ancestries
• Welsh settlement in the Americas
• Welsh History in Chicago
• Chicago Welsh Societies
• Chicago Tafia

Further reading

• Berthoff, Rowland. British Immigrants In Industrial America (1953)
• Hartmann, Edward G. Americans from Wales, Octagon Books, 1983.
• Lewis, Ronald L. Welsh Americans: A History of Assimilation in the Coalfields (2008) excerpt and text search
• Schlenther, Boyd Stanley. "'The English is Swallowing up Their Language': Welsh Ethnic Ambivalence in Colonial Pennsylvania and the Experience of David Evans," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Volume 114, Number 2 (April 1990), pp 201-228 online edition