18th and 19th centuries The first Bohemian Jew to arrive in Baltimore, Jacob Block (originally Bloch), immigrated in the late 1700s. The Bloch family were from the village of
Švihov in
Central Bohemia. The second Bohemian Jew in Maryland was Levi Collmus, a dry goods dealer from
Prague, who arrived at the Port of Baltimore in September, 1806. Collmus was an elector to the
Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, a treasurer of the United Hebrew Benevolent Society, and veteran of the
War of 1812. Collmus was buried at
Green Mount Cemetery according to
Orthodox Jewish ritual. Between 1820 and the
Civil War, around 300,000
Central European Jews arrived in the United States, many of whom were
Bohemian Jews. Around 10,000 of these Jews, many of them Bohemian, passed through Fell's Point and settled in Baltimore. In 1853,
Temple Oheb Shalom was founded by Jewish immigrants from Central Europe, including Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Hungary. The pioneer
Reform rabbi
Isaac Mayer Wise, born in
Plesná,
Bohemia, played an influential role in the establishment of the synagogue. Early Czech immigrants to Baltimore came from the regions of
Bohemia,
Moravia and
Silesia, which at the time were part of the
Austrian Empire and later the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. Because the
United States Census Bureau counted the
Czechs as "
Austrians" until 1881, it is difficult to know an accurate count for Czech immigrants before that time. Even after 1881, many Czechs were still listed as Austrians or "
Austro-Bohemians" because of their Austrian citizenship. These early Bohemian immigrants to Baltimore in the years following the Civil War first settled in Fell's Point, then moved further north along Barnes and Abbott Streets near Broadway, eventually settling in large numbers along Collington Avenue near the
Northeast Market. According to the Painted Screen Society of Baltimore, Little Bohemia was bounded by North Washington Street on the west, East Eager Street to the north, Jefferson Street to the south, and North Linwood Avenue to the east. Numerous rowhouses were built to accommodate the growing Bohemian community, which continued to grow throughout the 1880s and 1890s. The homes were constructed by Bohemian immigrants, most notably the architect Frank Novak (1877–1945). Many of the immigrants who settled here worked as weavers and tailors or owned market stalls. Novak did not want any streets named after him, but his partner fooled him by naming a street "Kavon", Novak spelled backwards. Kavon Street presently runs parallel to Bel Air Road directly north and south of Herring Run Park. Prior to the passage of the
Fair Housing Act of 1968,
racially restrictive covenants were used in Baltimore to exclude
African-Americans and other minority groups. A 1923 article in the
Baltimore Sun mentions that Frank Novak built "restricted" houses in the
Montebello neighborhood. A 1926 advertisement in the
Baltimore Sun describes Novak's
Lakeside development as a "carefully restricted suburban home development". Between the 1860s and the 1910s, Bohemians chartered at least 20 building and loan associations. The first Bohemian organization was chartered in 1877, around 20 years after Bohemians started to arrive in the city in large numbers. Some of these associations were Jednota "Blesk", "Vlastimila" (sisters' benevolent union), the "Ctirada", the "Jaromíra", and the "Zlatá Praha" ("Golden Prague"). The majority of the Baltimore Bohemians were Roman Catholics. In 1870, there were around 1,000 Bohemian Catholics and within a decade that number had increased to over 5,000. Sokol Jednota Blesk (now called Sokol Baltimore), a
Czech gymnastics association, was founded in 1872. Members met on Frederick Street near
Fell's Point.
Sokol (,
falcon) was originally a
Czech nationalist organization created to train members to fight for the independence of Czechoslovakia and in some ways resembled the
German Turnverein,
German-American gymnastic clubs that promoted
liberalism and
German nationalism. In August 1879, the Fairmount and Chapel Streets Permanent Building, Savings and Loan Association No 1 Inc. was founded to serve the needs of Czech immigrants. The bank was located on the second floor of Anton Rytina's Bar at 1919 East Fairmount Avenue. All bank records were written in
Czech until 1948. On November 8, 1880, the politician Vaclav Joseph Shimek helped establish the
Grand Lodge Č.S.P.S. of Baltimore, the Baltimore chapter of the
Czech-Slovak Protective Society. Shimek was the owner of the Bohemian Hall and the six-time president of
Sokol Baltimore; he was also instrumental in helping found the National Sokol Organization. Shimek's Bohemian Hall, now the United Baptist Church at Barnes Street and Broadway, was located in the heart of Little Bohemia and was established as a meeting place for the Czech community. Shimek allowed the Hall to be used to hold
Knights of Labor meetings for
working-class Czech tailors and garment workers. In 1884, the Grand Lodge Č.S.P.S. of Baltimore constructed the
Bohemian National Cemetery, a cemetery for irreligious and Protestant Czechs and Slovaks. While the majority of Baltimore's Bohemians were Catholic, the Czech-Slovak Protective Society was largely composed of secular and religious
freethinkers. The cemetery served as an alternative to the Catholic cemeteries where other Bohemians were buried. During the 1890s, there were over 300 sweatshops in Baltimore, many providing sewing rooms for immigrants working in the garment industry. Most of the workers toiling in these squalid sweatshops were of Bohemian,
Italian,
Lithuanian, and
Russian-
Jewish ancestry. Around half of the garment workers were women and girls, many in their early teens. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Bohemian stronghold north of
Johns Hopkins Hospital along the
Baltimore to New York Amtrak line all the way to Frank C Bocek Park was known by the now long-forgotten name of "Swampoodle". Frank C Bocek Park was nicknamed the "clay hill". There was a swamp behind the clay hill, the source of the neighborhood being named Swampoodle. The heart of the Bohemian "hollow" of Swampoodle was located just north of Johns Hopkins Hospital along the tiny side streets of Barnes and Abbott.
20th century During the early 1900s and mid-1900s, Little Bohemia was an ethnically diverse neighborhood, with many European immigrants such as Germans, Irish, and Italians living side by side with and intermarrying Czechs and Slovaks. One Slovak-American woman from a multiethnic family on North Bradford Street described her kitchen as "a league of nations around that dining-room table." The association was formed by twenty Bohemian men at Joseph Klecka's Tavern on Ashland Avenue. The mainstream banks during the 1800s and early 1900s would ignore or turn away customers who were Eastern European or Southern European immigrants, so Czechs and other non-
WASP immigrants would establish their own banking institutions to serve the specific needs of their communities. These banks for
white ethnics had hours and customs that seemed less alien to immigrants and often had translators on staff. Discrimination against Czechs and other white immigrants persisted in banking until the 1930s. As late as the 1930s and 1940s it was not uncommon for Slavic Catholics, such as Czechs and Poles, to be called ethnic and religious slurs such as "
bohunks" and "fish eaters." Slavs were often
stereotyped as stupid and
superstitious. White Protestants coined the term "fish eater" to refer to Catholic immigrants because the Catholics did not eat meat on Fridays. The Baltimore journalist
H. L. Mencken described Czech immigrants in Baltimore as "all poor and without influential compatriots uptown." He opposed the independence of Czechoslovakia, claiming that "Czechs are a charming people" but should have "kept to their own dunghill." He sympathized with Nazi Germany's aim "to get rid of the Czech nonsense at any cost." In 1939, he wrote that he was "a great deal less interested in what Hitler does to the Czechs...than I am in what he does to the Germans." The Baltimore
Telegraf, a Czech-language newspaper founded by Vaclav Shimek, began publication on February 20, 1909. The newspaper would continue in print until 1951.
Anti-Black racism was widespread in the Bohemian community throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1909, the
Telegraf and its co-owner Venceslaus J. Shimek endorsed the
Digges Amendment, a defeated proposal to amend the Maryland Constitution to disenfranchise Black voters. An October 11, 1909, article in the
Baltimore Sun stated that foreign-born white voters in Shimek's neighborhood of Baltimore were enthusiastic supporters of the amendment. Although some critics of the amendment were concerned it might be used to restrict the voting rights of foreign-born white people, Shimek wrote in the
Telegraf that "...I am in favor of the amendment, heart and soul, and the Telegraf, of which I am president, is supporting it strongly." Shimek argued that Bohemians should support the amendment because only Black Americans would be disenfranchised. The
Baltimore Sun summarized Shimek's argument as being that "No Bohemian need fear" because the law "will eliminate only the negro." In 1911 or 1912, Bohemian
socialists founded the Baltimore branch of the Bohemian Section of the
Socialist Party of America. The Bohemian Socialists were in close association with the
Social Democratic Party of Bohemia. The Golden Prague Federal Savings & Loan Association was founded in 1912. The bank was created to aid the Czech community, but later expanded to serve non-Czechs as well. A Czech immigrant living in Little Bohemia named William Oktavec invented
screen painting in 1913. Screen painting became a popular form of
folk art in Baltimore's working-class immigrant communities. During the peak of screen painting in the 1930s and 1940s there were approximately 100,000 painted screens by over 100 artists. In 1914, the Bohemian Catholics built the church of
St. Wenceslaus Church, Baltimore, which by now had 7,000 members. St. Wenceslaus held services in both
Czech and
English. At its height in 1920, the parish was the fourth largest
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore. In 1915,
August Klecka, son of Joseph Klecka, became the first Czech-American to be elected to the
Baltimore City Council. Klecka represented Czech voters and ran the Slavic Building and Loan Association. During
World War I (1914–1918), most of Baltimore's garment industry workers were still of Bohemian, Lithuanian, and Russian descent, the majority of whom were Jewish and many of whom were young women. With further construction in
Little Bohemia the Czech community continued to grow. By 1927, the construction was finished in Little Bohemia. As the Czech population continued to expand, Czechs began to move into
Patterson Park and became an important component of the neighborhood's growth. The Czechoslovak Society of America founded a
duckpin bowling league in 1946. Many of the early members were Czech-American soldiers returning from
World War II. During WWII, many Czech and Slovak coal-miners from Pennsylvania settled in South Baltimore, particularly in Curtis Bay. Many of these Czechs and Slovaks from Pennsylvania joined the St. Athanasius Roman Catholic Church, adding to the number of Czech congregants that already attended the church. The church still had a number of Czech-American members by 2003. Czech-Americans and Slovak-Americans in Baltimore during WWII were
strongly opposed to
Adolf Hitler and the
German occupation of Czechoslovakia. In 1954, Sokol Jednota Blesk moved its organization to a new building on the 2900 block of East Madison Street. A few years later in 1962, the organization changed its name to Sokol Baltimore. In the
1960 United States census, Czech-Americans comprised 57.5% of the foreign-born population in Southeast Baltimore's tract 7–3. The Czech community was then centered in Baltimore's Ward 7. By 1969, the Czech-American community in Little Bohemia was predominantly composed of ageing homeowners who lived alongside more recently arrived
African-American residents. However, many of the
older white Czech-Americans harbored
racist attitudes towards
black people. According to a reporter with 'The Baltimore Sun', "The older people of Bohemian extraction still live in the houses they own...but they share the neighborhood with black people whom they do not seem to appreciate or understand." In 1970, the Bohemian Building, Loan and Savings Association changed its name to the Slavie Savings And Loan Association Inc. In 1986, the Czech and Slovak Heritage Association of Maryland, Inc. was founded in Baltimore. It has since grown into a national organization that offers courses on the languages, culture, and history of the Czechs and Slovaks. In 1987, the association started the Czech and Slovak Heritage Festival. Early festivals were held at
War Memorial Plaza and
Patterson Park. Later the festival moved to
Dundalk and eventually to its current home in
Parkville. The Slavie Savings And Loan Association Inc., changed its name to the Slavie Federal Savings and Loan Association in 1987. By 1996, little of the Czech community remained in East Baltimore. The Baltimore Sun described the former community as "now scattered." As of 1998 the Czechoslovak Society of America, by then called the Czech Society of America, still operated its duckpin bowling league in East Baltimore. As late as 1994, 80-90% of the members of the league were of Czech descent. Ze Mean Bean Café in Fell's Point opened in 1995. It is a restaurant which offers Slavic and Eastern European fare, including
Czech cuisine. The restaurant was founded by Yvonne Dornic as an ode to her Czechoslovak-born
Carpatho-Rusyn father Ivan Dornic. In 1998, Sokol Baltimore moved to a new location at St. Patrick's Parish Hall on Broadway in Fell's Point.
21st century In 2000, the Slavie Federal Savings and Loan Association became the Slavie Federal Savings Bank. The bank's headquarters were moved to the Baltimore suburb of
Bel Air in 2001. After the
2011 Virginia earthquake damaged St. Patrick's Church, Sokol Baltimore had to move their organization to a different location. The new Sokol building is on Noble Street in
Highlandtown. In 2014, after 114 years of business, federal banking regulators closed Slavie Federal Savings Bank after the bank's capital was depleted by bad loans. The Madison Bohemian Savings Bank is still in business, but is now headquartered in Baltimore's suburb of
Forest Hill. ==Culture==