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281 pages

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An engaging tale of life as an immigrant in Cleveland during the post-Civil War era and early twentieth centuryThe Story of My Life, originally published in Czechoslovakia in 1928, is the engaging and informative autobiography of Frank Vlchek, a Czech immigrant who became a successful businessman in Cleveland, Ohio, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.The youngest of fourteen children, Vlchek was born to peasant parents in Budyn, southern Bohemia, in 1871. After attempting a career in blacksmithing in Bohemia, at the age of seventeen he decided to follow his two older sisters to Cleveland, home to America's second-largest Czech community.Vlchek worked a variety of unsatisfactory jobs during his first years in Cleveland. In 1895 he opened his own smithing operation, which after a long struggle was transformed into a successful corporation that specialized in the manufacture of toolkits for automobiles. His narrative relates tales of labor issues, competitors, mergers and acquisitions, and the successes and travails of his operation. Vlchek was often able to travel home to Czechoslovakia, and during those trips he noted the different cultural and political attitudes that had evolved between Czechs and their Czech American cousins.Vlchek's memoir provides a rare primary source about Czech immigrants. It also offers insight into a self-made man's life philosophy, illustrates relations between ethnic groups in Cleveland during the 1880s, and demonstrates the assimilation of a late-nineteenth-century immigrant in America.Readers interested in immigration history as well as the history of Cleveland will enjoy this fascinating autobiography.

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Publié par	The Kent State University Press
Date de parution	20 janvier 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781631010347
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0900€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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The Story of My Life
Frank J. Vlchek
The Story of My Life
Frank Vlchek
Translation edited by Winston Chrislock
Published in cooperation with the Western Reserve Historical Society
The Kent State University Press Kent & London
Publication of this book was made possible by a grant from Werner D. Mueller.
© 2004 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2004017929
ISBN 0-87338-817-8
Manufactured in the United States of America
08 07 06 05 04 5 4 3 2 1
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Vlcek, František J., 1871–
[Povídka mého života. English]
The story of my life / Frank Vlchek; translation edited by Winston Chrislock.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-87338-817-8 (alk. paper)
1. Vlcek, František J., 1871- 2. Czech Americans—Biography. 3. Immigrants—United States—Biography. 4. Businessmen—Ohio—Cleveland—Biography. 5. Cleveland (Ohio)—Biography. 6. Bohemia (Czech Republic)—Biography. I. Chrislock, Winston. II. Title E 184. B 67 V 513 2004
977.1'32004918604371— DC 22 2004017929
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication data are available.
Contents
Author’s Preface
Introduction
Part 1: Central European Origins
My Youth · Family Partings · Why I Became a Blacksmith · Sad Chapter · Life in the Country · First Pilgrimage Out into the World in Search of a Livelihood · At the Fair · Master R ů ži č ka · Václaυ Pajdar · Punished for a Stranger’s Guilt · In Lower Austria · Fellow Patriots · Among My Own · Why I Went to America · The End of Carnival and My Departure
Part 2: Over the Ocean
The Journey and First Experiences · In New York · In Cleveland · František Hrubecký · The New Citizen of the American Žižkoυ · One Day without Work; Two Days without Food · My New Friends · Our Czech Amateur Theater · Further Beginnings of My Blacksmith Career · My Intimate Acquaintance · Hopeless Future · McGregor · At the National Smithy. Parent’s Death. Marriage. · Poor Beginning · Czech Reciprocity · Awakening · On the Final Step to Success · Our New Corporation · New Competition · Financial Growth · People’s Calculating
Part 3: At the Goal
On Shaky Ground · Undercurrents · The Time of Bitter Experiences · Organization: The Foundation of Success · Three Franks · The Fire in the Factory and the Journey to the West Indies · Journey to the Ancestral Homeland · At the Grave of My Parents: More Traveling around Bohemia · Return to Cleveland · Progress in Production · My Family and Our City · Social Life · Our Liberation Movement: The City of Cleveland · The Old World and the New
Afterword
Index
Author’s Preface
Many of my friends have requested that I write an autobiography. They were aware of my youth, of how I came from meager beginnings, and of how I gained influence and friendship as a Czech immigrant in American circles. So, I have written my autobiography, though I am aware that many hundreds of my compatriots who have also achieved success could give a similar recounting of interesting portraits of the American and especially the Czech American environment.
My life experience has taught me what others have learned through education in the schools. Many experiences were bitter, but nevertheless, I gladly remember my origins and my struggle through the many years that I made my way in foreign surroundings.
F. J. V LCHEK
In Cleveland, May 10, 1928
Introduction
Frank Vlchek’s autobiography provides a source to the history of Czech immigration and assimilation from the post–Civil War era through the 1920s. Born of peasant parents in Budyn, southern Bohemia, in 1871, Vlchek was the last of fourteen children. Lack of land and opportunity compelled him to leave his village and seek work in smithing. During his early teens he was an apprentice and a journeyman blacksmith. He traveled through southern Bohemia and lower Austria to ply his trade. However, after his journeyman experiences and following his return to Budyn, he concluded that there was no real future there, and so in 1888 at age seventeen he followed two older sisters to Cleveland, Ohio, where he settled and lived for the rest of his life. His life in Cleveland from 1888 until his death in 1947 was a chronicle of how an immigrant with scant means plied his trade, capitalized on opportunities created by America’s industrial growth, and built a major industrial enterprise.
Vlchek’s assimilation process in Cleveland is a microcosm of a late-nineteenth-century immigrant’s experience once in America. By 1890 Cleveland had become home to America’s second largest Czech community; only Chicago exceeded it. It was a magnet for thousands of Czechs from Vlchek’s birthplace in the Písek region of Bohemia. Push and pull factors contributed to this. Among the push factors were the growth in population brought on by falling child mortality rates and the region’s propensity to produce large families. Vlchek’s situation, being the fourteenth of fourteen children, might have been a bit extreme, but population pressures pushed him and many of his peers off their ancestral lands and out of their villages. They were left with several choices. They could make their way to industrial cities—Prague, Vienna, Plze ň —in central Europe; seek work as skilled tradesmen in smaller towns in the region; or emigrate to the United States. Vlchek opted for the latter two choices, finally settling on emigration.
Vlchek’s move to Cleveland was typical of the chain of immigration, a process by which immigrants from the same family or region in the mother country attracted their relatives and acquaintances to their new surroundings. By the 1870s several firms expedited Czech immigration. The German-American Line based in Hamburg employed Josef Pastor, a Czech journalist and entrepreneur, to assist Czechs seeking to immigrate, and Kares and Stozky, a Czech-owned firm based in Bremen, did likewise. Both firms arranged for ticketing of immigrant passengers, bribing of Austrian customs officials, and the performing of other functions related to immigration. As a consequence, most Czech immigrants left Europe by way of Hamburg or Bremen. Vlchek went through Bremen, and it is clear that Kares and Stotzky were of assistance in getting him across the Austro-Hungarian border and arranging for rail and steamship passage.
He selected Cleveland as his destination because an older sister had already settled there six years earlier, and a still older sister had immigrated three years before that. Czechs began flocking to Cleveland after the American Civil War, and ten years before Vlchek’s arrival there were estimated to be fifteen to eighteen thousand Czechs residing in Cleveland. Vlchek had good company when he immigrated, as Czech arrivals numbered from three hundred to one thousand yearly from 1878 to 1891.
Vlchek’s beginnings in Cleveland are indicative of several factors relating to the immigrant experience. The first was the problem of livelihood, and the second was the relationship among ethnic groups then residing there. The Czech immigrant community in Cleveland had settled in several neighborhoods, and within them they had established networks that included informal employment agencies. Vlchek had several employment possibilities after his arrival in Cleveland. Day laborers, strike breakers, and skilled artisans were in demand. In short succession, Vlchek took on a variety of jobs, none of which were satisfactory. In some instances Czechs assisted him or, because he spoke little English, they exploited him.
Vlchek’s experience reflected relations between and among ethnic groups in Cleveland in the 1880s. The city was no melting pot but rather a collection of ethnic neighborhoods. Employment, however, often required workers to work for firms or individuals outside of their ethnic group. That was true for Vlchek. He worked for an Anglo (Hart Manufacturing Company), a Czech (Petráš), a German (Ebert, who only hired Czechs), and an Irishman (whose real name was not divulged) with whom he lived and boarded. Exposure to groups outside his own taught him about American business practices. This enabled him in 1895 to open his own firm.
Vlchek’s account of his early years in Cleveland is indicative of other aspects of Czech life there. By the 1890s Czechs had organized a number of Roman Catholic national parishes and fraternal lodges. Many Czechs after their arrival in the United States often broke with Roman Catholicism and gravitated toward religious liberalism, or free thought. Consequently, there were many free-thought societies located next to or near Catholic organizations. Both groups perpetuated Czech cultural life through their amateur theater, gymnastic, and music groups. At the same time they engaged in vituperative attacks on one another. Although Vlchek professes to have stood aside from this controversy, as a very devout Catholic he had little sympathy for Czech freethinkers. He regretted that the feud stood in the way of national work.
Vlchek’s autobiography is reminiscent of the works of Samuel Smiles and Horatio Alger. Vlchek quotes the Rotarian, saying, “He who serves best profits most,” and then adds, “success rests in good, honest work and able service. So I tried to oblige my customers, knowing that one satisfied customer can bring dozens of others.” After an eight-year struggle to build his own smithing establishment, he was successful. He attributes his success to “good work, thoughtful service, perfect products, and a price that was suited to the goods.” As was the case during this phase of industrialism, new technologies and products were emerging, and Vlchek took the time to familiarize himself with them. By 1909 he had transformed his smithing operation into a corporation with himself as principal stockholder and president and with the company specializing in the manufacture of tool kits for automobiles. Vlchek’s account of the successes and travails o