The Christmas they left behind
Czech Christmas Eve in 1918–1947
In Bohemia
Supper on Christmas Eve was usually meatless. Village families still ate peas, mushroom kuba, sweet breads, fruit and nuts, while carp spread in towns as Czech fish ponds sold more at home. More village homes now had a decorated tree, and after supper Ježíšek, the Christ Child, brought the gifts.
In Moravia and Silesia
Village suppers kept the old ways: Christmas wafers, often with honey, with cabbage soup, kasha or sweet buns, peas and dried fruit. Carp was spreading in towns, but many villages, especially in Wallachia and the southeast, still had no fish on Christmas Eve. In the east, decorated trees reached villages later than in Bohemia.
What they found in America
Many came for work or to join family. After the 1924 law cut numbers sharply, newcomers found settled Czech neighborhoods, above all in Chicago, home to one in four Czech Americans by 1920.
Other decades
Sources
- Moravian Museum: The story of the Christmas tree (2013)
- South Bohemian Museum: Ó, svatá dobo vánoční (2019)
- Daniela Záveská, National Museum, to TASR (2023)
- Martin Franc, food historian, to Seznam Zprávy
- Martin Šimša, National Institute of Folk Culture, Radio Prague (2022)
- Radio Prague: From Ježíšek to the Golden Pig
- Vavřinová, Charles University thesis (2018), citing Langhammerová (2008) and Koura & Kourová (2010)
- Encyclopedia of the Great Plains: Czechs
- Encyclopedia of Cleveland History: Czechs
- Migration Policy Institute: Czechia
- US Office of the Historian: The Immigration Act of 1924
- Proclamation 1703, the 1924–25 quotas
- Jana Poláková, Moravian Museum, Radio Prague
- Jaroslav Štika, Lidová strava na Valašsku, via Novinky (2009)
- Kristián Gebauer, chronicler of Petřkovice, to e15