In 1890, more than 100,000 Welsh-born immigrants resided in the United States. A majority of them were skilled laborers from the coal mines of Wales who had been recruited by American mining companies. Readily accepted by American society, Welsh immigrants experienced a unique process of acculturation. This history of this exceptional community explores how Welsh immigrants made a significant contribution to the development of the American coal industry, and how their rapid and successful assimilation affected Welsh American culture. The book describes how Welsh immigrants brought their nation ... More

In 1890, more than 100,000 Welsh-born immigrants resided in the United States. A majority of them were skilled laborers from the coal mines of Wales who had been recruited by American mining companies. Readily accepted by American society, Welsh immigrants experienced a unique process of acculturation. This history of this exceptional community explores how Welsh immigrants made a significant contribution to the development of the American coal industry, and how their rapid and successful assimilation affected Welsh American culture. The book describes how Welsh immigrants brought their national churches, fraternal orders and societies, love of literature and music, and, most important, their own language. Yet unlike eastern and southern Europeans and the Irish, the Welsh—even with their “foreign” ways—encountered no apparent hostility from the Americans. Often within a single generation, Welsh cultural institutions would begin to fade and a new “Welsh American” identity developed. True to the perspective of the Welsh themselves, the book's analysis adopts a transnational view of immigration, examining the maintenance of Welsh coal-mining culture in the United States and in Wales.