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The major emigration of Slovenes to Cleveland occurred over four decades, between 1880 and 1920 when about 330,000 Slovenes came looking for work and found their second home there. Cleveland became second only to Ljubljana, Slovenia's capital, in the size of its Slovene population. Therefore, the history of American Slovenes has been focused to a large degree around the Cleveland Slovene settlement.

CLEVELAND
The history of American Slovenes has been focused to a large degree around the Cleveland Slovene settlement. The major emigration of Slovenes to Cleveland occurred over four decades, between 1880 and 1920 when about 330,000 Slovenes came looking for work and found their second home there. Cleveland became second only to Ljubljana, Slovenia's capital, in the size of its Slovene population. Enterprising settlers opened grocery stores, bakeries, meat markets, furniture stores, taverns, boarding-houses, and other small businesses, all catering to a predominantly Slovene-American clientele. These new Americans patronized carpenters, bricklayers, mechanics, and other tradesmen who shared their ethnic identity.

Slovene Americans are best organized of the more than fifty ethnic groups in the Cleveland area. The estimated 100,000 Americans of Slovene descent living in metropolitan Cleveland congregate in three Catholic nationality parishes, nine National Homes that serve as centers of community activity, and over two hundred organisations, such as church groups, recreational and educational centers, newspapers, radio programs, foundations, an art guild, and the National Polka Hall of Fame.

95% of Cleveland Slovenes today are descendants of prewar immigrants: the first, second, third, or even fourth generations.

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