mians have come to this country, and in 1906, the latest year for which I have estimates, the Bohemian group was put at a round half-million.
Some of these early settlers are picturesque and not unimportant figures like Heřman and Phillipse, but it was not till the disturbed period of 1848 that Bohemians came to this country in appreciable numbers. At this time there was a triple ferment in Bohemia: first, a desire for political independence; second, a resurrection of national self-consciousness symbolized by the revival of the Bohemian language, the use of which among cultivated people had been abandoned for German; and third, a spirit of religious questioning and vehement challenge of current Christianity, largely due to reaction against the influence of a corrupt Austrian clericalism.
Another possible influence was the discovery of gold in California in 1849, which is said to have brought Bohemian gold-seekers and to have stimulated the activity of ship agents. The census of 1850 mentions 87 natives of Austria (out of 946 in the United States) as then in California; these were probably Bohemians. Throughout the fifties and early sixties there was a pretty steady outflow from Bohemia, most of it directed to the United States. This early emigration was a movement of settlers, whole families going together.
