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New immigration (1880s–1920s)

Lithuanians in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania — 'Little Lithuania, USA'

“Little Lithuania, USA” — the county with the highest concentration of Lithuanian ancestry in America, and the cradle of Lithuanian-American religious, fraternal, and print life. Markers: ★ verified · ✔ confirmed · ✎ corrects a common error · ⚑ open/caution/tradition.

Overview

No immigrant group is more identified with Schuylkill County than the Lithuanians, and no place is more central to Lithuanian America than Schuylkill County. The U.S. Census records the county as having the greatest concentration of Lithuanian ancestry in the United States — in 2000, 5.9% of the county, with twelve communities over 10% Lithuanian (New Philadelphia highest at 25.8%) — and the Commonwealth marked the fact in 2013 with a state historical marker titled “Little Lithuania, USA.” ★ Shenandoah, the community’s capital, was nicknamed the “Vilnius of America.” ⚑ (The nickname is established usage but has no single dated origin; the official PHMC phrase is “Little Lithuania, USA.”)

What makes the Lithuanians extraordinary is not just their numbers but their firsts: the first Lithuanian Catholic parish in America (Shenandoah, 1872), the longest-running and highest-circulation Lithuanian newspaper of its era (Saulė, Mahanoy City, 1888), the first national Lithuanian-American alliance (Shenandoah, 1886), the first printing of a Lithuanian novel in the U.S. (Algimantas, Shenandoah, 1904), and America’s oldest continuous ethnic festival (Lithuanian Days, 1914). Because the homeland was under a Russian ban on Latin-alphabet Lithuanian printing (1865–1904), the free coal towns of Schuylkill County became, improbably, a world capital of Lithuanian-language culture.

Sources: Draugas News; HMdb — “Little Lithuania, USA” PHMC marker (2013); Wolkovich-Valkavičius, Lituanus 44:1 (1998); Global True Lithuania.

Arrival and scale

Lithuanians began reaching Shenandoah around 1869, drawn to the mines; by the late 1890s they were roughly a quarter of Shenandoah’s ~16,000 people. ★ As established in the census spine, because Lithuania did not exist as a recognized state, immigrants were logged in the census as Russian, Polish, or German, and the U.S. Census did not classify “Lithuanians” until 1924 — which is exactly why the 1900/1910 “Russia”-born figures concealed thousands of Lithuanians, and why Lithuania-born only appears as such in the 1920 county census: 7,618, second only to Poland among all foreign-born groups. ✔ A vivid 1898 datum captures the density: Shenandoah’s Lithuanians owned over 200 businesses — 59 taverns, 17 shops, 5 meat markets, 8 stonemasons, 4 tailors, 5 mortuaries, 2 publishers. ★

Sources: Wolkovich-Valkavičius, Lituanus; Draugas News; Global True Lithuania.

St. George parish, Shenandoah: the first Lithuanian parish in America

The keystone institution is St. George (Šv. Jurgis), Shenandoah — and its origin is genuinely tangled, so the two dates often cited (1872 and 1891) must be untangled. They refer to two different churches:

  • 1872 — St. Casimir. Rev. Andrius (Andrew) Strupinskas, often called America’s first Lithuanian priest, arrived in Shenandoah in 1872 and became first pastor of St. Casimir’s, a small frame church built with the aid of a joint Lithuanian-Polish Society of St. Casimir. ★
  • The split (1877). When Strupinskas was replaced by the Polish-only Rev. Alexis Lenarkiewicz, outraged Lithuanian parishioners barricaded the church doors; a records search found St. Casimir had been registered in Philadelphia as a Polish church, so the Lithuanians left to build their own. ✔ (As corrected in the Poles profile: St. Casimir remained Polish and St. George was a separate new Lithuanian parish — not a renaming.)
  • 1891 — St. George. With Archbishop Patrick Ryan’s authorization and the organizing work of Rev. Aleksandras Burba, the cornerstone was laid October 25, 1891, and the twin-towered church blessed May 12, 1894, soon serving 1,200 families. ★

⚑ The “oldest Lithuanian parish in the US” claim rests on the 1872 St. Casimir congregation; because St. Casimir itself became Polish, authoritative sources hedge — treat it as a strong, traditional claim grounded in 1872.

✎ Two notes: (1) the English Wikipedia article “Saint George Roman Catholic Lithuanian Church” is about a different parish — the one in Rochester, New York — not the Shenandoah church described here; (2) Shenandoah’s six Lithuanian cemeteries are the largest such cluster in America.

The 2009 demolition. Citing structural danger, the Diocese of Allentown demolished St. George in late 2009 despite a protest campaign; a “Little Lithuania” plaque at Main and Centre streets now stands in its place. ★ The county eventually held nine Lithuanian Catholic parishes, including St. Joseph (Mahanoy City, the area’s oldest, built 1888–1893), St. Francis of Assisi (Minersville, 1895), St. Casimir (St. Clair, 1917), and SS. Peter & Paul (Tamaqua, begun 1911). ★

Sources: Usalis, “History of St. George Parish” (lithaz.org); Wolkovich-Valkavičius, Lituanus; Global True Lithuania; WNEP — “Keeping alive a memory in Shenandoah”.

Saulė: a giant of the Lithuanian press

The county’s most internationally significant cultural product was a newspaper. Saulė (“The Sun”), founded July 27, 1888 in Mahanoy City by Domininkas T. Boczkauskas (Bačkauskas), was printed at first in a cellar with help from his teenage children. ★ Its significance is hard to overstate: in 1889, eleven of the eighteen Lithuanian newspapers printed anywhere in the world were published in the United States, because papers printed here were “free of czarist censorship,” and at its peak Saulė had 9,000 subscribers — the highest circulation of any Lithuanian paper of its time. It ran until June 26, 1959. ★ ✎ Saulė is often called the “first” Lithuanian paper; its own historical society calls it the second of its kind in the U.S. — “longest-running and highest-circulation” is the defensible claim.

By Wolkovich’s count, Shenandoah produced 12 Lithuanian publications (behind only Philadelphia’s 32) and Mahanoy City 3. Shenandoah’s Dirva publishing house in 1904 produced Algimantas by Vincas Pietaris — the first printing of a Lithuanian novel in the U.S., the very year the homeland press ban ended. ★ ⚑ (“First Lithuanian novel in the world” is booster phrasing; Pietaris wrote in the homeland — the county’s role was the printing.)

Sources: Mahanoy Area Historical Society — “The Saulė Newspaper 1888–1959”; Global True Lithuania; Wolkovich-Valkavičius, Lituanus.

The national awakening, in the coalfields

Schuylkill County was, remarkably, a staging ground for the Lithuanian national awakening. The freethinker-nationalist Dr. Jonas Šliūpas moved to Shenandoah in early 1888 and agitated locals to invite the awakening-era priest Rev. Aleksandras Burba — the two of them bringing “the proposition that Lithuanians were a distinct ethnic community different from the Poles,” which Draugas frames as “an important contributing factor to the 1918 Restoration of Lithuanian Independence.” ★ The diaspora also helped fund independence: President Wilson declared November 1, 1916 a nationwide “Lithuanian Day,” raising $179,599. ★

Sources: Wikipedia — Jonas Šliūpas; Draugas News.

Fraternal life

The county was the birthplace of organized Lithuanian-American fraternalism. On August 15, 1886, in Shenandoah, Jonas Šliūpas and eleven delegates founded the Alliance of All Lithuanians in America — the first attempt at a national Lithuanian-American federation. ★ ✎ That secular alliance was short-lived (active only until 1888), so it is not itself the body now called “the oldest continuously-operating Lithuanian organization”: the Lithuanian Alliance of America (SLA) traces its continuous line instead through the rival Catholic alliance organized at Plymouth in November 1886 and the secular/Catholic schism settled at the 1901 Wilkes-Barre convention. ⚑ Other institutions rooted here: the Knights of Lithuania Anthracite Council #144, and the Sisters of St. Casimir, founded by Mother Maria Kaupas. ★

Sources: Lithuanian Alliance of America; Wolkovich-Valkavičius, Lituanus; Global True Lithuania.

Lithuanian Days: America’s oldest continuous ethnic festival

Founded in 1914, Lithuanian Days (Lietuvių Dienos) is billed as “the oldest annually consecutive ethnic festival in the United States.” ★ It was deliberately set on August 15, the Feast of the Assumption — a holy day when Catholic miners were already off — and its home for decades was Lakewood Park, Barnesville (1922–1984), drawing 20,000–30,000 people. After Lakewood closed it moved through several venues before returning to Lakewood/Catalpa Grove in 2021; the centennial was 2014. ★

Sources: Wikipedia — Lithuanian Days; Times News — “Oldest U.S. ethnic festival returns to Barnesville” (2021).

Assimilation and legacy

Lithuanian surnames were widely Anglicized (Jonauskas → Yanousky; Sinkevičius → Sincavage), and the language faded with the generations — but the county remains, by census measure, the most Lithuanian place in America. The heritage is actively, if precariously, sustained: Lithuanian Days continues; Lithuanian sausage shops still operate (Lucky’s in Shenandoah; Yorke’s in Tamaqua); and the Lithuanian Museum & Cultural Center (founded 1982 in Frackville, closed 2022) is relocating to Shenandoah. The losses are real too — St. George demolished (2009), the Saulė building demolished (~2021) — making the surviving institutions all the more precious. ★

Sources: Global True Lithuania; Wikipedia — Lithuanian Days; Shenandoah Sentinel — new Lithuanian museum.

Open questions

  • A dated, attributable origin for the “Vilnius of America” nickname.
  • The full roster and exact founding dates of the county’s Lithuanian publications (Dirva house output).
  • A complete list of the Lithuanian-descent mayors of Shenandoah and their terms (the borough had Lithuanian mayors for ~42 consecutive years from 1895).

Sources

Frequently asked

Why is Schuylkill County called 'Little Lithuania, USA'?
It has the highest concentration of Lithuanian ancestry of any county in the United States — 5.9% in 2000, with twelve communities over 10% Lithuanian — and Pennsylvania marked the fact with a 2013 state historical marker titled 'Little Lithuania, USA.' Shenandoah, the community's center, was nicknamed the 'Vilnius of America.'
Where was the first Lithuanian Catholic parish in America?
Shenandoah. Rev. Andrius Strupinskas became first pastor of St. Casimir's in 1872; after a Lithuanian–Polish split, the Lithuanians built St. George (cornerstone 1891, blessed 1894). The 'first/oldest' claim rests on the 1872 St. Casimir congregation.
How many Lithuania-born residents did the county have?
Lithuania-born first appears as a category in the 1920 census, with 7,618 in Schuylkill County — second only to Poland among all foreign-born groups. Before 1920, Lithuanians were counted under 'Russia.'

Towns: Shenandoah, Mahanoy City, Frackville, Girardville, Minersville, Saint Clair, Tamaqua, New Philadelphia

Related peoples: Poles, Carpatho-Rusyns & Ukrainians

People: Domininkas Boczkauskas (1846–1909), Jonas Šliūpas (1861–1944)

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