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Swiss American Historical Society Review

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Authors

Heinz Nauer

Keywords

Switzerland, Swiss history, European history

Abstract

Between 1850 and 1950, more than 3,000 men and women from Einsiedeln went overseas, most of them to the United States. It was not unique since many people also migrated from other regions of Switzerland, and the total migrations of Swiss overseas during that time represented only a very small fraction of the global movement of people in three main directions: from Europe to the Western Hemisphere, from India and southern China to Southeast Asia, and from Russia to the Far East. 1 Despite not being out of the ordinary, it seems useful to explore the history of overseas migrations from a single pre-alpine region of Switzerland. In comparison to the country as a whole, Einsiedeln provides a significant example in several respects. On the one hand, its' emigration numbers were quite above the average; from no other district of central Switzerland did more people move overseas in the second half of the 19th century.

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