Misplaced Pages

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36-489: The path to creating the first Lithuanian encyclopedia, Lietuviškoji enciklopedija , was complicated. In 1910, Antanas Olšauskas , a Lithuanian emigrant in Chicago, Illinois , started to assemble an editorial team, but financial constraints and disagreements among the editors resulted in the abandonment of the project in 1912. After the declaration of independence of Lithuania in 1918, two initiatives were born in 1924. One, by

72-496: A Lithuanian representative in the U.S. Congress, promoted entrepreneurship and self-improvement, discussed relations between Poles and Lithuanians, and debated political issues concerning Lithuania. The newspaper gained popularity and the printing press relocated to more spacious premises in 1894. Experienced journalist Juozas Adomaitis-Šernas became chief editor of Lietuva in December 1895. In addition to publishing Lietuva ,

108-482: A bank which primarily served as a bank of the Lithuanian American community. He built two-floor house on the 33rd Street for $ 5,000 (equivalent to $ 183,120 in 2023) in 1896. He lived on the second floor, while the first floor had the printing press, bookstore, and A. Olszewski Bank. The business was going well and Olšauskas was able to buy out other owners of Lietuva remaining the sole shareholder of

144-698: A carpenter before emigrating to the United States at the age of 25. He managed to get a job at a Polish printing press. In 1893, he took over the struggling Lithuanian weekly newspaper Lietuva and turned it around. It became a popular liberal periodical. He then established A. Olszewski Bank which served the Lithuanian American community. It became successful and customer deposits peaked at $ 1 million. Olšauskas used customer deposits to build offices and open other business ventures (Theater Milda, clothing shop, car dealership, residential real estate). A bank run in 1916 forced him to sell these businesses and liquidate

180-412: A special act of Congress which bypassed the quota system that was still in place until 1967. The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 ultimately led to the immigration of approximately 36,000 Lithuanians. Before that, the nationality quota was only 384 Lithuanians per year. Lithuanian Americans today were still a relatively small ethnic group in 1990, since there were 842,209 Lithuanian Americans according to

216-412: A three-floor house on the corner of 33rd and Halsted Street at a cost of $ 100,000 (equivalent to $ 3,391,111 in 2023). It housed not only the printing press and bank, but also a clothing store, medical offices, and rented apartments. He used customer deposits for other business ventures – opening a clothing and a furniture store, establishing a car dealership, building residential houses, etc. He built

252-838: Is the only sizable immigrant population in an otherwise fairly homogeneous population in a rural, mountainous community. There is also a small but vibrant Lithuanian community in Presque Isle, Maine . Many Lithuanian refugees settled in Southern California after World War II; they constitute a community in Los Angeles . The majority of the Lithuanian community resides around the St. Casimir Lithuanian church in Los Feliz , in so-called "Little Lithuania. The states with

288-545: The Iron Curtain . Between 1970 and 1978, the same group published the six-volume Encyclopedia Lituanica , an English-language encyclopedia on Lithuania and Lithuania-related topics. It remains the most comprehensive work on Lithuania in English. In Lithuania, Soviet authorities printed a three-volume Concise Soviet Lithuanian Encyclopedia ( Mažoji lietuviškoji tarybinė enciklopedija ) between 1966 and 1971; that is, after

324-646: The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990. This wave of immigration has tapered off recently with tougher U.S. immigration requirements and the entry of Lithuania into the EU have made countries such as Ireland and the United Kingdom a more accessible option for potential Lithuanian emigrants. Lithuanian Days in Pennsylvania is the longest-running ethnic festival in the United States. Chicago has

360-463: The language ban in Lithuania and prevalence of Polish language at that time, their Lithuanian names were not transcribed in the same way as they would be today. As a result, information about Lithuanian immigration before 1899 is not available because incoming Lithuanians were not originally registered as Lithuanians. Only after 1918, when Lithuania established its independence, the immigrants to

396-477: The 1200-seat Milda Theater at a cost of $ 250,000. He also planned on publishing the first Lithuanian-language encyclopedia . In 1916, Olšauskas started raising the required $ 200,000 capital for the establishment of a state bank . However, another Lithuanian community bank (Tananevicz Savings Bank) failed which caused a bank run on Olšauskas' bank. It is estimated that at the time, the bank had about $ 600,000 in customer deposits and only $ 100,000 in cash. Olšauskas

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432-779: The 1980s during the Glasnost movement in Russia and the Sąjūdis movement in Lithuania. In 2001, the Science and Encyclopaedia Publishing Institute , based in Vilnius , began the publication of the 25-volume Visuotinė lietuvių enciklopedija or VLE . The last volume was published in 2014 followed by a volume of supplements in 2015. Each of volume contains about 800 pages. In total, the encyclopedia contains 121,804 articles written by 2,957 authors, 25,120 illustrations, and 656 maps. About 21% of

468-631: The 35-volume Lietuvių enciklopedija (often nicknamed the Boston Encyclopedia because it was published in Boston, Massachusetts ) in the Lithuanian language. Two volumes of supplements and addenda were published in 1969 and in 1985. It is often believed that they were continuing the unfinished work of their first encyclopedia begun in their homeland. The undertaking was especially difficult because most of their materials and sources were left behind in Lithuania and were now unavailable—a result of

504-586: The Boston Encyclopedia was already completed. It covered only Lithuania-related topics. The 12-volume (plus one volume of supplements) Lietuviškoji tarybinė enciklopedija or LTE was published between 1976 and 1985. It is often called the "Red Encyclopedia" because of its distinct cover colors. It is still valuable for scientific topics, but the social science articles were distorted to conform to Soviet propaganda (for example, it portrayed western countries as bourgeois dictatorships). Much attention

540-638: The Catholic church in Krasnopol . In 1889, having saved 300 rubles, Olšauskas decided to emigrate to the United States. He arrived to Plymouth, Massachusetts , in April 1889. He tried to pursue carpentry, but could not get a better job due to poor English language skills. Olšauskas was inspired by the example of two Lithuanian businessmen who published the Lithuanian newspaper Vienybė lietuvininkų and pursued jobs at emigrant publishing houses. Eventually, he

576-431: The U.S. Census; of these, 30,344 were foreign-born and 811,865 were born in the United States. This number was up from the 1980 figure of 742,776. The five states with the largest populations of Lithuanian Americans in both 1980 and 1990 (in descending order) were Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and California. Immigration of Lithuanians into the U.S. resumed after Lithuania regained its independence during

612-644: The U.S. started being recorded as Lithuanians. This first wave of Lithuanian immigrants to the United States ceased when the U.S. Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act in 1921, followed by the Immigration Act of 1924 . The Immigration Act of 1924 was aimed at restricting the Eastern Europeans and Southern Europeans who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s. A second wave of Lithuanians emigrated to

648-621: The United States as a result of the events surrounding World War II – the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940 and the Nazi occupation that followed in 1941. After the war's end and the subsequent reoccupation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union , these Displaced Persons were allowed to immigrate from DP camps in Germany to the United States and to apply for American citizenship thanks to

684-563: The articles is devoted to Lithuanian matters, particularly to those that were censored and repressed during the Soviet era. In 2017, the content of the encyclopedia was made available online. Antanas Ol%C5%A1auskas Antanas Olšauskas (June 13, 1863 – May 10, 1942) was a Lithuanian American businessman. He was the publisher of the Lithuanian weekly newspaper Lietuva and founder of A. Olszewski Bank. Orphaned at an early age, Olšauskas did not receive any formal education. He worked as

720-539: The bank in 1919. Olšauskas then opened a small office that sold ship tickets to new Lithuanian emigrants, sold insurance, provided notary services, etc. He did not regain his business fortune and died on May 10, 1942, in Chicago. Lithuanian American Lithuanian Americans refer to American citizens and residents of Lithuanian descent or were born in Lithuania . New Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has

756-538: The bank. However, he was able to raise capital and establish the Universal State Bank in 1917. After quarrels with the new leadership of the Universal State Bank, Olšauskas resigned in 1919. He then made a modest living selling ship tickets and insurance. Olšauskas was born on June 13, 1863, in Aštruliai  [ lt ] , a small village near Liudvinavas , to a family of petty Lithuanian nobles . He

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792-603: The famine in 1867–1868, to emigrate from the Russian Empire to the United States continuing until the outbreak of the First World War . The emigration continued despite the Tsarist attempts to control the border and prevent such a drastic loss of population. Since Lithuania as a country did not exist at the time, the people who arrived to the U.S. were recorded as either Polish, German or Russian; moreover, due to

828-699: The first Latin School teacher-administrator; he was also a physician. After the fall of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, most of Lithuania was incorporated into the Russian Empire . The beginnings of industrialization and commercial agriculture based on Stolypin's reforms, as well as the abolition of serfdom in 1861 , freed the peasants and turned them into migrant-laborers. The pressures of industrialization , Lithuanian press ban , general discontent , suppression of religious freedom and poverty drove numerous Lithuanians, especially after

864-421: The first booklet came out on October 1, 1931. Vaclovas Biržiška was appointed editor-in-chief. Many difficulties ensued, but the booklets finally began monthly publication, and approached the status of a periodic scientific journal. Twelve booklets would eventually be combined into one volume. The first volume, containing some 5,000 articles and 700 illustrations, appeared in 1933. Nine volumes were published—up to

900-664: The largest Lithuanian community in the United States and with approximately 100,000 self-identified ethnic Lithuanians has the largest population of Lithuanians of any municipality outside Lithuania itself. The old "Lithuanian Downtown" in Bridgeport was once the center of Lithuanian political activity for the whole United States. Another large Lithuanian community can be found in the Coal Region of northeastern Pennsylvania , particularly in Schuylkill County where

936-619: The largest percentage of Lithuanian Americans (20.8%) in its population in the United States. Chicago has historically had the largest number of Lithuanian Americans and the largest Lithuanian diaspora in the world. Lithuanian Americans form by far the largest group within the Lithuanian diaspora . It is believed that Lithuanian emigration to the United States began in the 17th century when Alexander Curtius arrived in New Amsterdam (present day New York City ) in 1659 and became

972-463: The letter J —and the tenth was underway when in 1944, the Soviet Union reoccupied Lithuania , and its printing was halted. The encyclopedia was never completed. The idea of a Lithuanian encyclopedia was revived in the United States by Lithuanian emigrants. Juozas Kapočius organized the editorial team and Vaclovas Biržiška again became the chief editor. Between 1953 and 1966, they published

1008-476: The printing house also published Lithuanian books. In 1894–1917, it published a total of 131 books, of which 45 were original and others were translations. These included 28 books on fairytales, legends, novellas, 31 theater plays, 20 popular science works, 15 texts on history, ethnography, culture, and three dictionaries. Olšauskas became known as a reliable man. Thus, Lithuanians began bringing him sums of money for safekeeping. This inspired Olšauskas to establish

1044-419: The printing press in 1901. In 1905, socialists inspired printing press workers to go on strike. When Lietuva missed an issue, rumors spread that Olšauskas was going bankrupt, but his bank withstood a bank run and continued to grow. Customer deposits at A. Olszewski Bank peaked at $ 1 million. Lithuanians sent some $ 4 million to relatives at home via the bank in 1895–1914. In 1906, Olšauskas decided to build

1080-406: The printing press to Vincas Žaliauskas who fired Olšauskas. The printing press of Lietuva continued to struggle. Olšauskas and three other men agreed to take it over for $ 300 (equivalent to $ 10,173 in 2023). Olšauskas was primarily in charge of content starting with the 24th issue. The newspaper became a liberal publication which advocated for unity among Lithuanian immigrants, campaigned for

1116-447: The publishing house Švyturys, sought to publish a general encyclopedia; the other, by the publishing house Kultūra, in Šiauliai , sought to publish an encyclopedia dedicated to Lithuania and Lithuania-related topics. However, both initiatives failed due to financial hardships. In 1929, Spaudos Fondas and Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Sciences separately initiated encyclopedic projects. They finally agreed to cooperate only in 1931, and

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1152-414: The small borough of New Philadelphia has the largest per capita percentage of Lithuanian Americans (20.8%) in the United States. There is also a large community of Lithuanian descent in the coal mining regions of Western Pennsylvania , northern West Virginia Panhandle and Northeastern Ohio tri-state area. Grand County, Colorado 's Lithuanian-American community has the unusual distinction in that it

1188-416: Was forced to sell the various businesses (including Lietuva ) and personal assets at prices that were deflated due to the ongoing war . Nevertheless, he managed to return the deposits to customers and establish the Universal State Bank in 1917. However, because he lacked any financial education, Olšauskas was allowed only a role as vice-president. He quarreled with chairman Juozapas J. Elias and resigned from

1224-495: Was given to Marxism-Leninism and the Communist Party , while many "inconvenient" topics from the Lithuanian history, such as the Lithuanian partisans , were entirely skipped. Between 1985 and 1988, the four-volume Tarybų Lietuvos enciklopedia or TLE , dealing with only Lithuania-related topics, was published. It closely followed the lead of LTE. Its last volume displayed signs of the intellectual freedom that arose in

1260-558: Was hired by the Polish Gazeta Polska published in Chicago. He also worked for Dziennik Chicagoski  [ pl ] and Reforma . In 1892, Olšauskas worked as a typesetter for Polish newspaper Nowe Życie but it went bankrupt. He convinced the new owner, Stasys Rakošius, to publish the first Lithuanian newspaper in Chicago Lietuva . The first issue was published on December 6, 1892, but Rakošius sold

1296-412: Was orphaned at the age of four and his family's farm was sold to pay debts. He was raised by his maternal grandparents who taught him to read. Olšauskas never received any formal education. Due to poor health, he could not perform hard physical labor and searched for better means of living. He learned carpentry and worked to construct furniture, repair church altars, etc. For two years, he worked to restore

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