As the Czech ambassador to the United States, H. E. Petr Gandalovic noted in his foreword to this book that Mla Rechcgl has written a monumental work representing a culmination of his life achievement as a historian of Czech America. The Encyclopedia of Bohemian and Czech American Biography is a unique and unparalleled publication. The enormity of this undertaking is reflected in the fact that it covers a universe, starting a few decades after the discovery of the New World, through the escapades and significant contributions of Bohemian Jesuits and Moravian brethren in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the mass migration of the Czechs after the revolutionary year of 1848, and up to the early years of the twentieth century and the influx of refugees from Nazism and communism. The encyclopedia has been planned as a representative, a comprehensive and authoritative reference tool, encompassing over 7,500 biographies. This prodigious and unparalleled encyclopedic vade mecum, reflecting enduring contributions of notable Americans with Czech roots, is not only an invaluable tool for all researchers and students of Czech American history but is also a carte blanche for the Czech Republic, which considers Czech Americans as their own and as a part of its magnificent cultural history.

Czech American Timeline chronicles important events bearing on Czech-American history, from the earliest known entry of a Czech on American soil to date. This comprehensive chronology depicts the dazzling epic history of Czech colonists, settlers, as well as early visitors, and their descendants, starting in 1519, with Hernn Corts soldier Johann Berger in Mexico, and in 1528, the Jchymov miners in Haiti, through the escapades of Bohemian Jesuits in Latin America in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Bohemian and Moravian pioneer settlers in New Amsterdam (New York) in the 17th century and the extraordinary mission work of Moravian Brethren in the 18th century, to the mass migration of Czechs from the Habsburg Empire in the second half of the 19th and the early part of the 20th centuries and the contemporary exodus of Czechs from Nazism and Communism. Historically, this is the first serious undertaking of its kind. This is an invaluable reference to all researchers and students of Czech-American history, as well as to professionals and amateurs of Czech-American genealogy, and to individuals interested in immigration and cultural history, in general.

The emigration of the Czechs to America and their cultural gifts to the new nation.