Migrant culture maintenance among the Welsh in Blue Earth County, Minnesota, USA, 1870–1920

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper provides an analysis of the nature of the Welsh ethnolinguistic community in Blue Earth County, Minnesota, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The study considers culture maintenance, and suggests that Welsh ethnic integrity was initially maintained due to linguistic necessity, high levels of endogamy, occupational specialization, and the creation of popular cultural institutions. Ultimately, however, the community was undermined, not only by economic change, the cessation of immigration from Wales, and the general forces of acculturation, but also by specifically Welsh factors. The paper suggests, therefore, that while the Welsh experience in Blue Earth County differed sharply from that of the other nationalities of the United Kingdom, it did not simply mirror the experience of other non-Anglophone groups.