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Austrian Americans (German: Österreichamerikaner, pronounced [ˈøːstɐraɪçameriˌkaːnɐ]) are Americans of Austrian descent, chiefly German-speaking Catholics and Jews. According to the 2000 U.S. census, there were 735,128 Americans of full or partial Austrian descent, accounting for 0.3% of the population. The states with the largest Austrian American populations are New York (93,083), California (84,959), Pennsylvania (58,002) (most of them in the Lehigh Valley), Florida (54,214), New Jersey (45,154), and Ohio (27,017).

This may be an undercount since many German Americans, Czech Americans, Polish Americans, Slovak Americans, and Ukrainian Americans, and other Americans with Central European ancestry can trace their roots from the Habsburg territories of Austria, the Austrian Empire, or Cisleithania in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, regions which were major sources of immigrants to the United States before World War I, and whose inhabitants often assimilated into larger immigrant and ethnic communities throughout the United States.

Migration history

Early migrations

The Austrian migration to the U.S. probably started in 1734, when a group of 50 families from the city of Salzburg, Austria, migrated to the newly founded Georgia. Having a Protestant background, they migrated because of Catholic repression in their country.

Most of these newly immigrated Austrians were cosmopolitan and were left-wing. They found employment in Chicago stockyards and in Pennsylvania, in jobs related to cement and steel factories. Many of them, more than 35 percent, returned to Austria with the savings that they had made by their employment.

World War II & Post-War Migrations

In the late 1930s, more and more Austrians migrated to the United States, most of which were Jews fleeing the Nazi persecution that started with the Annexation of Austria in 1938. In 1941, some 29,000 Jewish Austrians had emigrated to the United States. Most of them were doctors, lawyers, architects and artists (such as composers, writers and stage/ film directors). After WW II had ended, some further 40,000 Austrians emigrated to the United States (1945-1960).

Present day

Since the 1960s, however, Austrian immigration has been very small, mostly because Austria is now a developed nation, where poverty and political oppression are scarce. According to the 1990 U.S. census, 948,558 people identified their origins in Austria. Most of the present-day immigrants who currently live in the United States who were born in Austria identify themselves as being of Austrian ancestry, but the percentage who identify themselves as being of German ancestry is larger than the one expected on the basis of the opinion polls in Austria. According to the United States Census Bureau, in 2015, there were 26,603 individuals living in the U.S. born in Austria who identified themselves as being of Austrian ancestry. By contrast, in the same year, there were 6,200 individuals living in the U.S. born in Austria who identified themselves as being of German ancestry. Most of the immigrants from South Tyrol in Italy to the United States identify themselves as being of German rather than Austrian ancestry. According to the United States Census Bureau, in 2015, there were 365 individuals living in the U.S. born in Italy who identified themselves as being of Austrian ancestry. By contrast, in the same year, there were 1040 individuals living in the U.S. born in Italy who identified themselves as being of German ancestry.

Assimilation

Austrian immigrants adapted quickly to American society because the Austro-Hungarian Empire had also been a melting pot of many cultures and languages. On the other hand, despite the rejection that Austrians feel toward the behavior of the Germans, regarded by Austrians as less tolerants and cosmopolitans, they have suffered the same damages and discrimination that German immigrants have faced in the United States. They were considered by Americans to be the same because of their language and both world wars.

Religion

The emigration of other religious groups from Austria to the United States, especially the Jews from Vienna after 1938, has also contributed to strengthen religious variety in the United States. Isidor Bush (1822–98) emigrated from Vienna in 1849 and became a leading Jewish citizen of the city of St. Louis and the state of Missouri through his business ventures, religious work, and political activities. His vineyards were famous and profitable.

Austrian-American communities in the United States

The U.S. communities with the highest percentage of self-professed Austrian Americans are:

U.S. communities with the most residents born in Austria

The U.S. communities where born Austrians make up more than 1% of the total population are:

1. Hillside Lake, New York 1.4%
2. Redway, California 1.3%
3. Black Diamond, Florida 1.2%
4. Smallwood, New York 1.2%
5. Highland Beach, Florida 1.2%
6. Cordova, Maryland 1.2%
7. Keystone, Colorado 1.2%
8. North Lynbrook, New York 1.1%
9. Cedar Glen Lakes, New Jersey 1.1%
10. Center City, Minnesota 1.1%
11. Scotts Corners, New York 1.0%
12. Killington, Vermont 1.0%
13. Lexington, New York 1.0%
14. Tuxedo Park, New York 1.0%

Notable people

Entertainment

• Woody Allen – (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg) actor, director, screenwriter, comedian, author, playwright, and musician
• Gabrielle Anwar – actress
• Adele Astaire – dancer, actress, sister of Fred Astaire
• Fred Astaire – dancer, actor
• Sean Astin – actor
• Bibi Besch – actress
• Theodore Bikel – actor, singer, musician
• Peter Bogdanovich – director, writer, actor, producer, critic and film historian
• Hans Conried – actor
• Ricardo Cortez – silent film actor, of Austrian Jewish descent
• Stanley Cortez – cinematographer
• Billy Crystal – actor, comedian
• Robert von Dassanowsky – academic, writer and film producer
• Max Fleischer – animator
• Richard Fleischer – director, son of Max Fleischer
• Teri Garr – actress, comedian, dancer and voice artist
• Jeff Goldblum – actor
• Alex Hafner – actor
• Mark Harmon – actor
• Kurt Kasznar – Austrian-born American actor
• Stanley Kubrick – director, producer, screenwriter
• Hedy Lamarr – actress, inventor, and producer; from an Austrian Jewish family
• Elissa Landi – actress
• Fritz Lang – director
• Lotte Lenya – actress, singer and diseuse
• Peter Lorre – actor
• Joe Manganiello – actor, grandmother was of Austrian descent
• Samantha Mathis – actress, daughter of Bibi Besch
• Paul Muni – actor
• Arthur Murray – dancer, entrepreneur
• Natalie Portman – actress, born to a Jewish family, some of whom came from Austria
• Otto Preminger – director
• Leah Remini – actress, mother has Austrian Jewish descent
• Don Rickles – actor and comedian, of Jewish descent
• Fritzi Scheff – actress
• Joseph Schildkraut – actor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger – actor and 38th Governor of California
• Patrick Schwarzenegger – actor, son of Arnold, brother of Katherine Schwarzenegger
• Harry Shearer – actor
• Lilia Skala – actress
• Walter Slezak – actor
• Eric Stonestreet – actor, original family name before World War I was Steingassner
• Edgar G. Ulmer – director
• Erich von Stroheim – director
• Josef von Sternberg – director
• Tessa Gräfin von Walderdorff – American socialite, writer, and actress who is a member of the Austrian noble family Walderdorff
• Johann Peter Weißmüller (Johnny Weissmuller/Weissmüller) - actor ("Tarzan")
• Billy Wilder – director, of Jewish descent
• Shelley Winters – actress, of Jewish descent
• Elijah Wood – actor
• Fred Zinnemann – director

Science and medicine

• Godfrey Edward Arnold – medical doctor and researcher
• Bruno Bettelheim – child psychologist, psychoanalyst and concentration camp survivor
• Carl Djerassi – chemist, novelist, and playwright
• Kurt Gödel – logician, mathematician, philosopher
• Friedrich von Hayek – Austrian-born economist and philosopher
• Hans Holzer – paranormal researcher and author
• Heinz von Foerster – scientist combining physics and philosophy, originator of Second-order cybernetics
• Eric Kandel – neuroscientist
• Karl Landsteiner – biologist and physician, best known for having distinguished the main blood groups
• Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises – economist, philosopher, author and classical liberal
• Ignatz Leo Nascher – doctor and gerontologist
• Wilhelm Reich – psychiatrist
• Wolfgang Pauli – physicist
• Alfred Schütz – philosopher/sociologist
• Joseph Warkany – pediatrician
• Paul Watzlawick – psychologist, communications theorist, and philosopher
• Victor Frederick Weisskopf – physicist of Jewish descent. During World War II, he worked at Los Alamos on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, and later campaigned against the proliferation of nuclear weapons; medal received in 1979

Music

• Walter Arlen – composer, music critic at the Los Angeles Times
• Victor L. Berger – socialist politician and journalist
• Peter L. Berger – sociologist
• Gustav Bergmann – philosopher
• Edward Bernays – Austrian-American pioneer in public relations, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations".

• Elmer Bernstein – composer
• G-Eazy, (born 1989) – rapper
• Erich Wolfgang Korngold – composer
• Erich Leinsdorf – conductor
• Bobby Schayer – musician
• Arnold Schoenberg – composer, of Jewish descent
• Max Steiner – composer
• Nita Strauss – rock guitarist
• Georg Ludwig von Trapp – headed the Austrian singing family portrayed in The Sound of Music. His exploits at sea in World War I earned him numerous decorations.
• Agathe von Trapp – eldest daughter of Baron Georg von Trapp and Agathe Whitehead von Trapp, The von Trapp Family from The Sound of Music
• Maria F. von Trapp – second-oldest daughter of Baron Georg von Trapp and Agathe Whitehead von Trapp, The von Trapp Family from The Sound of Music
• Werner von Trapp – second-oldest son of Georg Ritter von Trapp and Agathe Whitehead von Trapp, The von Trapp Family from The Sound of Music
• Joe Zawinul – jazz pianist

Arts & literature

• Maria Altmann – art collector

• Bela Borsodi – photographer
• Eric de Kolb – painter and designer
• Felix de Weldon – sculptor, best known for the Marine Corps War Memorial
• Jerry Iger – famed American cartoonist, founder of Eisner & Iger, an industry trailblazer during the Golden Age of Comics; born to an Austrian-Jewish family in New York City and Bob Iger's paternal great-uncle
• David Karfunkle – painter, muralist
• Greta Kempton – artist
• Joseph Keppler – cartoonist, best known for the illustrated magazine Puck
• Vivian Maier – street photographer
• Sylvia Plath – poet, mother of Austrian descent
• Katherine Schwarzenegger – author, daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger, sister of Patrick Schwarzenegger
• Victor Gruen – architect and designer of shopping malls

Law and politics

• Henry Ellenbogen – U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania
• Felix Frankfurter – U.S. Supreme Court Justice

• Fred F. Herzog – only Jewish judge in Austria between the world wars, he fled to America and became Dean of two different law schools
• Raul Hillberg – political scientist and historian, who is widely considered to be one of the world's preeminent scholars of the Holocaust
• Hans Kelsen – jurist
• John Kerry – politician, current United States Special Presidential
  Envoy for Climate, former Senator from Massachusetts, U.S. presidential candidate of 2004 (D), former U.S. Secretary of State
• Jack Kirby – artist
• Richard Neutra – architect
• Frederick Burr Opper – cartoonist
• Kurt von Schuschnigg – Austrofascist politician and Austrian federal Chancellor 1936-1938 and professor of political sciences at St. Louis University 1948-1967
• Ernst Florian Winter – diplomat

Business and technology

• Michael Eisner – media executive, successive CEO of Paramount Pictures and the Walt Disney Company
• Anselm Franz – pioneering turbojet engineer, designer of the Jumo 004 and Lycoming T53 engines
• Bob Iger – longtime CEO of the Walt Disney Company, who oversaw a fourfold increase in its market capitalization; born in New York City to a Jewish family, in particular an Austrian-Jewish father
• Travis Kalanick – founder, Uber Technologies; born in California to a family of Jewish-Austrian and Slovak-Austrian extraction
• Ernst Mahler – chemist and industrialist
• Wolfgang Puck – celebrity chef, restaurateur
• Martin Roscheisen – entrepreneur

Sports

• Joe Theismann – NFL quarterback, Super Bowl XVII champion

• Corey Kluber – Major League Baseball pitcher, 2014 Cy Young pitcher
• Joe Schilling – kickboxer
• Mose Solomon – "Rabbi of Swat", Major League Baseball player, of Jewish descent
• Eliot Teltscher – top-10 tennis player
• Ken Uston – blackjack player, strategist, and author
• Toni Fritsch - NFL player

Journalism

• Gene Siskel – critic, journalist
• Michael Smerconish – CNN journalist
• Matthew Winter – journalist
• Matthew Karnitschnig – journalist

See also

• Austria–United States relations
• European American
• German Americans
• Swiss Americans
• Czech Texan
• Hyphenated American
• Journal of Austrian-American History

References

1. "2019 American Community Survey - 1-Year Estimates - Table B04006". data.census.gov. Retrieved March 14, 2021.
2. American Fact Finder
3. Jones (2014)
4. Spaulding, (1968)
5. Cortés, Carlos E. (August 15, 2013). Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia. SAGE Publications. p. 307. ISBN 978-1-4522-7626-7.
6. ^ Everyculture:Austrian-Americans. Posted by Syd Jones. Retrieved in December 08, 2011, to 13:05 pm.
7. ^ "Explore Census Data".
8. ^ "Explore Census Data".
9. Melissa Jane Taylor, "Family matters: the emigration of elderly Jews from Vienna to the United States, 1938-1941." Journal of Social History 45.1 (2011): 238-260. online
10. Siegmar Muehl, "Isidor Bush and the Bushberg Vineyards of Jefferson County," Missouri Historical Review (1999) 94#1 pp 42-58.
11. "Ancestry Map of Austrian Communities". Epodunk.com. Archived from the original on July 8, 2008. Retrieved August 13, 2008.
12. "Top 101 cities with the most residents born in Austria (population 500+)". city-data.com. Retrieved August 13, 2008.
13. Baxter, John (1998). Woody Allen: A Biography. New York: Carroll & Graf. p. 11. ISBN 978-0786708079.
14. Norwood, Stephen Harlan; Pollack, Eunice G. (2008). Encyclopedia of American Jewish history – Stephen Harlan Norwood, Eunice G. Pollack – Google Books. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781851096381. Retrieved July 24, 2013.
15. "It's a Jungle Out There". The State. October 6, 1990. Retrieved October 22, 2010.
16. "Fritz Austerlitz, the Austrian American who went to Hollywood and emerged as Fred Astaire."
17. Archived 2006-07-28 at the Wayback Machine "Bibi Besch was an Austrian actress."
18. Archived February 1, 2016, at the Wayback Machine "Though his professional name was suggestive of a Latin Lover type, actor Ricardo Cortez was actually an Austrian Jew, born Jacob Krantz. He arrived in Hollywood in 1922, at a time when the Rudolph Valentino craze was at its height."
19. regarding an Austrian decoration: "I have focused on Austrian studies most of my academic life. As an Austrian-American, it makes me especially proud."
20. Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood By Teri Garr, Henriette Mantel
21. "Austrian born film star, Hedy Lamarr, of the 1930 and 40s was also a gifted electrical engineer." "The Hedy Lamarr Story: Part 1". Archived from the original on February 28, 2005. Retrieved April 13, 2006. "Hedy Lamarr had been an American citizen since 1953."
22. "Elissa Landi Austrian/Italian leading lady."
23. Brady, James (October 26, 2003). "Leah Remini (TV and film actress)". Parade. Archived from the original on March 23, 2010.
24. Remini, Leah; Paley, Rebecca (2015). Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology. Ballantine Books. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-2500-9693-7.
25. "Arnold Schwarzenegger, "The Austrian Oak", was a bodybuilding prodigy who won the ..." "Arnold was the embodiment of the American (a naturalized citizen since 1983) dream ..."
26. "Galvanizing, stern-featured Viennese character actress with extensive Broadway experience ..."
27. "That's Erika Slezak, daughter of the famous Austrian-American actor Walter Slezak ..."
28. "Wilder, Austrian-born, but in the US since 1934, directed his last film in 1981."
29. Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature Vol 2, Volume 2
30. "Hans Holzer". The Guardian. June 17, 2009. Archived from the original on April 27, 2023.
31. "Wilhelm Reich, an Austrian-Ukrainian of Jewish background."
32. Wolfgang Pauli: "… in 1946 he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Following World War II he returned to Zurich."
33. Alfred schutz, Austrian Economists and the Knowledge Problem - Knudsen 16 (1): 45 - Rationality and Society
34. Wendel, Ray A. (2007). "In Honor Of Paul Watzlawick". Journal of Marital & Family Therapy. 33.3 (2007): 293–294.
35. "Growing up in Vienna in a well-to-do Jewish family ..." "One of the most brilliant Jewish scientists to be driven from Germany by Nazi persecution ..."
36. "A study of the life and work of Austrian composer Korngold ..."
37. Rudhyar, Dane (1982). The Magic of Tone and the Art of Music. Shambhala Publications, Inc.
38. "Insight on the News: Painting for Posterity - comments on the portraits of former presidents - Brief Article". Archived from the original on November 9, 2004. Retrieved May 17, 2006. "sat for Austrian native Greta Kempton five times in 1947 ..."
39. "Joseph Keppler". Archived from the original on January 22, 2008. Retrieved January 24, 2008. "Joseph Keppler was born in Vienna, Austria, on 1st February, 1838."
40. MacDonald, Kerri (2016). "A Peek Into Vivian Maier's Family Album". Lens Blog. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
41. "Born and educated in Vienna. Immigrated to the United States and served in the 33rd Congressional District (Pittsburgh, PA)."
42. "Austrian-American legal philosopher, teacher, jurist, and writer on international law ..."
43. "National Building Museum: Windshield: Richard Neutra's House for the John Nicholas Brown Family". Archived from the original on April 24, 2006. Retrieved May 17, 2006. "Austrian-American modernist architect Richard Neutra."
44. Obituary of Schuschnigg in The Times, London, 19 November 1977
45. "WolfgangPuck.com:Company". Archived from the original on September 12, 2006. Retrieved August 31, 2006. "The Austrian-born Puck began ..."; WolfgangPuck.com (2005); retrieved 2006-08-31
46. "Toni Fritsch", Misplaced Pages, May 27, 2024, retrieved May 28, 2024

Further reading

• Jones, J. Sydney. "Austrian Americans." Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, edited by Thomas Riggs, (3rd ed., vol. 1, Gale, 2014), pp. 189–202. online
• Pochmann, Henry A. German Culture in America: Philosophical and Literary Influences 1600–1900 (1957). 890pp; comprehensive review of German influence on Americans esp 19th century. online
• Pochmann, Henry A. and Arthur R. Schult. Bibliography of German Culture in America to 1940 (2nd ed 1982); massive listing, but no annotations.
• Spaulding, E. Wilder. The Quiet Invaders: The Story of the Austrian Impact upon America (Vienna: Österreichische Bundesverlag, 1968).
• Thernstrom, Stephen, ed. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (1980) pp 164–170. Online free to borrow

External links

• Austrian Cultural Institute Forum New York
• Botstiber Foundation
• Euroamericans.net: Austrians in America
• USAustrians.com: Austrians in America

v t e Austrian diaspora
Americas	Argentina Brazil Canada Mexico United States Uruguay
Europe	Croatia Czech Republic Romania (Burgenland settlers in Burzenland) United Kingdom
Oceania	Australia New Zealand

• American people of Austrian descent
• Austrian diaspora
• Austrian diaspora in North America
• Austrian diaspora in the United States
• European diaspora in the United States