The story of my life / Frank Vlchek ; translated by Winston Chrislock.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Vlček, František J., 1871-

Contributor:

Chrislock, Winston, 1940-

Standardized Title:

Povídka mého života. English

Language:

Czech

English

Subjects (All):

Vlček, František J., 1871-.

Vlček, František J.

Czech Americans--Biography.

Czech Americans.

Immigrants--United States--Biography.

Immigrants.

Businessmen.

United States.

Ohio--Cleveland.

Businessmen--Ohio--Cleveland--Biography.

Cleveland (Ohio)--Biography.

Cleveland (Ohio).

Bohemia (Czech Republic)--Biography.

Bohemia (Czech Republic).

Genre:

Biographies.

Autobiographies.

Physical Description:

xvi, 392 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Kent, Ohio : Kent State University Press, [2004]

Language Note:

Translated from the Czech.

Summary:

Originally published in Czechoslovakia in 1928, The Story of My Life is the engaging and informative autobiography of Frank Vlchek, a Czech immigrant who became a successful businessman in Cleveland, Ohio, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The youngest of fourteen children, Vlchek was born to peasant parents in Budyn, southern Bohemia, in 1871. After attempting a career in blacksmithing in Bohemia, at the age of seventeen he decided to follow his two older sisters to Cleveland, home to America's second-largest Czech community.

Vlchek worked a variety of unsatisfactory jobs during his first years in Cleveland. In 1895 he opened his own smithing operation, which after a long struggle was transformed into a successful corporation that specialized in the manufacture of tool kits for automobiles. His narrative relates tales of labor issues, competitors, mergers and acquisitions, and the successes and travails of his operation. Vlchek was often able to travel home to Czechoslovakia, and during those trips he noted the different cultural and political attitudes that had evolved between Czechs and their Czech American cousins.

Vlchek's memoir provides a rare primary source about Czech immigrants. It also offers insight into a self-made man's life philosophy, illustrates relations among ethnic groups in Cleveland during the 1880s, and demonstrates the assimilation of a late-nineteenth-century immigrant in America.

Contents:

Part 1 Central European Origins

My Youth 3

Family Partings 11

Why I Became a Blacksmith 20

Sad Chapter 24

Life in the Country 27

First Pilgrimage Out into the World in Search of a Livelihood 31

At the Fair 37

Master Ruzicka 43

Vaclav Pajdar 50

Punished for a Stranger's Guilt 60

In Lower Austria 71

Fellow Patriots 81

Among My Own 84

Why I Went to America 90

The End of Carnival and My Departure 98

Part 2 Over the Ocean

The Journey and First Experiences 105

In New York 110

In Cleveland 116

Frantisek Hrubecky 119

The New Citizen of the American Zizkov 124

One Day without Work; Two Days without Food 130

My New Friends 135

Our Czech Amateur Theater 140

Further Beginnings of My Blacksmith Career 145

My Intimate Acquaintance 148

Hopeless Future 155

McGregor 157

At the National Smithy. Parent's Death. Marriage 169

Poor Beginning 181

Czech Reciprocity 188

Awakening 193

On the Final Step to Success 201

Our New Corporation 221

New Competition 230

Financial Growth 234

People's Calculating 241

Part 3 At the Goal

On Shaky Ground 247

Undercurrents 251

The Time of Bitter Experiences 258

Organization: The Foundation of Success 270

Three Franks 278

The Fire in the Factory and the Journey to the West Indies 287

Journey to the Ancestral Homeland 295

At the Grave of My Parents: More Traveling around Bohemia 311

Return to Cleveland 319

Progress in Production 322

My Family and Our City 347

Social Life 352

Our Liberation Movement: The City of Cleveland 357

The Old World and the New 366.

ISBN:

0873388178

OCLC:

57063364