Migrant Identity and Culture Maintenance: The Welsh in Johnstown, Cambria County, Pennsylvania, 1870–1930

Welsh immigrants and their children comprised a distinct ethnolinguistic community in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This article analyzes the nature of that community and suggests that while ethnic integrity was initially maintained due to linguistic ability, religious adherence, and the creation of popular cultural institutions, it was ultimately undermined, not only by the general forces of acculturation, but also by specifically Welsh factors. While the Welsh experience in Johnstown differed sharply from that undergone by the English, it did not simply mirror that of other non-Anglophone groups.