Pittsburgh Agreement

The Pittsburgh Agreement was a memorandum of understanding completed on May 31, 1918, between members of Czech and Slovak expatriate communities in the United States.

[2][3] This was achieved on October 18, 1918, when the primary author of the agreement, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, declared the independence of Czechoslovakia.

The historical setting of the Pittsburgh Agreement was the impending dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the months before the end of World War I.

By September 1918, it was evident that the forces of the Habsburg monarchy, the rulers of Austria-Hungary, would be defeated by the Allies: Britain, France, and Russia.

[4] Between 1860 and 1918, close to one million people of Slovak and Czech ethnicity migrated to the United States and other nations.

At the time, these immigrants were officially recorded as Austrians or Hungarians (Magyars), which did not reflect their actual ethnic origin.

[7] Joining the Czech and the Slovak population groups helped the Slovaks break away from the Hungarian state of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and created a state with a clear Slavic majority to overcome the large German-speaking population of Bohemia.

[10] (Thursday, May 30, 1918, the Memorial Day public holiday saw many Czech and Slovak residents of Pittsburgh come downtown to fete Masaryk's arrival).

[11][clarification needed] An agreement was drafted which read: Bielek, born in Slovakia, was vice president and director of the Czecho Slovak Commercial Corp. of America, an import company founded in 1918.

Bosák, born in Okruhle, Slovakia, was a banker and shipping agent who, during World War I, raised funds for the campaign for an independent Slovak nation.

He said, Ferienčík[15][better source needed] was the editor of Slovenský hlásnik (Slovak Herald), the weekly publication of the Slavonic Evangelical Union of America.

[16] Gessay, born in the Orava region, Slovakia, to a peasant family, became a school teacher before emigrating to the United States.

[24] Martinek, born in Poděbrady (nowadays Palackého Street 130), a small town east of Prague, emigrated to Cleveland, Ohio, as a metal worker.

Bohumil Shimek was a Czech-American botanist who was active in the campaign for Czechoslovak independence in the United States.