Minnesota State-Wide Resources
Why did Poles come to Minnesota?
Professor John Radzilowski wrote in his book Poles in Minnesota (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2005, page 5):
A handful of Poles at most came to Minnesota during territorial times. Polish immigrants began to arrive in the state in appreciable numbers in the 1850s, primarily from the German controlled western regions of Kashubia (Kaszubia), Pomerania, Poznania, and Silesia. These regions of Poland enjoyed a somewhat more prosperous and modern system of agriculture. … Their fellow immigrants from the Austrian and Russian partitions were, by contrast, more attracted to wage labor in cities and mines.
