FOREWORD:

Cincinnati has benefitted from the influx of many different groups of immigrants throughout its history. In order to make this small booklet easy to understand, only six major waves of immigrants were selected based on two criteria: 1) they came in significant numbers compared to the population at the time, 2) they caused outrage from some local residents.

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The city was also enriched by additional immigrant groups, including the Italians, French, Greeks, Eastern Europeans, Africans, Asians, Muslims, and many others. All have contributed tremendously to Cincinnati’s rich cultural diversity.

This timeline focuses on six major immigrant groups that greatly impacted the city’s social, economic, religious, and political life beginning in the 1830s. All the information presented here is for illustrative purposes, and the dates of greatest impact by these six large immigrant waves are approximate.

The width of the bars indicates the numbers of immigrants compared to the local population at the time.