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The hard working, agrarian lifestyle of many Austrian Americans is chronicled in a 1938 interview with immigrant Joe Poeffel. Joe was born on a small farm in Deutchausen, Austria in 1866 on the eve of the formation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867. Joe proudly recounted that by ten years of age he was a steady worker on the farm, herding cattle, hauling wood, and plowing fields with oxen. However, increasing industrialization began displacing agrarian workers causing many Austrian peasants and farmers to relocate to the American Midwest. The earliest Austrian immigrants in search of land settled in Illinois and Iowa.

In 1877, Joes father was one of many to take advantage of relaxed Austrian emigration policies designed to relieve overpopulation problems arising in some areas. He established a homestead in Platte County, Nebraska, and in 1879 Joe with his mother, brother, and two sisters joined him. The Poeffels...