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→Swiss: Russians
In terms of religion, most Swiss immigrants were Reformed or Lutheran and merged into larger German communities. Some were Mennonites or belonged to small, highly traditional sects like the Amish. They formed tight-knit closed communities that still exist.
In terms of religion, most Swiss immigrants were Reformed or Lutheran and merged into larger German communities. Some were Mennonites or belonged to small, highly traditional sects like the Amish. They formed tight-knit closed communities that still exist.
===Russian Germans===
The German Russians of "Volga Germans" were the most tradirional of all German-speaking arrivals. They were Germans who had lived for generations along the Volga River in Russia; about 100,000 immigrated by 1900 and settled in relatively poor lands in the Dakotas, Kansas and Nebraska--the south-central part of North Dakota was known as the German-Russian triangle. They were Lutherans, Mennonites or Catholics but no educated Germans-speaking pastors, teachers, professional men, or tradesmen had joined the peasants who migrated to America. The older generation was still speaking German (they never spoke Russian) in the 1940s, while the next generation was bilingual. Negatively influenced by their miseries and isolation in Russia, they saw themselves a downtrodden class cheated by townspeople, businessmen and railroads; they raised large families with harsh discipline; they wanted their children to be farmers so took them out of school around age 14; they treated their womenfolk as inferior, and were slow to diversify their farms. Many farmers specialized in sugar beets--still a major crop in the upper Great Plains. In World War I (1917-18) their patriotism was ambiguous; distrusted by their neighbors they rejected prohibition and Americanization efforts and supported radical far-left political movements such as the NPL ("Non-Partisan League").<ref>Elwyn B. Robinson, ''History of North Dakota'' (1966) pp. 285-87, 557; Gordon L. Iseminger, "Are We Germans, or Russians, or Americans? The Mcintosh County German-russians During World War I," ''North Dakota History'' 1992 59(2): 2-16, </ref>
==Religion==
==Religion==