Vojtěch Náprstek

Vojtěch Náprstek (often called Vojta) (17 April 1826, in Prague – 2 September 1894), was a Czech philanthropist, patriot and politician, as well as a pioneering Czech language journalist in the United States.

Vojtěch Náprstek was born Adalbert Fingerhut. His father Anton Fingerhut had the German name as the only one of seven siblings - the others were called by the Czech version of the name Náprstek. Adalbert officially changed his name to Vojtěch Náprstek in 1880 but he had been using the Czech name far earlier. His mother, Anna Fingerhut-Náprstková (1788–1873), was a nationalist businesswoman who ran a brewery/distillery and adjoining inn, ”U Halánků”, hospitable to budding nationalist organizations. Both Vojtěch and his elder brother Ferdinand, outspoken nationalists, were closely watched by the Habsburg police. After the disastrous results of the Prague Upheavals of 1848, Vojtěch left home in secret for the United States, where he finished his law studies.

He secretly fled to Milwaukee in Wisconsin, where he lived for about a decade before returning home, completing his law studies. He is considered to be the spiritual father of Czech journalism in America. He published the freethinking newspaper the Milwaukee Flügblatter, the first periodical published by a Czech in the United States. Although the Flügblatter was in the German language, it was read largely by Czechs. Naprstek encouraged Czech Americans to organize and publish their own Czech newspapers. He became an American citizen.

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