In the early 1900s, McDowell County had a large and diverse ethnic population made up largely of immigrants from Europe, especially Italy, Hungary, Russia, Poland, and Austria, with smaller numbers from Australia, Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, Cuba, the West Indies, and Asia. They came in search of employment and religious freedom, including Jews from Eastern Europe who had faced religious persecution, and some joined friends and families already living in West Virginia. As coal mines increased, labor demand in the coalfields grew, and advertisements and recruitment agencies directed newly arrived immigrants at Ellis Island, New York, to travel by train to southern West Virginia for work in the coal and railroad industries. Others worked as merchants, laborers, tailors, barbers, salesmen, stonemasons, and in food service. Single men and families brought their languages, religious practices, food, music, customs, and culture, settling in tight-knit communities where parents taught children native languages and customs at home while schools, church groups, civic organizations, and others taught English, and over time immigrants and their children became U.S. citizens and assimilated into American society as descendants continued to celebrate ethnic customs, food, and culture.