Prior to the creation of a Macedonian republic in 1944, most Macedonian immigrants viewed themselves as ethnically Bulgarian and often referred to themselves as Macedonian-Bulgarians or simply Bulgarians. While immigration records failed to list Macedonians as a separate category, approximately three-quarters of those listed as Bulgarians were from the regions of Kostur and Bitola in Macedonia. These immigrants, and those from Bulgaria proper, typically settled together in the pre–World War II years, and established communities in Chicago and Gary as well as downstate in Madison, Granite City, and Venice, Illinois. In 1909 Grace Abbott, writing about the desperate poverty in which hundreds of these immigrants were initially living, estimated that 1,000 Macedonians and Bulgarians were living in Chicago.
