 However, after the initial wave of settlers, Austrian immigration was low during the first half of the 19th century.During this period, fewer than 1,000 Austrians emigrated to the United States.The Austrians who settled in Illinois and Iowa received religious education thanks to the arrival of 100 to 200 Catholic priests from Germany and Austria by The Leopoldine Stiftung, an Austrian foundation that funded those priests for the newly emigrated and the Native Americans, and they monitored their religious education.