Large groups of Volga Germans emigrated to the United States and Canada and to a lesser extent, Mexico in North America. In South America they settled primarily in Brazil and Argentina. The major employment of the Volga Germans in the USA and Canada were, wheat farming, railroads, sugarbeet farming, factory work and other farming. For most Volga Germans there was somewhat continuous movement around the USA due to crop failures, territory openings, railroad strikes or railroad extensions into new area, and new sugar refineries with sugarbeet farming opportunities. The Volga Germans who moved around the least were factory workers that settled (and for the most part stayed) in Portland, OR, Chicago, IL and Oshkosh, WI.

The German Russians from different areas of Russia, such as the Black Sea Germans, Mennonites and Volhynian Germans settled in surprisingly different regions of the USA and Canada than the Volga Germans. While there was certainly overlap in some areas, particularly Eastern Washington, it was the exception. The Black Sea Germans as seen in the documentary, Germans from Russia: Children of the Steppe, Children of the Prairie settled primarily in North Dakota with 68,000 individuals in 1920 (first and second generation) and South Dakota with 26,000. At that same time Volga Germans accounted for just 600 people in each of those states. Conversely the Volga Germans had approximately 19,000 people in each of the 3 states of Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas in 1920 and the Black Sea Germans no more than 2,000 in each state. Mennonites had 10,550 people in KS at that time.

  

Source: 1) "Russian-German Settlements in the United States" by Richard Sallet, translated and edited by LaVern Rippley and Armand Bauer. 2) German Volga mail list subscribers