First Rusin (Rusyn, Ruthenian) emigrants appeared in the Western Hemisphere in the 1860s. In the next few decades due to population outflow, Trans-Carpathian and Lemko migration overseas has steadily increased. Thousands of exhausted pauper Rusins leave «Old land» in search of a better life. Someone went to Canada, someone - to exotic Brazil, but most often they directed to the United States, where a rather big Rusin diaspora has formed by the 1890s. In this article we look at the initial stage of formation of Rusin diaspora in the United States (i.e. to the last decades of the XIX c.), analyze the specifics of the process, find out how and to what extent the Rusin diaspora was different from other ethnic diasporas of that period, what were its strengths and weaknesses. This subject is of great scientific and practical interest, given the very significant role the US Rusin diaspora played in Rusin history of the twentieth century.