Walter D Kamphoefner

Germans in America

A Concise History

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This book offers a fresh look at the Germans?the largest and perhaps the most diverse foreign-language group in 19th century America. Drawing upon the latest findings from both sides of the Atlantic, emphasizing history from the bottom up and drawing heavily upon examples from immigrant letters, this work presents a number of surprising new insights. Particular attention is given to the German-American institutional network, which because of the size and diversity of the immigrant group was especially strong. Not just parochial schools, but public elementary schools in dozens of cities offered instruction in the mother tongue. Only after 1900 was there a slow transition to the English language in most German churches. Still, the anti-German hysteria of World War I brought not so much a sudden end to cultural preservation as an acceleration of a decline that had already begun beforehand. It is from this point on that the largest American ethnic group also became the least visible, but especially in rural enclaves, traces of the German culture and language persisted to the end of the twentieth century.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Globe Pequot Publishing Group Inc/Bloomsbury
• Seitenzahl: 310
• Erscheinungstermin: 8. November 2021
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 234mm x 155mm x 29mm
• Gewicht: 828g
• ISBN-13: 9781442264977
• ISBN-10: 1442264977
• Artikelnr.: 59995842

Autorenporträt

By Walter D. Kamphoefner

Inhaltsangabe

I. Early Emigrants to Colonial and Revolutionary America
Starting with the founding of Germantown, in 1683, examines German
settlements in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and the German role in the
Revolutionary War. It corrects the view that "sect Germans" such as Amish
and Mennonites made up the bulk of colonial immigration, and also explodes
and explains the myth that German nearly became the official language of
the United States. It concludes by showing how the forces of assimilation
eroded ethnicity until mass immigration resumed after 1830.
II. The Push-Sources and Causes of 19th Century Emigration
This chapter examines the push factors operating in the three regional
cultures of Germany, the "dwarf agriculture" of the Southwest where equal
inheritance prevailed; the bimodal structures of Northwest Germany, divided
between a prosperous peasantry upheld by indivisible inheritance and a
growing tenant farmer class; and the great estates of Eastern Germany where
agricultural laborers were poorest and most oppressed. Investigating the
occupational structure and selectivity of emigration, it contradicts the
view that emigrants were "people who had something to lose, and were losing
it," stressing instead the relative poverty of those leaving. Also exposes
the German practice of providing free or subsidized passage to convicts and
other undesirables such as poor relief recipients, and demonstrates that
the mortality rates of passengers, even in the days of sail, were lower
than often believed.
III. 19th Century Immigration: Organized vs. Individual
This chapter seeks to correct the overemphasis on emigrant guidebooks and
organized emigration societies, emphasizing instead the role of immigrant
letters and chain migration as the major influence on immigrant
destinations. It does, however, examine the fate of several of the most
important immigration societies, particularly the "Adelsverein" in Texas
and some religiously motivated societies. It shows that economic factors
were the main motivator, though economic disadvantages and political
powerlessness were interrelated. It also examines the Forty-eighter
political refugees and their contrasts and commonalities with other
emigrants.
IV. Where They Settled
This chapter examines the German avoidance of the South and New England,
and their concentration in the urban and rural Midwest and the reasons
behind it. It also examines their overrepresentation in urban areas, and
how Germans from different regions were concentrated in different states
and cities.
V. German Americans and Politics through the Civil War
This chapter traces how Germans started out as Jacksonian Democrats and
their (partial) conversion to Republicanism by the election of Lincoln. It
then analyzes their role as the ethnic group most overrepresented in the
Union Army, constituting 10 percent of the total, enlivened by quotes from
immigrant letters which we have published. It examines the role of German
generals and charges of ethnic discrimination in the Union Army, which led
to the Fremont presidential candidacy in 1864 in which Germans played a
large part. It also refutes claims that Germans in the South were
"unremarkable" in their attitudes to slavery, race, and secession.
VI: Race, Reconstruction, and Late 19th Century Politics
Although German Americans largely rejected slavery, their views on the
intertwined issue of race are more complicated. Germans were no more likely
than other whites to support black voting rights in post-Civil War
referendums. But in the Southern and Border States, Germans were more
dedicated to the Union than other whites of these regions, attitudes that
carried over into Reconstruction. In a few instances, there were political
alliances of German and black Republicans that persisted well into the
twentieth century. Missouri was probably the state where Germans had the
most political influence in Reconstruction, even electing one of their own,
Forty-eighter Carl Schurz, to the U.S. Senate. But Schurz was also a leader
in the Liberal Republican movement that distanced itself from radical
Reconstruction, although this was not primarily based on race. Relations
with the Republican Party remained shaky in the late 19th century, and this
alliance was undermined whenever the GOP went on moralistic crusades
against alcohol. But this gave Germans considerable bargaining power.
Surprisingly, at the city level Germans were nearly as likely to be elected
mayor as Irish Catholics, despite the reputation of the latter as born
politicians.
VII:The Interactions of Ethnicity and Religion
German-Americans were never as unified as the Irish, in part because of
their religious diversity. This chapter looks at the major German
confessions, their institutional development, their relations with one
another and with other ethnic religious groups. It first examines the
German position within American Catholicism, then two different
transplanted denomination, the German Lutherans and Lutherans, as well as
the most important offshoot of Anglo-Protestantism, German Methodists. It
then poses the question of German Jews: a part or apart? Finally, it
examines interethnic relations, finding a considerable degree of antagonism
even between German Catholics and the Irish, but surprisingly friendly
relations with Slavic immigrants, especially in Texas and the Midwest. This
amity and antipathy is also reflected in intermarriage rates with various
groups.
VIII:German-Language Education in America: Parochial, Public, and Private
Many ethnics, Protestant as well as Catholics, believed that "Language
saves Faith," and endeavored to provide parochial schools often operating
largely or entirely in heritage languages. Motivated both by ethnic
politics and a desire to give children more exposure to the English
language and American culture, authorities in a number of cities introduced
German instruction into public elementary schools. Sometimes this involved
just an hour of German per day, but at least four cities had programs of
"two-way immersion" teaching subject matter in both languages. San Antonio
Germans supported a similar private school over three decades. There was
also much German instruction in rural districts, with or without official
sanction. Many of these programs persisted until World War I.
IX:The German American Press and other Literary and Cultural Expressions
This chapter traces the development of the German-language press, the
largest foreign language press in America for at least two centuries, and
the roles it played in the ethnic community: from the first announcement of
the signing of the Declaration of Independence in any language to the 100
th anniversary of the New Braunfelser Zeitung in 1952. It also examines
other German-American cultural expressions such as literature, art and
music, and the bridging role the ethnic community played between Europe and
America.
X:German Niches in the American Economy:
This chapter first explores the paradox that 19th century German-Americans
were more urbanized than either Germany or America at the time, but made up
one-third of the American farm population by the end of the 20th century.
It then examines Germans' role in American industrialization. It identifies
areas of the U.S. economy where Germans were particularly concentrated, and
examines the industrial and geographic niches where transatlantic
connections were of greatest consequence. Shifting focus from global to
individual patterns, it then explores what was German and what was American
about German-American entrepreneurship in the mid and late nineteenth
century, and what allowed some family firms to persist as long as 150
years.
XI:German Immigrants, the Labor Movement, and Urban Socialism
This chapter traces the important role played by Germans in the American
labor movement, including its radical socialism and anarchist elements,
especially those involved in the Haymarket affair. The Socialist movement
saw its peak influence in Wisconsin, supporting war opponents Robert
Lafollette and Victor Berger during World War I and electing the last
socialism mayor of a major city, Frank Zeidler Milwaukee, who only left
office in 1960 and survived into the 21st century.
XII:The German American Experience in World War I
This chapter offers an overview of both the attitudes and actions of
German-Americans in the Great War and the effects of the war on this ethnic
group and its language and culture. It is evident that German-Americans
were misunderstood both by their former countrymen back in the Fatherland
and by their fellow Americans. Germans often assumed that because
German-Americans were unable to prevent Woodrow Wilson's re-election or
American entry into World War I, it meant they had quickly shed their
ethnicity and immersed themselves in the Melting Pot, abandoning the German
language and culture. Anglo-Americans, on the other hand, often confused
these cultural loyalties or mere language preservation with political
loyalty to the Fatherland. The effect of German-Americans on the war
effort, and the effect of the Great War on German-Americans, can be briefly
summarized thus: although most would probably have preferred that the
United States remain neutral, German-Americans served in the U.S. military
at rates only slightly lower than the national average, and at higher rates
than some ethnic groups that were presumed beneficiaries of a defeat of the
Central Powers. While the war certainly had an impact on the survival of
the German language and culture in the United States, this impact was far
from universal, and it merely accelerated trends that were already underway
well before the fateful shots were fired in Sarajevo or the deadly
torpedoes launched against the Lusitania.
XIII:The Twilight of German Ethnicity, 1920 to the Present.
This chapter examines the persistence and decline of German language and
culture in the wake of World War I, the varied reactions of
German-Americans to the rise of Nazism, the wave of refugees fleeing Nazi
persecution and a second wave from 1945 to 1955 precipitated by the
devastation of war, and the reasons why neither of these migration waves
created the kind of ethnic communities that earlier immigration did. The
1980 census revealed that people of German heritage were the largest ethnic
group in the United States, raising the question what significance this
fact holds.