German Americans

German Americans are the largest ethnic group in the United States, with over 50 million people. They are concentrated in the Midwest, and in eastern metropolitan areas

Wisconsin and Midwest

File:Milw1855.jpg

Milwaukee in 1854

In the 21st century half of Wisconsin's population claims some German heritage, as do large proportions in nearby areas of northern Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota, as well as the Dakotas. Historians stress the importance of of "pull" and "push" factors in explaining immigration. Wisconsin offered the promise of religious freedom, jobs, a climate and landscape that reminded many Germans of the forests at home, where forests played an core role in German collective identity, national memory, and socioeconomic stability. Even better the state offered cheap, good quality land on which they could grow familiar crops such as barley and wheat; it was especially well suited for dairy farming. farmers enjoyed new freedom in being able to make their own decisions about agricultural production as opposed to being regulated by communal authorities. Catholics and Lutherans came in about equal numbers; they settled near each other but did not interact soacially or intermarry. Migration was primarily by extended family units so the first arrivals wrote enthusiastic letters to family and kin about their new life, and others joined them in a process of chain migration. Most bought their land from Yankee landowners who had purchased title from the federal government. The farms in the Midwest were much larger than those in Germany, and required larger family sizes.

The state of Wisconsin systematically encouraged immigration by establishing an Office of the Commissioner of Emigration in 1852 and placing a commissioner in New York to greet them with promotional materials in English and German. Germans were allowed to vote before establishing U.S. citizenship. About half the immigrants settled in Milwaukee, Chicago, Davenport, Dubuque and many smaller cities, with the others heading for farms and small towns.

Bibliography

• Thernstrom, Stephan ed. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, (1980).
  • articles by Frederick C. Luebke, "Austrians," pp. 164-171; Kathleen Neils Conzen, "Germans," pp. 405-425; La Vern J. Rippley, "Germans from Russia," pp. 425-430; Arthur A. Goren, "Jews," pp. 571-598, esp. 576-579; Don Yoder, "Pennsylvania Germans," pp. 770-772; Leo Schelbert, "Swiss," pp. 981-987.

• Barclay, David E., and Elizabeth Glaser-Schmidt, eds. Transatlantic Images and Perceptions: Germany and America Since 1776 (1997).
• Baxter, Angus. In Search of Your German Roots. The Complete Guide to Tracing Your Ancestors in the Germanic Areas of Europe. Fourth Edition (2001)
• Bungert, Heike; Kluge, Cora Lee; and Ostergren, Robert C., eds. Wisconsin German Land and Life. (2006). 260 pp. online review
• Cochran, Thomas. The Pabst Brewing Company: The History of an American Business (1948) online edition
• Conzen, Kathleen Neils. "Peasant Pioneers: Generational Succession Among German Farmers in Frontier Minnesota." In The Countryside in the Age of Capitalist Transformations: Essays in the Social History of Rural America, (1985) edited by Steven Hahn and Jonathan Prude
• Conzen, Kathleen Neils. Germans in Minnesota (2003) 112pp
• Dobbert, Guido A. "German-Americans between New and Old Fatherland, 1870–1914". American Quarterly 19 ( 1967): 663-80. in JSTOR
• Ellis, M. and P. Panayi. "German Minorities in World War I: A Comparative Study of Britain and the USA." Ethnic and Racial Studies 17 ( April 1994): 238-59.
• Faust, Albert Bernhardt. The German Element in the United States with Special Reference to Its Political, Moral, Social, and Educational Influence 2 vol (1909) online edition
• Fogleman, Aaron Spencer. Hopeful Journeys: German Immigration, Settlement, and Political Culture in Colonial America, 1717-1775 (1995).
• Gjerde, Jon. The Minds of the West: Ethnocultural Evolution in the Rural Middle West, 1830–1917 (1997) online edition
• Hegi, Ursula. Tearing the Silence: On Being German in America (1997).
• Hobbie, Margaret, ed. Museums, Sites, and Collections of Germanic Culture in North America (1980).
• Iverson, Noel. Germania, U.S.A.: Social Change in New Ulm, Minnesota. (1966), emphasizes Turners
• Jensen, Richard. The Winning of the Midwest, Social and Political Conflict 1888–1896" (1971), focus on voting behavior of Germans, prohibition issue, language issue and school issue
• Johnson, Hildegard B. "The Location of German Immigrants in the Middle West". Annals of the Association of American Geographers 41 (1951): 1–41. in JSTOR
• Jordon, Terry G. German Seed in Texas Soil: Immigrant Farmers in Nineteenth-century Texas. (1966)
• Kamphoefner, Walter. The Westfalians: From Germany to Missouri (1987).
• Kazal, Russell A. Becoming Old Stock: The Paradox of German-American Identity (2004) ethnicity and assimilation in 20c Philadelphia
• Kazal, Russell A. "Revisiting Assimilation: The Rise, Fall, and Reappraisal of a Concept." American Historical Review 100 (1995): 437-71. in JSTOR
• Keil, Hartmuth, and John B. Jentz, eds. German Workers in Industrial Chicago, 1850-1910: A Comparative Perspective (1983).
• Luebke, Frederick C. Germans in the New World: Essays in the History of Immigration (1990).
• Luebke, Frederick C. Bonds of Loyalty: German Americans During World War I. (1974)
• Luebke, Frederick C. ed. Ethnic Voters and the Election of Lincoln (1971)
• Luebke, Frederick. Immigrants and Politics: the Germans of Nebraska, 1880–1900. (1969)
• O'Connor, Richard. German-Americans: an Informal History. (1968), popular
• Pochmann, Henry A., and Arthur R. Schultz; German Culture in America, 1600–1900: Philosophical and Literary Influences (1957)
• Roeber, A. G. "In German Ways? Problems and Potentials of Eighteenth-Century German Social and Emigration History." William and Mary Quarterly 3d ser., 44, no. 4 (1987).
• Roeber, A. G. " 'The Origin of Whatever Is Not English Among Us': The Dutch-speaking and the German-speaking Peoples of Colonial British America." In Strangers Within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire, edited by Bernard Bailyn and Philip D. Morgan (1991).
• Schelbert, Leo, and Urspeter Schelbert. "Portrait of an Immigrant Society: The North American Grütli-Bund, 1865-1915." Yearbook of German-American Studies. Vol. 18 (1983).
• Struve, Walter. Germans and Texas: Commerce, Migration, and Culture in the Days of the Lone Star Republic (1996).
• Tatlock, Lynne and Matt Erlin, eds. German Culture in Nineteenth-Century America: Reception, Adaptation, Transformation (2005)
• Tischauser, Leslie V. The Burden of Ethnicity The German Question in Chicago, 1914–1941 1990.
• Trefousse, Hans L., ed. Germany and America: Essays on Problems of International Relations and Immigration (1980).
• Trommler, Frank, and Joseph McVeigh, eds. America and the Germans: An Assessment of a Three-Hundred-Year History. (2 vols. 1985).
• Wittke, Carl. The German-Language Press in America (1957)
• Wittke, Carl. Refugees of Revolution: The German Forty-Eighters in America (1952) online edition
• Wittke, Carl. We Who Built America: The Saga of the Immigrant (1939), ch 6, 9 online edition
• Wokeck, Marianne S. "Harnessing the Lure of the 'Best Poor Man's Country': The Dynamics of German-speaking Immigration to British North America, 1683-1783." In To Make America: European Emigration in the Early Modern Period, edited by Ida Altman and James Horn (1991).
• Wood, Ralph, ed. The Pennsylvania Germans. (1942)

Religious groups

• Barkai, Avraham. Branching Out: German-Jewish Immigration to the United States (1994).
• Barry, Colman J. The Catholic Church and German Americans. (1953)
• Coburn, Carol K. Life at Four Corners: Religion, Gender, and Education in a German-Lutheran Community, 1868–1945 (1992).
• Gleason, Philip. The Conservative Reformers: American Catholics and the Social Order. (1968)
• McMaster, Richard K. Land, Piety, Peoplehood: The Establishment of Mennonite Communities in America, 1683-1790 (1985).
• Pahl, Jon. Hopes and Dreams of All: The International Walther League and Lutheran Youth in American Culture, 1893-1993 (1993),
• Roeber, A. G. Palatines, Liberty, and Property: German Lutherans in Colonial British America (1998).
• Scholz, Robert F. Press Toward the Mark: History of the United Lutheran Synod of New York and New England, 1830-1930 (1995).

See also

• Milwaukee

Online resources

• Catholic Encyclopedia article
• Reasons Germans Came to America
• “Deutsch-Athen Revisited: Writing the History of Germans in Milwaukee”, Dr. Anke Ortlepp, University of Cologne