German Americans

German Americans are the largest ethnic group in the United States, with over 45 million people, comprising over a fourth of the white population. They are concentrated in the Midwest, and in eastern metropolitan areas. They comprise numerous different groups, all speaking German, and were largest language group to immigrate to the U.S. Some arrived seeking religious or political freedom, others for economic opportunities greater than those in Germany, and others simply for the chance to start afresh in the New World. Today California and Pennsylvania have the largest populations of German descent, with over six million Germans residing in the two states alone. The Midwest has the largest proportion of German Americans, with the group dominant in many rural areas. It is one of the two or three largest groups in many major metropolitan areas, including New York, Chicago, Baltimore and St. Louis.

Half the Germans became farmers, with centers of settlement in southeastern Pennsylvania (where they are called "Pennsylvania Dutch"), upstate New York central North Carolina and central Texas.

The other half went to cities, primarily ports cities on the ocean (Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark, New York), on the Great Lakes (Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee), on the Ohio River (Pittsburgh, Cincinnati. Louisville), or the Mississippi (St. Louis and all cities north to St. Paul). There were a few inland cities that attracted Germans, notably Columbus, Ohio, Indianapolis and Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

Migration trends

During the 18^th and throughout most of the 19^th century Germans were usually the largest or second largest group of newcomers to the United States. Large numbers of German migrated from the 1680s to 1760s. Then came a pause, but from 1840 to 1890 large numbers came. The four primary causes for Germans seeking a new life in America include push factors: worsening opportunities for farm ownership in Germany, persecution of some religious groups, and military conscription; and pull factors, with religious freedom and better economic conditions in the U.S. especially the chance for farmers to own land.

The Germans who settled America were culturally and religiously diverse. The immigrants were as diverse as Germany itself, except that very few aristocrats or upper middle class businessmen arrived.

Colonial: Pennsylvania and New York

Large sections of southeastern Pennsylvania and upstate New York attracted Germans.

The first German settlement in Pennsylvania was founded in 1683. The tide of German immigration to Pennsylvania swelled between 1725 and 1775, when they comprised a third of the population. The Pennsylvania Germans were called "Pennsylvania Dutch" by English speakers who mistranslated "Deutsch" ("German") as "Dutch". They comprising Lutherans, Reformed, Moravians, Mennonites, Amish, and other sects, developed a rich religious life with a strong musical culture. There were few German Catholics or Jews in America before the 1830s.

The German farmers were renowned for the highly productive animal husbandry and agricultural practices. Politically, there were inactive until 1740, when they joined a Quaker-led coalition that took control of the legislature, which generally supported the American Revolution. Fries's "Rebellion" was a rural protest movement among Pennsylvania Germans in 1799 against the direct federal tax on land and houses imposed by the Federalist Party in 1798 to pay for a threatened war against France. The resistance was in part a revolt of the Kirchenleute (Pennsylvania Germans of Lutheran and German Reformed background) against the Sektenleute (members of the pacifist Moravian and Quaker denominations, whom the Federalists favored with positions as assessors and collectors of the taxes). The leaders of the rebellion were restrained and kept the protest movement under control, even withdrawing the protesters before the movement got out of hand. Some were convicted but President John Adams gave them pardons.

Palatine migration to upstate New York was one of the largest single movements to colonial America. By 1711, for example, seven villages had been established in New York on the Robert Livingston manor. By 1750, the Germans occupied a strip some 12 miles long along the left bank of the Mohawk River. The soil was excellent; some 500 houses had been built, mostly of stone; and the region prospered in spite of Indian raids. Herkimer was the best-known of the German settlements in a region long known as the "German Flats." The most famous figure was editor John Peter Zenger, who led the fight for freedom of the press in America. Later John Jacob Astor, a German immigrant from Baden, became the richest man in America from fur trading and New York City real estate.

South, Texas

A large German colony in Virginia called Germanna was located near Culpeper; it was was founded by two waves of colonists in 1714 and 1717. Large settlements were formed in North Carolina, especially the Moravian town of Salem.

Texas had about 20,000 Germans in the 1850s:

They included peasant farmers and intellectuals; Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and atheists; Prussians, Saxons, Hessians, and Alsatians; abolitionists and slaveowners; farmers and townsfolk; frugal, honest folk and ax murderers. They differed in dialect, customs, and physical features. A majority had been farmers in Germany, and most arrived seeking economic opportunities. A few dissident intellectuals fleeing the 1848 revolutions sought political freedom, but few, save perhaps the Wends, went for religious freedom. The German settlements in Texas reflected their diversity. Even in the confined area of the Hill Country, each valley offered a different kind of German. The Llano valley had stern, teetotaling German Methodists, who renounced dancing and fraternal organizations; the Pedernales valley had fun-loving, hardworking Lutherans and Catholics who enjoyed drinking and dancing; and the Guadalupe valley had atheist Germans descended from intellectual political refugees. The scattered German ethnic islands were also diverse. These small enclaves included Lindsay in Cooke County, largely Westphalian Catholic; Waka in Ochiltree County, Midwestern Mennonite; Hurnville in Clay County, Russian German Baptist; and Lockett in Wilbarger County, Wendish Lutheran.

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 socially 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.

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin the heavy German influx started in the late 1840s, changing a small Yankee settlement to a large predominantly German city. By the 1850s more than half of the city was part of "Germania". From the beginning, Germans concentrated on the west side, and by 1900 they dominated the entire northwest side; some also moved to the newly developed south side. The occupational patterns in Germania mirrored the social diversity of the group, which soon after its arrival became well-established in city life. Religiously it was divided about equally into Protestants (mostly Old Lutherans of the Wisconsin Synod or Missouri Synod), Freethinkers (many of them refugees from the failed 1848 Revolution), and Catholics. Germans divided politically between the Democrats, and Republicans; after 1900 many joined the Socialist Party. Germans organized the labor movement in the city, with strength especially in brewing and construction. Germania developed a wide range of ethnic organizations and institutions. There were German Catholic and Lutheran parishes and parochial schools, secret lodges, insurance and mutual-aid societies, labor unions, political and cultural clubs, theaters, bands, singing societies, fire brigades, and militia units. Germans also developed an ethnic press that represented different political orientations.

Religion

Germans brought many different religions with them. The largest numbers were Catholic or Lutheran, although the Lutherans were themselves split several ways. The more conservative groups comprised the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Other Lutherans formed a complex checkerboard of synods, most of which in 1988 merged, along with Scandinavian synods, into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Still other German Protestants were not Lutherans but were descendants of the united "Evangelical Church" in Germany. They created the Reformed denomination (especially strong in New York and Pennsylvania), and the Evangelical denomination (strongest in the Midwest). The Evangelical and Reformed groups are now part of the United Church of Christ. Many immigrants joined quite different churches from those in Germany, especially the Methodist church.

1850 census map shows rural Lutheran population. Nearly all were German since few Scandinavians had arrived yet.

Before 1800, Amish, Mennonites, and Hutterite arrived in groups and formed closed communities in Pennsylvania; they are still in existence today and some still speak dialects of German. They set out branches into the Midwest. Dwight D. Eisenhower was born into a one such community in Abilene, Kansas.

Following the failed 1848 revolutions in German states, a wave of political refugees fled to America. They were well educated and secular; their most prominent leader was Carl Schurz. Many German Jews arrived in the late 19th century, often setting up clothing stores in small cities across the country, such as the Goldwater Department Store in Phoenix, Arizona. (see Barry Goldwater).

Socialists who arrived after 1870 were generally hostile to religion.

Cultural role

Most Germans were farmers, workers, craftsmen or operated small businesses like local breweries. The influence of their cuisine is seen in sausages, meats, pastries and pretzels. Germans almost totally dominated the beer industry since 1850.

At a more advanced level Germans have contributed to a numerous areas in American culture and technology. Baron von Steuben, a former Prussian general staff captain, led the reorganization and training of the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Carl Schurz helped found the Republican party, while most Germans voted Democratic.

After the Nazis came to power in 1933 thousands of scientists, artists, intellectuals and scholars fled to the U.S. The most famous was Albert Einstein. After World War II, Wernher von Braun, and most of the leading engineers from the former German V-2 rocket project were brought to the U.S. They took the lead in designing military rockets, as well as of rockets for the NASA space program. Three highly influential intellectuals were diplomat Henry Kissinger and political philosophers Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss; Strauss was the founder of the Neoconservative movement.

World War I

German Americans had strongly opposed American entry into the World War. With rare exceptions they did not favor Germany; rather they demanded neutrality. Their position was increasingly marginalized and ignored; a small minority of Congressmen (usually from heavily German districts) voted against the war in April 1917. During the war they were watched closely for signs of disloyalty, which seldom were found. One German was killed in a tavern brawl on political grounds.

During World War I, intense scrutiny of German Americans led to a debate about the definition of American culture. The central question was the status of "hyphenated Americans," a term which became nearly synonymous with German Americans and their perceived challenge to American integrity. Thus, the hyphen became a term not simply for discussing cultural minorities but also for discussing the dominant culture's relationship with Britain.

In Indianapolis, Indiana, German Americans comprised over a fourth of the population and supported numerous clubs and associations to perpetuate German culture, By lobbying the school board they were able to establish an extensive program of German-language instruction in the city's primary and secondary public schools. The World War, however, generated intense patriotism and a concurrent intense hostility toward all things German. In October 1917, a new federal legislation required every German-language newspaper to file sworn translations of war-related articles with local postmasters; most smaller papers could not afford the cost and closed down. In this atmosphere, the school board responded to assertions that teaching German was promoting the enemy's culture by banning German instruction in elementary schools in January 1918. Anti-German sentiment continued even after the war, and the Indiana legislature in 1919 banned all German-language instruction in all Indiana public and private schools. The Indianapolis story was typical of cities where the Germans did not have a majority of votes. Unlike Canada and Australia, which imprisoned German citizens, the German Americans were pressured into buying war bonds but were not imprisoned.

Assimilation

In 1910 German Americans lived in had created their own distinctive, vibrant, prosperous German-language communities, called "Germania". The transition to an English language world was abrupt, forced by the World War. After 1917 the German language was seldom heard in public; most newspapers and magazines closed; churches and parochial schools switched to English. Youth increasingly attended high schools, where they mingled, in English, and dated other ethnics. The Catholic high schools were deliberately structured to commingle ethnic groups so as to promote intermarriage. with German-speaking taverns, beer gardens and saloons were all shut down by prohibition; those that reopened in 1933 spoke English. By the 1940s Germania had largely vanished outside remote areas and the Germans were thoroughly assimilated. Historians have tried to explain what happened. Kazal (2004) looks at Germans in Philadelphia, focusing on four ethnic subcultures: middle-class Vereinsdeutsche, working-class socialists, Lutherans, and Catholics. Each group followed a somewhat distinctive path toward assimilation. Lutherans, and the better situated Vereinsdeutsche with whom they often overlapped, after World War I abandoned the last major German characteristics and redefined themselves as old stock or as "Nordic" Americans, stressing their colonial roots in Pennsylvania and distancing themselves from more recent immigrants. On the other hand, working-class and Catholic Germans, groups that heavily overlapped, lived and worked with Irish and other European ethnics; they also gave up German characteristics but came to identify themselves as white ethnics, distancing themselves above all from African American recent arrivals in nearby neighborhoods. Well before World War I, women in particular were becoming more and more involved in a mass consumer culture that lured them out of their German-language neighborhood shops and into English language downtown department stores. The 1920s and 1930s brought English language popular culture via movies and radio that drowned out the few surviving German language venues.

Bibliography

• Thernstrom, Stephan ed. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, (1980).
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• Hobbie, Margaret, ed. Museums, Sites, and Collections of Germanic Culture in North America (1980).
• Keil, Hartmut, ed. German Workers' Culture in the United States, 1850 to 1920. (1988). 330 pp.
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• Levine, Bruce. The Spirit of 1848: German Immigrants, Labor Conflict, and the Coming of the Civil War. (1992). 378 pp.
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• Luebke, Frederick C. Bonds of Loyalty: German Americans During World War I. (1974)
• O'Connor, Richard. German-Americans: an Informal History. (1968), popular
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Colonial, early national, before 1820

• Fogleman, Aaron Spencer. Hopeful Journeys: German Immigration, Settlement, and Political Culture in Colonial America, 1717-1775 (1995).
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• 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)

Regional and local studies

• Arends, Shirley Fischer. The Central Dakota Germans: Their History, Language, and Culture. (1989). 289 pp.
• Bayor, Ronald H. Neighbors in Conflict: The Irish, Germans, Jews and Italians of New York City, 1929-1941. (1978). 232 pp.
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• Coburn, Carol K. Life at Four Corners: Religion, Gender, and Education in a German-Lutheran Community, 1868-1945. (1992). 227 pp.
• Cochran, Thomas. The Pabst Brewing Company: The History of an American Business (1948) online edition
• Conzen, Kathleen Neils. Immigrant Milwaukee, 1836-1860: Accommodation and Community in a Frontier City. (1976). 300 pp.
• 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
• Detjen, David W. The Germans in Missouri, 1900-1918: Prohibition, Neutrality, and Assimilation. (1985). 244 pp.
• Gerber, David A. The Making of an American Pluralism: Buffalo, New York, 1825-1860. (1989). 531 pp.
• Gjerde, Jon. The Minds of the West: Ethnocultural Evolution in the Rural Middle West, 1830–1917 (1997) online edition
• Iverson, Noel. Germania, U.S.A.: Social Change in New Ulm, Minnesota. (1966), emphasizes Turners
• Jaehn, Tomas. Germans in the Southwest, 1850-1920. (2005). 242 pp.
• 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
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• 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 excerpt and text search; online review
• Kazal, Russell A. "The Interwar Origins of the White Ethnic: Race, Residence, and German Philadelphia, 1917-1939." Journal of American Ethnic History 2004 23(4): 78-131. Issn: 0278-5927 Fulltext: Ebsco
• Keil, Hartmuth, and John B. Jentz, eds. German Workers in Industrial Chicago, 1850-1910: A Comparative Perspective (1983). 252pp
• Luebke, Frederick. Immigrants and Politics: the Germans of Nebraska, 1880–1900. (1969)
• Marshall, Howard Wight and Goodrich, James W., eds. The German-American Experience in Missouri: Essays in Commemoration of the Tricentennial of German Immigration to America, 1683-1983. (1986). 218 pp.
• Merrill, Peter C. German-American Urban Culture: Writers and Theaters in Early Milwaukee. (2000). 128 pp. online review
• Nadel, Stanley. Little Germany: Ethnicity, Religion, and Class in New York City, 1845-80. (1990). 242 pp.
• Parsons, William T. Pennsylvania Germans: A Persistent Minority. (1985); (published in 1976 as The Pennsylvania Dutch: A Persistent Minority). 298pp
• Pickle, Linda Schelbitzki. Contented among Strangers: Rural German-Speaking Women and Their Families in the Nineteenth-Century Midwest. (1996). 311 pp.
• Probst, George Theodore. The Germans in Indianapolis, 1840-1918. (1989). 200 pp.
• Schneider, Dorothee. Trade Unions and Community: The German Working Class in New York City, 1870-1900. (1994). 273 pp.
• Stenzel, Bryce O. German immigration to the Minnesota river valley frontier, 1852- 1865: wir stammten aus Deutschland nach hausen Minnesota (2002), 119pp excerpt and text search
• Struve, Walter. Germans and Texas: Commerce, Migration, and Culture in the Days of the Lone Star Republic (1996).
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• vanRavenswaay, Charles. The Arts and Architecture of German Settlements in Missouri: A Survey of a Vanishing Culture. (1977). 536 pp.
• Wood, Ralph, ed. The Pennsylvania Germans. (1942)
• Wyman, Mark. Immigrants in the Valley: Irish, Germans and Americans in the Upper Mississippi Country, 1830-1860. (1984). 258 pp.
• Zeitlin, Richard H. Germans in Wisconsin. (2000). 72 pp.

Religious groups

• Alderfer, E. Gordon. The Ephrata Commune: An Early American Counterculture. (1985). 273 pp.
• Atwood, Craig D. Community of the Cross: Moravian Piety in Colonial Bethlehem. (2004). 283 pp.
• Barkai, Avraham. Branching Out: German-Jewish Immigration to the United States (1994).
• Barry, Colman J. The Catholic Church and German Americans. (1953)
• Behney, J. Bruce and Eller, Paul H. The History of the Evangelical United Brethren Church. (1979). 423 pp.
• Coburn, Carol K. Life at Four Corners: Religion, Gender, and Education in a German-Lutheran Community, 1868–1945 (1992).
• Dolan, Jay P. The Immigrant Church: New York's Irish and German Catholics, 1815-1865. (1975). 221 pp.
• Gleason, Philip. The Conservative Reformers: American Catholics and the Social Order. (1968)
• Grummer, James Edward. "The Parish Life of German-Speaking Roman Catholics in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1840-1920." PhD dissertation U. of Notre Dame 1989. 286 pp. DAI 1989 49(10): 3136-A. DA8901491 fulltext in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Kantowicz, Edward R. Corporation Sole: Cardinal Mundelein and Chicago Catholicism (1983)
• Longenecker, Stephen L. Piety and Tolerance: Pennsylvania German Religion, 1700-1850. (1994). 195 pp.
• McMaster, Richard K. Land, Piety, Peoplehood: The Establishment of Mennonite Communities in America, 1683-1790 (1985).
• Mauch, Christof and Salmons, Joseph, eds. German-Jewish Identities in America. (2003). 171 pp.
• Pahl, Jon. Hopes and Dreams of All: The International Walther League and Lutheran Youth in American Culture, 1893-1993 (1993),
• Riforgiato, Leonard R. Missionary of Moderation: Henry Melchior Muhlenberg and the Lutheran Church in English America. (1980) 250 pp.
• 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).
• Shaw, Stephen J. The Catholic Parish as a Way-Station of Ethnicity and Americanization: Chicago's Germans and Italians, 1903-1939. (1991). 206 pp.
• Walch, Timothy. The Diverse Origins of American Catholic Education: Chicago, Milwaukee, and the Nation. (1988). 235 pp.

Primary Sources

• Kamphoefner, Walter D. and Helbich, Wolfgang, eds. Germans in the Civil War: The Letters They Wrote Home. (2006). 521 pp.
• Kamphoefner, Walter D.; Helbich, Wolfgang; and Sommer, Ulrike, eds. News from the Land of Freedom: German Immigrants Write Home. (1991). 645 pp.
• Keil, Hartmut and Jentz, John B., eds. German Workers in Chicago: A Documentary History of Working-Class Culture from 1850 to World War I. (1988). 427 pp.

See also

• Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Online resources

• H-GAGCS German-American and German-Canadian Studies (GAGCS) Discussion Network (2006- ), daily discussion group for students and scholars from H-Net
• scholarly reviews of recent books
• Catholic Encyclopedia article
• Reasons Germans Came to America
• “Deutsch-Athen Revisited: Writing the History of Germans in Milwaukee”, Dr. Anke Ortlepp, University of Cologne
• German Immigrant Culture in America" (1998) syllabus by Dr. Peter C. Merrill