The Place of Germans within American Society: Part 1(1683-1890)

As you the reader will see, I am about to do another big change in subject matter; after 3 posts on the general (environmental and current) topic of Electric Vehicles, I am going back into my history mode! My original inspiration came when I happened to be thinking about German-Americans (one part of my own ancestry), and it occurred to me what a very strange experience the 20th century was for them! Think of the drastic 180-degree shifts in majority public opinion, from their being seen as fine citizens and then dastardly villains, and back again, over and over! In brief: first, essentially as "good guys" from colonial times to World War I. Then, with the sudden entry in 1917 by Pres. Wilson of the U.S. into war with the German Empire (thanks to provocations threatening our security), it's no exaggeration to say that suddenly everything German was demonized (as every textbook mentions, even sauerkraut was rebranded as "liberty cabbage"!). With the Armistice in Nov. 1918, the persecution of the community here dissipated quite quickly (other than Prohibition's toll, 1920-33, on the brewing industry!). Concern about Germany, and Germans, certainly returned with a vengeance after Hitler ended the Weimar Republic's democracy in 1933, and the the U.S. had to cope with Germans (largely Jewish) as a pressing refugee issue (hint: we didn't handle that humanitarian crisis particularly well!). In Dec. 1941, Germany this time declared war on us, right after Pearl Harbor shoved us into World War II. While there was some rounding up and confinement of Germans by the federal government, treatment of German Americans was far milder than in the previous war (in sharp contrast to the internment of Japanese Americans!). Finally, with the war's end in 1945, the U.S. soon plunged into its long confrontation with Soviet Communism, known as the Cold War. In that context, Pres. Truman ordered that the population of Germany's (now divided) capital, Berlin, be supplied with food and fuel, after the Soviets cut off access to West Berlin. So- by 1948, we were feeding the same Germans we had just fought in 1941-45. "West" Germans became allies, and German-Americans by extension "good guys," as they had been before 1917!

Whiplash, indeed. But as I dug further into this subject, I was drawn to the first part of this story: to the diverse and multilayered German-American subculture of the Gilded Age, between the Civil War and the Great War. Standard American histories always tell how that subculture was snuffed out in a whirlwind of xenophobia in 1917-18. But just what was that subculture actually like?

So- this post will focus primarily on the time period from the 1860s to 1920. As always seems to happen when I do this blog, digging into the research has wound up expanding the coverage to 2 parts (Part 2 will cover the cultural suppression, in World War I and Prohibition). I'll also discuss how many German-Americans creatively adapted to the situation. Clarifications: I won't include all German-speakers (I'll leave out Swiss and Austrians), and I won't delve into the separate (and certainly much more tragic!) story of German Jews. They, however assimilated within Germany, always seem, during this period (a time of consistent antisemitism), to have been seen by the American majority as Jews more than as Germans.

While Germans as a broad ethnic group appear early in the general American story, one fact needs mention right away: for most of that story, "Germany" was a geographic term,

but there was no unified nation by that name until 1871. Instead the whole region in Central Europe was a crazy quilt of about three dozen monarchies of various sizes, from comically small on up to the big powers of the 1800's (Prussia and Austria). There wasn't even a single common German language; instead there was literary Standard German, and the host of dialects of daily speech lumped as "High German" in the south and "Low German" in the north (plus the variant Yiddish, spoken by Jews). Much like Americans before the Civil War, who when asked about origin would likely have given it as "Virginian" or "Vermonter" rather than "American", Germans before unification, in Europe or America, would have said, for example, "Bavarian" or "Wurttemburger" rather than "German". Nor did these "Germans" leave disagreements with each other (including religious- the north being primarily Lutheran Protestant, and the south Catholic) behind, when they moved to the U.S.

That said, the story of German immigration really starts with the creation of Pennsylvania. The Quaker founder, Sir William Penn, who was granted his own namesake colony in 1683, actively recruited German Protestants before he even sailed, including the persecuted Amish and Mennonites. Thus provided both with religious freedom and a vast area of very fertile soil, German migration surged immediately, especially with the "Palatinate" wave in the early 1700's; the state remains the homeland of American Amish and Mennonites (collectively "Pennsylvania Germans," with their own dialect) to this day.

Those first arrivals also pioneered a recurring characteristic of incoming Germans: opposition to slavery. It was a group of Mennonites who published the first manifesto against the system- in "Germantown", Pennsylvania in 1688, when slavery was legal in all the colonies.

The first negative reaction of note to Germans comes from no less a figure than Benjamin Franklin, who, in a 1755 pamphlet, wrote: "Why should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion?". And it too is pioneering, in its stress on a theme to be repeated, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: that the problem with German-Americans is their failure to assimilate. But Franklin as a whole puts down everyone's skin color except the "lovely White and Red"! He goes on to disparage Germans' "swarthy" complexion ("the Saxons only excepted"), and, in a later letter, says that the new arrivals are "generally of the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation"! It should be mentioned that Ben, wealthy and a giant in colonial politics and society, was in an exceptionally angry mood; German voters had just sided with his political opponents, the Penn family. Consider this- how often have Germans been called "swarthy"?

Despite this early example of anti-German xenophobia, the numbers of Germans steadily increased; by the time of the Revolution, there were over 200,000 (of about 2.5 million Europeans and Africans total in the colonies). Most German-Americans were either neutral or supported independence; it was a German (Prussian) officer, Steuben, who trained the Continental Army through its pivotal and harsh winter at Valley Forge in 1777-78. He went on to be one of only two foreign officers given independent command of American troops (the other being the French Marquis de Lafayette). The British in turn brought in Germans of their own: 30,000 "Hessian" mercenaries (named for the small state of Hesse-Kassel, the origin of many).

Large-scale German migration didn't happen until the 1830s, after the Napoleonic Wars (ending in 1815) had devastated much of the region, and at a time when the U.S. was rapidly expanding and industrializing. Over 150,000 came over in just the 1830s alone, and that was just the start of the first big wave. It's significant that America's oldest brewery today, Yuengling in Pennsylvania, was founded by an immigrant in 1829 (since beer brewing would play such a big role in the German-American story!). From 1840 to 1860, 1.1 million Germans arrived, outnumbering even the famous Irish Potato Famine migration at the same time. Two highly successful German transatlantic shipping lines were created (HAPAG or Hamburg-American, and Norddeutscher Lloyd), moving the immigrants in ever-larger steamships. This wave established the basic geography for German-Americans: colonizing the vast Republic, later state, of Texas; landing in New Orleans and spreading up the Mississippi; or landing in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The primary area they settle was in the Upper Midwest. By the 1850s, the so-called "German Triangle" had formed, centered on St. Louis and Missouri in the west, Milwaukee and Wisconsin in the north, and Cincinnati and Ohio in the east. These Germans were best known for a handful of celebrity political refugees, known as the "Forty-Eighters" for fleeing the crackdown that ended a set of democratic revolutions in 1848. But most avoided politics and most controversy. As farmers they helped transform the Midwest into one of the world's great breadbaskets, and in the towns they formed close-knit neighborhoods (such as Kleindeutschland, "Little Germany," in Manhattan's Lower East Side, and "Over-the-Rhine" in Cincinnati). They built a host of churches (often designed by their own architects), created a vast array of social organizations, and set up a thriving press (hundreds of newspapers!). The major English-language papers started German editions. These migrants brought a wide variety of skills, and had broad cultural impact. To mention just a few examples: the Steinway (originally "Steinweg") company began making its famous pianos; musicians launched singing societies and what would become America's array of symphony orchestras; and the Turner movement introduced the general concept of physical fitness (including gymnasiums, gymnastics, and basic gym equipment, such as balance beams). These Germans codified the present American concept of Christmas (including the trees and the institution of Santa Claus), and, as part of a consistent emphasis on education, created the first kindergartens.

And, as mentioned earlier, they effectively created the brewing industry (earlier American immigrants had been much more into hard spirits, such as rum and whiskey). This wave included Adolphus Busch, who, through Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis, would be the most successful brewer of all. Specifically the Germans introduced lager beer, a new process that creates a much lighter, and broadly less alcoholic, beverage than the traditional British ales. And, alongside brewing millions of barrels, they introduced, by the 1850s, a "beer culture" unlike anything else: communal outdoor family drinking on Sundays (the only day off for most factory workers), in "beer gardens." This culture stood in start contrast to the male-only drinking culture of taverns and saloons, entrenched since the first colonization. It also would run headlong into an emerging "reform" movement, "temperance," like the later Prohibition movement spearheaded by Protestant ministers and women, and dedicated to cutting down sharply on the stunning alcohol consumption by American men. In the 1850s, as over 950,000 Germans arrived, 13 states banned the sale of alcohol.

The temperance movement was one of two parts of strong opposition to the German, and Irish, migration; the other, all male, took the form of the creation of a new nativist political party in the 1850s, known by their nickname as the "Know-Nothings". This party grew rapidly (and faded quickly also), electing anti-immigrant politicians and engaging in some street violence against Germans and Irish.

Anti-German "Know-Nothing" cartoon, c. mid-1850s- Everett Collection Historical

Soon, though, this immigration conflict was swallowed up in a much larger, and bloodier, one: the conflict over the future of slavery. When the Southern states seceded in 1860-61, the vast majority of German-Americans enthusiastically supported the Union cause: 200,000 enlisted right away, and overall they made up 10% of the U.S. military in the Civil War. Entire units were made up of Germans (called "Dutch" by their fellow soldiers), speaking German and under German generals. At the same time, Germans recognized good business opportunities in the war, whether it was in shipping ice-cooled beer down the Mississippi to the armies, or in building the countless wagons needed to move military supplies. An unusual opportunity came about in the area of eyeglasses, which had previously had frames made of European deer horn and tortoise shell. German immigrant John Bausch in 1861 picked up a piece of vulcanite rubber on a street, and realized that frames of that material (licensed from Goodyear) would be stronger, more flexible, and less expensive. His Rochester company, Bausch and Lomb, has played a big role in optical, and medical, equipment ever since. The brewers set up their own powerful U.S. Brewers' Association in 1862, which, by getting friendly with federal tax collectors, was able, over 30 years, to hold the tax on malt beverages steady, while the tax on distilled liquors, made by their chief competitors, went up three times! There were now over 4,000 breweries, and most were run by Germans.

As, after 1865, the U.S. transitioned from the Civil War into the Reconstruction and Gilded Age periods of rampant industrialization, the German-Americans flourished like never before. While they still mostly continued to stay out of politics, the most famous "Forty-Eighter" German, abolitionist and Republican leader Carl Schurz, was elected to the U.S. Senate and was picked to lead the important Interior Department. A new wave of immigration, the largest of all, started to build in the 1870s, as dramatic political and economic changes were taking place in the home country.

Prussia, centered on Berlin in the east, was already the dominant state (the one with the strongest army) in the German Confederation by the early 19th century. In 1862, its King Wilhelm appointed one Otto von Bismarck as the "Minister President" (the equivalent of prime minister). He turned out to be a political wizard, someone whose vision and guile rapidly transformed Germany and the map of Europe. He steered Prussia, and soon the other German states, into three wars in rapid succession, all short and all victorious. The first was against Denmark in 1864. The second was against the long-standing great power of Central Europe, Austria, in 1866- defeated, to the surprise of nearly everyone, in just six weeks! Finally, in 1870, he maneuvered the leader of another Great Power, Emperor Napoleon III of France, into declaring war on Prussia (hence the Franco-Prussian War). Doing so made it possible to unite the German states (all conquered and exploited by France and the first Napoleon earlier in the century). In short order, Napoleon was captured and driven into exile; France (despite Bismarck's warning) was made to give up two key border provinces (Alsace and Lorraine); and, on Jan. 18, 1871, the "German Empire" was proclaimed, right in the symbolic heart of France- in the Palace of Versailles, in Louis XIV's Hall of Mirrors. King Wilhelm of Prussia became Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany, and in March Bismarck became the first Chancellor of Germany. The new German army stayed in France until a colossal reparations payment was made to Germany (5 billion francs in gold), in Sept. 1873.

Enthusiastically (though briefly), German-Americans everywhere celebrated this moment of national pride. Bismarck had achieved a long-term dream of many Germans- in a very short time, and at relatively little cost. Ironically it was partly Bismarck's fault that such a big wave of immigrants to America happened soon afterward (the biggest ever). One factor was spectacular industrialization after the unification- which displaced many poor farmers and workers whose craft skills were no longer relevant. The way that Bismarck added to the wave was by trying to repress two powerful groups: the Catholic Church and the Socialist Party, which represented the rapidly growing ranks of industrial workers. Crossing to America

was also cheaper and quicker than ever (an average of just 2 weeks). Over 718,000 did so overall between 1871-1880 (including Jews). Another big component came from Russia, where Germans had been invited to farm in present Ukraine in the late 1700's. In the early 1870's their privileges were withdrawn (which also meant their young men were eligible for mandatory military service), and 100,000 "Russian Germans" came to the U.S. (mostly settling on the last "frontier" in the Lower 48, in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Kansas). The wave coincided with overall economic hard times for both Germans and Americans (in the U.S. known as the "Panic of 1873"). By 1875, a third of the population of New York City (then only Manhattan) was first- or second-generation German! A particular source of pride was the building of the massive and revolutionary Brooklyn Bridge, by the Roeblings (immigrant John, first-generation Washington, and Washington's wife Emily), which opened to great fanfare in May 1883. The Germania Orchestra of Philadelphia played at Pres. Grover Cleveland's inaugural ball in 1885.

This giant wave of new arrivals dramatically expanded the German community and reinvigorated its cultural institutions, just as the earlier arrivals of the 1830's-'50s were becoming more Americanized. The first sign was the "golden age" of beer gardens (alongside target shooting clubs, the Turner fitness clubs, and singing societies). At this point, in the 1870's, beer did not preserve well, and so there needed to be many breweries with the gardens located close by (there were also "tied houses," as in Milwaukee, bars or pubs with exclusive contracts with a nearby brewer). These gardens were so much more than just an open area with food and drink. They were complexes, often with bowling alleys, concert halls, pavilions, and fountains. By the late 1880's, as amusement park features such as roller coasters and other rides evolved, they would be included too. The gardens could also be an escape from town, such as the Pabst Whitefish Bay Resort on Lake Michigan outside Milwaukee. The most familiar name to modern readers would be Adolphus Busch's Busch Gardens; the original, founded in 1906, was in Pasadena, California. It was not a beer garden, but rather a lush and elaborately decorated garden open to the public (it would later be used for location shoots for many classic movies, including "Gone with the Wind"!). That one went under in the Depression, and there were other, commercial versions, elsewhere in California and in Florida and Texas before the current incarnation opened in Williamsburg, Virginia (in 1975). While each park adapted to the changing times (today's have more focus on rides, and on a set of European "themes," while somewhat less on marketing beer!), all have played host to millions, and the broad idea of a wide-ranging cultural and entertainment experience for the whole family has endured.

Adolphus Busch, 1839-1913 (Public Domain, date & photographer unknown).

Major changes in brewing took place with two new beer processes from 1878 on: pasteurization and refrigeration. Pasteurization, whereby beer is heated to between 131-140 degrees F., was patented by French scientist Louis Pasteur in 1873. It dramatically increased the shelf life for beer while not hurting the flavor. As for refrigeration, at first for cooling brewers had had to store the beer in caves (as in St. Louis), or they had to get ice in the winter months, cut out of nearby lakes, and store it. Again it was a European (a German) who came up with, also in 1873, mechanical refrigeration (using ether, which would be replaced by ammonia and later other substances). American brewers extended the innovation by using refrigerated railroad cars (as had just been introduced for shipping meat). And high-quality yeast was brought to Milwaukee from Copenhagen in 1883. All of a sudden, beer, without a loss in quality, could be shipped throughout the entire nation! Production soared; the largest breweries were producing over a million barrels a year each by 1900. Shrewd marketing continued, such as Pabst's sponsoring of the giant reunion of Union veterans (the Grand Army of the Republic) in 1889, and the brewers fully embraced the new

techniques of mass advertising ("Schlitz: the beer that made Milwaukee famous").

The consequence of all these changes was consolidation of the industry: fewer and fewer big producers (down to only nine in Milwaukee by 1885). Now, at the summit of the German-American community, sat the top brewers, such as Ehret and Ruppert in New York,

Lemp and Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis, and Schlitz and Pabst in Milwaukee, who became the ultra-rich "beer barons." While they weren't as wealthy, or quite as well known, as the Big Names of the Gilded Age (John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan), they, in the era of no income tax, were very rich indeed. For example, Jacob Ruppert, Sr. built a Fifth Avenue mansion, right alongside the Vanderbilts and Carnegie in Midtown Manhattan, and had an "impressive stable" of thoroughbreds on his country estate. Adolphus Busch built the 22-story Hotel Adolphus in Dallas, at the time the tallest building in Texas! Christian Heurich built a showpiece mansion in Washington, D.C., with the latest home fittings (metal speaking tubes, electric lights, and burglar alarms- it's now a museum). Publisher (of German books and periodicals) George Brumder built an 8-story headquarters in downtown Milwaukee, topped by a three-ton statue of "Germania" as a woman! The list goes on. The barons even had their own favorite luxury restaurant, Luchow's in Manhattan, right across the street from the showroom and concert hall (the predecessor to Carnegie Hall) of William Steinway, the German-American piano millionaire (who built his own workers' town in Queens).

Interior of one of rooms of Luchow's Restaurant, Manhattan, c. 1890's (named for Wagner's Nibelungen opera cycle)

Where else did all this beer money go? One of the most notable cases came from 3rd-generation Jacob Ruppert, Jr.'s interest in baseball, the dominant American sport of the late 1800's and early 1900's. After unsuccessfully shopping for more successful teams, he and a partner bought the struggling New York Yankees in 1915. His deep pockets helped in one of the most famous (or infamous!) sports deals of all time: acquiring one of the greatest hitters in history, George Herman "Babe" Ruth (a 2nd-generation German-American) from the Boston Red Sox in 1919, which in turn helped make the Yankees into one of the most notable sports "dynasties" ever (adding another German-American, Lou Gehrig, was a plus too!). (Another baseball connection- Cincinnati's original pro team was expelled from the National Baseball League in 1881 for selling beer in its stadium; it temporarily formed its own league, mostly with other teams from German-dominated cities, and kept selling!).

But the beer barons were also, again like the more famous Carnegie, notable philanthropists. Schlitz and Pabst built grand theaters in Milwaukee; Busch gave large gifts for those made homeless by the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, and to Harvard and his hometown Washington University (whose oldest present building is Busch Hall, not to be confused with the Anheuser-Busch Hall of the 1990's!). And donations by all of the German-American community helped to create the majority of today's symphony orchestras, and New York's Metropolitan Opera.

As the 19th century was coming to a close, German-Americans had a unique place within American society: the largest non-English European minority, and one that was increasingly prosperous and certainly assimilating (with full commitment to democratic values). Yet on the whole they had retained their language (including a lively press), and a wide variety of their customs. Tens of thousands turned out for "German Days" each year in the big cities (the procession in one case stretched for 8 miles!). Their culture was generally admired; indeed a quarter of all American students studied German.

But, by the 1890s, and even more so in the years leading up to the First World War in 1914, there were some dark clouds growing on this subculture's horizon, especially the rapid growth of the national movement to ban alcohol, a direct threat to the beer barons. Another major factor, in terms of American perceptions of Germans in general, was the emergence after 1888 of Kaiser Wilhelm II, whose belligerent and erratic foreign policy would destabilize the century-long (relative) peace in Europe, culminating in the Great War. The story of what came next for German-Americans in the early 20th century, including their outright persecution and cultural suppression, will be the topic of my next post!

Resources:

Dobbert, G.A. "German-Americans Between New and Old Fatherland, 1870-1914," American Quarterly Vol. 19 No. 4 (Winter 1967), pp. 673-680.

Hagedorn, Hermann. "The Hyphenated Family." (1960) Memoir of a first-generation German-American, who grew up to befriend Teddy Roosevelt and to write his biography.

Knoelsedler, William. "Bitter Brew." (2012) The story of Anheuser-Busch.

Ogle, Maureen. "Ambitious Brew: A History of American Beer." (2019)

Ziegler-McPherson, Christina. "The Great Disappearing Act: Germans in New York City, 1880-1930." (2021)