Some eight million German immigrants have entered the United States since that point. Immigration continued in substantial numbers during the 19th century ; the largest number of arrivals moved —, when Germans formed the largest group of immigrants coming to the U. California and Pennsylvania have the largest populations of German origin, with more than six million German Americans residing in the two states. Americans of German descent live in nearly every American county, from the East Coast, where the first German settlers arrived in the 17th century, to the West Coast and in all the states in. German Americans and those Germans who settled in the U. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources.
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Tobias Buck. Report a mispronounced word. Below a Berlin street, behind a succession of thick steel doors, lies a storage room the size of a basketball court. Robert Muschalla, a curator at the museum, walks me to a metal shelf at the back of the room stuffed with piggy banks and money boxes. The oldest is almost years old but most date from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As Muschalla, a year-old economic historian, lifts them up with white-gloved hands, I notice how many of them are decorated with images of a beehive, that ancient symbol of order and prudence. Another thing jumps out: most of these everyday objects are engraved with rhymes and epigrams that point to a purpose far beyond the humble collection of coins and notes. I have come to the museum to answer a question that has vexed me, and much of the world, for many years: why is saving so important to Germans? It is a question that has exasperated policymakers in Washington and traumatised pensioners in Athens. During the years of the eurozone crisis, complaints over German austerity and German surpluses became commonplace. Governments across southern Europe were forced to impose harsh budget cuts in a frantic bid to bring their wayward deficits into line, and fend off the hounds of the global bond market. The economic picture was as dire as it was complex, but on the street the finger of blame often simply pointed north: to those tight-fisted Germans and their cruel obsession with fiscal discipline and budget austerity.
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Most Germans would reject that accusation, but the notion that austerity — whether in private or in government — is something specifically German is widely shared here as well. It is a country that takes pride in the solidity of its public finances, in balanced budgets and high savings rates, in the fact that society as a whole knows how to delay gratification, tighten its belt and wait for jam tomorrow. More often than not, the habit is acquired young.
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Commemorating the founding of Germantown, Pa. As President Barack Obama proclaimed a few years ago on this occasion, » Our citizens of German descent excel in every discipline and open our minds to the expanses of human possibility. When we drive across a suspension bridge, listen to music played on a Steinway piano, or send a child to kindergarten, their unique traditions and customs surround us. So why are there so many German-Americans in the United States anyway? A slow but steady stream of Germans immigrated to the U. It all started with that fateful day in October:. On October 6, , thirteen Quaker families from Krefeld arrived in Philadelphia. From the outset, their settlement on the northern outskirts of Philadelphia was called Germantown. From then on, the tolerant Quaker colony of Pennsylvania served as a beachhead for the immigration of pietistic and other Protestant minorities, notably dissidents of the Reformed and Lutheran persuasion.
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The rise of Nazism, as Luebke notes, ‘transformed German ethnicity in America into a source of social and psychological discomfort, if not distress. The resulting lack of a unified and clearly definable German-American community explains in part why only few Americans, including those of German descent, have any idea when Steuben Day or German-American Day falls, whereas the Irish St. The Lutherans were split. Arthur Preuss — was a leading journalist, and theologian.
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With an estimated size of approximately 44 million inGerman Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the US Census Bureau in its American Community Survey. None of the German states had American colonies.
In the s, the first significant groups of German immigrants arrived in the British coloniessettling primarily in PennsylvaniaNew Yorkand Virginia. Immigration continued in very large numbers during the 19th century, with eight million arrivals from Germany. Between and more than seven and a half million German immigrants came to the United States. Bytheir population grew to There is a «German belt» that extends all the way across the United States, from eastern Pennsylvania to the Oregon coast.
Pennsylvania has the largest population of German-Americans in the U. The state of Pennsylvania has 3. They were pulled by the attractions of land and religious freedom, and pushed out of Germany by shortages of land and religious or political oppression. The arrivals before were mostly farmers who sought out the most productive land, where their intensive farming techniques ameticans pay off. Aftermany came to cities, where «Germania»—German-speaking districts—soon emerged.
German Americans established the first kindergartens wht the United States, [13] introduced the Christmas tree tradition, [14] [15] and introduced popular foods such as hot dogs and hamburgers to America. German-American societies mmake, as do celebrations that are held throughout the country to celebrate German heritage of which the German-American Steuben Parade in New York City is one of the most well-known and is held every third Saturday in September.
Oktoberfest celebrations and the German-American Day are popular festivities. The Germans included many quite distinct subgroups with differing religious and cultural values. The first English settlers arrived at Jamestown, Virginia inand were accompanied by the first German American, Dr. Johannes Fleischer. Doijg was followed in by five glassmakers and three carpenters or house builders. Large numbers of Germans migrated from dokng s to s, with Pennsylvania the favored destination.
They migrated to Wgat for a variety of reasons. Often immigrants paid ferman their passage by selling their labor for a period of years as indentured servants. Most were Lutheran or German Reformed ; many belonged to small religious sects such as the Moravians and Mennonites. German Catholics did not arrive in number until after the War of InProtestant Germans from the Pfalz or Palatine region of Germany escaped conditions of poverty, traveling first to Rotterdam and then to London.
Anne, Queen of Great Britainhelped them germaj to her gedman in America. The trip was long and difficult to survive because of the poor quality of food and water aboard ships and the infectious disease typhus.
Many immigrants, particularly children, died before reaching America in June The Palatine immigration of about people who survived was the largest single immigration to America in the colonial period. Most were first settled along the Hudson River in work camps, to pay off their passage. Byseven villages had been established in New York on the Robert Livingston manor. One hundred homesteads were allocated in the Burnetsfield Patent.
The soil was excellent; some houses were built, mostly of stone, and the region prospered in a,ericans of Indian raids. Herkimer was dking best-known of the German settlements in a region long known as the «German Flats». They kept to themselves, married grman own, spoke German, attended Lutheran churches, and retained their own customs and foods. They emphasized farm ownership. Some mastered English to become conversant with local legal and business opportunities. They tolerated slavery although few were rich xmericans to americabs a slave.
A maoe immigrant, John Jacob Astorwho came from Baden after the Revolutionary War, became the richest man in America from his fur trading empire and real estate investments in New York. John Law organized the first colonization of Louisiana with German immigrants.
Of the over 5, Germans initially immigrating primarily from the Alsace Region as few as made up the first wave of immigrants to koney France en route to the Americas. Less than of those first indentured German farmers made it to Louisiana and settled along what became known as the German Coast. Whzt tenacity, determination and the leadership of D’arensburg mzke Germans felled trees, cleared land, and cultivated the soil with simple hand tools as draft animals were not available.
The German coast settlers supplied the budding City of New Orleans with corn, rice, eggs. It encouraged Germans, particularly Germans of the Alsatian region who had recently fallen under French rule, and the Swiss to immigrate. Alsace was sold to France within the greater context of the Thirty Years’ War — His letter said «these 9, Germans, who were raised ameridans the Palatinate Alsace ameicans of France were in Arkansas. The Germans left Arkansas en masse. They went to New Orleans and demanded passage to Europe.
The area is now known as ‘the German Coast’. They were attracted to the area through pamphlets such as J. Two waves of German colonists in and mony a large colony in Virginia called Germanna[30] located near modern-day Culpeper, Virginia. Virginia Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswoodtaking advantage of the headright systemhad bought land dis present-day Spotsylvania and encouraged German immigration by advertising in Germany for miners to move to Virginia and establish a mining industry in the colony.
The name «Germanna», selected by Governor Alexander Spotswoodreflected both the German immigrants who sailed across the Atlantic to Virginia and the British Queen, Annewho was in power at the time of the first settlement at Germanna.
They established German settlements on that americqns, especially in the area around what is now Winston-Salem.
Soon after, the German Moravians founded the town of Germah in now a historical section in the center of Winston-Salem and Salem College an early female college in Simon’s Island and Fort Frederica in the s and s. They were actively recruited what did german americans make money doing James Oglethorpe and quickly distinguished themselves through improved farming, advanced tabby cement -construction, and leading joint Lutheran- Anglican -Reformed religious services for the colonists.
German immigrants also settled in other areas of the American South, including around the Dutch Deutsch Fork area of South Carolina[25] and Texas gegman, especially in the Austin area. Many of the colonists fled to BostonMaineNova Xoingand North Carolina after their houses were burned and their neighbors killed or carried into captivity by Native Americans.
The Germans who remained found it difficult to survive on farming, and eventually turned to the shipping and fishing industries. The tide of German immigration to Pennsylvania swelled between andwith immigrants arriving as redemptioners or indentured servants. ByGermans constituted about one-third of the population of the state. German farmers were renowned for their highly productive animal husbandry and agricultural practices.
Politically, they were generally inactive untilwhen they joined a Quaker -led coalition that took control of the legislature, which later supported the American Revolution. Despite this, many of the German settlers were loyalists during the Revolution, possibly because they feared their royal land grants would be taken away by a new republican government, or sid of loyalty to a British German monarchy who had provided the opportunity to live in a liberal society.
Collectively, they came to be ameticans as the Pennsylvania Dutch from Deutsch. Etymologically, the word Dutch originates from the Old High German word «diutisc» from «diot» «people»referring to the Germanic «language of the people» as opposed to Latin, coing language of the learned see also theodiscus.
Eventually the word came to refer to people who speak a Germanic language, and only in the last couple centuries the people of the Netherlands. There were ahat German Catholics in Pennsylvania before the s. The Studebaker brothers, forefathers of the wagon and automobile makers, arrived in Pennsylvania in from the famous blade town of Solingen. With their skills, they made wagons that carried the frontiersmen westward; their cannons provided the Union Army with artillery in the American Civil Warand their automobile company became one of the largest in America, although never eclipsing the «Big Three», and was a factor in the war effort and in the industrial foundations of the Army.
From names in the U. Many were captured; they remained as prisoners during the war but some stayed and became U. The religious minorities were neutral. The Lutherans were split. In New York, many were neutral or supported the Loyalist cause. In Pennsylvania most were on the patriot. Henry Muhlenberg was especially mak on the Patriot. The brief Fries’s Rebellion was an anti-tax movement among Germans in Pennsylvania in Amercans tothey were the largest group of immigrants.
Following the Revolutions of in the German statesa wave of political refugees fled to America, who became known as Forty-Eighters. They included professionals, journalists, and politicians.
A prominent representative of this generation of immigrants was Gustav Koerner who lived most of the time in Belleville, Illinois until his death. A few German Jews came in the colonial era. The largest numbers arrived afterespecially in the midth century.
They formed small German-Jewish communities in cities and towns. They typically were local and regional merchants selling clothing; others were livestock dealers, agricultural commodity traders, bankers, and operators of local businesses.
Henry Lehmanwho founded Lehman Brothers in Alabama, was a particularly prominent example of such a German-Jewish immigrant. They formed Reform synagogues [48] and sponsored numerous local and national philanthropic organizations, such as B’nai B’rith. The port cities of New Yorkand Baltimore had voing populations.
As did Hoboken, New Jersey. The Midwestern cities of MilwaukeeCincinnatiSt. LouisChicago were favored destinations of German immigrants. Many concentrations acquired distinctive names suggesting their heritage, such as the » Over-the-Rhine » district in Cincinnati, » Dutchtown » in South St Louis, and » German Village » in Columbus, Ohio. A favorite destination was Milwaukeeknown as «the German Athens «. Radical Germans trained in politics in the old country dominated the city’s Socialists.
Skilled workers dominated many crafts, while entrepreneurs created the brewing geman the most wmericans brands included PabstSchlitzMillerand Blatz. Whereas half of German immigrants settled in cities, the other half established farms in the Midwest.
Monney Siegel. Art Silverman. This week marks the centennial of U.
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On the American home front, it made this country less culturally German. Today, when the question of loyalty of immigrants has again become contentious, what happened a century ago has special relevance. World War I inspired an outbreak of nativism and xenophobia that targeted German immigrants, Americans of German descent and even the German language. German-born Robert Prager was lynched in Collinsville, Ill. Courtesy of Jeffrey Manuel hide caption. It was a remarkable reversal of fortune. Germans were the largest non-English-speaking minority group in the U.
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