History
Germany was a divided country for most of the 19th century. One hundred and eight states consolidated to some thirty Germanic states, the most prominent being Prussia, which were governed in a feudal manner. Revolutions throughout the mid 1800s in these States created great turmoil and so desire to leave. The people’s desire for freedom and democracy rather than autocracy drove the revolution on as well as convinced emigrants that rather than risk lives in a revolution to instead go where there was already freedom in the New World. This political tension was one reason some Germans desired to depart from their home country, though not the prime reason. The largest wave of emigration was from 1846 to 1853 when a potato famine struck and left farmers with little option but to leave. Artisans too left, having lost their livelihood in the rise of factories.
The next part of the journey is usually forgotten, particularly in literature. Emigrants wrote about their experiences in the home country and immigrants wrote about how they adjusted to life in America. Little however is written about the journey in between. Germans departed for the New World by ship from the port of Bremen. As hard as the decision to leave home is, the hardest part was literally the journey. The ships would be at sea for weeks if immigrants were lucky, and months if they weren’t. Most Germans traveled in steerage like conditions beneath the deck of the boat, with few chances to walk in the sunlight during the voyage. Storms would shake the boat and turbulent waters made for a bumpy ride full of sea sickness. Food was essentially the same nightly: fish and other non-perishables brought aboard.
The worst case of all was disease that could be contracted while aboard the ship. Some immigrants died from pneumonia before even reaching the New World. Any contagious disease of any kind, such as smallpox or measles would earn the contaminated a one-way ticket back to Europe if found at Castle Garden (the precursor to Ellis Island, not built till 1892). Knowing such a risk lied ahead would have made the decision to go difficult for immigrants.
Arrival in the United States seems very well to have been worth the risk. Germantown, established in 17th century Pennsylvania, was the first German-Speaking American society to be deliberately created. The English considered these people, made up of German Quakers, Amish, Moravians and Brethren (Dunkers) (to name a few), as Pennsylvania Dutch. After the Revolution, when America had its independence, Germans continued to flourish, mostly in the Northwestern states, spreading to the west to states like North and south Dakota and Ohio. The German Americans, (whose biggest flood of immigration came circa 1850) had good fortune in their assimilation. This was thanks to the fact that upon arrival they did indeed have some education and capital. This lead to greater opportunity, as these immigrants could survive in a place such as New York. In addition to working in shops, German American immigrants were able to own shops and breweries. Breweries and lager beer (bier) were a large part of the German American acceptance and assimilation in North America. As generations were born in the United States, they lost sight of their German culture in favor of partaking in the American culture they now inhabited.
