German Emigration to the United States in the 1800s

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Of all the nations of Western Europe, Germany played the greatest role in the peopling of the United States. Even in colonial times Germans constituted the largest non-English-speaking group of settlers. Over the years the numbers of Germans crossing the Atlantic in search of new homes, new opportunities, and new freedoms steadily increased, most dramatically in the years between 1820 and 1910, when nearly five and a half million arrived. Even today, German is America’s largest ancestry group. According to the Census Bureau, nearly 50 million Americans claim German ancestry. Their numbers beat Irish, African, English, Mexican and Italian Americans and made up around 17% of the total American population in 2009.

 

Figure 5 shows that most of the German newcomers in the 1800s settled in the North Central states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North and South Dakota and Wisconsin.

 

German farmers provided a sizable and stable rural population; German cultural societies and institutions such as the musical groups called Liederkranz, the Turnverein, and the Free Thinkers flourished in many communities.

 

Although it is popularly believed that the political upheavals of 1848 were primarily responsible for a large part of this German mass migration, the situation was historically more complex. Until the latter part of the nineteenth century there was no such country as "Germany". Instead, hundreds of small administrative units existed, controlled in a feudalistic manner by a hierarchy of princes, grand dukes, dukes, margraves, abbots, electors, barons, and counts. By 1815 these units had been consolidated into some thirty different states, either voluntarily, or through the aggression of the more powerful states such as Prussia. But all were mere political arrangements: religion, language, types of agriculture, cultural and architectural traditions, and forms of government differed from region to region.

 

For centuries the social system of the Germanic regions remained feudalistic and unchanging. Farmers were virtually serfs of their overlords; artisans abided by the ancient regulations of the medieval crafts guilds. So regimented was life that each type of agricultural worker, each type of artisan from each region, province, or state could be readily distinguished by his distinctive dress, made of homespun materials and dyed by hand. It was a world aptly described by the old saying, “Everybody in his place and a place for everybody.”

 

The French Revolution, with its liberating ideals, abolished this rigid system altogether and led to changes which set the stage for the eventual migrations. Agricultural reforms, industrialization, the rise of capitalism, a 38 per cent increase in the birth rate, a disastrous potato blight and other crop failures in the period between 1846 and 1853 all conspired to produce an army of dispossessed farmers. Artisans, displaced by factory workers, roamed the countryside in search of employment. To such people America did indeed seem the land of hope and shining promise.

 

German emigration to the United States started during colonial times.  But there were three major waves of emigration that contributed to the largest immigrant group the country has ever seen. The first, which came mainly from southwestern Germany in the years 1845-1855, consisted of 939,149 men, women, and children, 97 per cent of whom came from the states of Nassau, Hesse, the Rhineland, Pfalz, Baden, Wurttemberg, or Bavaria, areas in which the plight of small, inefficient, overpopulated and often mortgaged farms threatened by repeated crop failures and the potato blight made calamity a certainty. (Zeitlin)

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The Schmidt brothers and the Schwab family were part of this first wave of German emigration.  Their exact reasons for leaving Germany are not known. The possible reasons are many. Overpopulation, a weak economy, poor agricultural harvests, and manufacturing competition from a more industrialized England created a difficult economic environment for most Germans. Germany’s home industries were suffering. Furthermore, its feudal system of government made it more difficult to overcome these challenges. 

 

Germany also had some very strict military conscription policies. Young men were forced to serve in the German army for as long as five years for very little pay. The Schmidt brothers were of military age when they emigrated. The German people were also taxed heavily to support the military. 

 

In Indiana, German immigrants settled first in the southern part of the state. The immigration pattern gradually progressed northward. Often, new German immigrants followed family members or friends who had previously come to Indiana. So far, no evidence has been found that this was the case for William and Philip Schmidt. Some German immigrants first settled elsewhere before coming to Indiana. Cincinnati in particular was a popular first stop for German immigrants. In fact, the Schmidt brothers first settled east of Cincinnati in the town of Chillicothe, Ohio. Figure 6 is German made map from 1858 showing the routes many German immigrants were taking to the New World. Figure 7 is a closer view of the midwest section of that map. In it one can see Chillicothe clearly marked in southern Ohio as a destination for German immigrants. 

 

In just a short few years, William left Chillicothe for central Indiana. According to Giles R. Hoyt, in Peopling Indiana: The Ethnic Experience, “Migration, particularly from Ohio, was vitally important in bringing German immigrants into southern and eventually central Indiana. To some extent settlement of southern and southeastern Indiana is a byproduct of the growth of Cincinnati, which was certainly the major starting point for the majority of early German pioneers into Indiana.”

 

Although a flow of emigrants continued, the second wave did not break until ten years later, when 1,066,333 people reached the United States between 1865 and 1873. Most of these came from northwestern Germany, specifically from the states of Sehleswig-Holstein, Ost Fnesland, Hanover, Oldenburg, and Westphaha, an area of prosperous middle-sized grain farms. Beginning in the 1850's the influx of cheap American wheat had begun to depress the world market to such an extent that by 1865, with the American Civil War over and with a prospect of a continuing decline in grain prices, many owners of moderately sized farms, fearing foreclosure, decided to sell out while they could and depart for America with enough cash to begin anew. In addition, the area's industrial centers were filled with unemployed former agricultural workers anxious to build a new life abroad. The vast majority of the emigrants, according to one historian, came from the lower-middle economic strata: "people who had a little and had an appetite for more "

 

The third tide of German emigrants began in 1880, coinciding with the beginning of the great influx of southern and eastern Europeans. Of the 1,849,056 persons involved in this migration, which lasted until 1893, the vast majority came from northeastern Germany, an area dominated by Prussia but including the states of Pomerania, Upper Silesia, and Mecklenburg. This was the domain of the Prussian aristocracy or Junker class which had led the progressive unification and industrialization of the region while swallowing up 21,000 peasant holdings between 1816 and 1859, thus, in the name of "consolidation," creating a land-less agricultural proletariat whose only recourse lay in departure.

 

Fortunately for those leaving Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century, many of the vicissitudes that had plagued earlier emigrants had been eased. Steam and sailboat service to major ports had been regularized, and the terrors of confronting an unknown land had been reduced by floods of information about America in newspapers, travel books, immigration guides, and promotional tracts. More importantly, improved postal services brought the reassurance of glowing letters from friends and relatives already established in the New World.

 

But even so, the human costs involved in the decision to emigrate remained high and departure scenes were usually heart-rending, as many German immigrants to Wisconsin were to testify. A member of the Schuette family, who departed Germany for Manitowoc County, WI in 1848, wrote: "The neighbors and friends were on hand to say a last farewell and tears flowed in profusion (since) anyone leaving for America was considered about to pass into eternity." Sometimes bitterness towards those "deserting" the homeland split families apart, and on occasion the separation proved too much for those left behind. Jacob Eifler of Sheboygan recalled that his grandfather "passed away from grief and heartache" two years after members of his family set sail for the United States.

 

For many, the passage across the Atlantic was the longest voyage of their lives. Some had never been out of their native districts. Almost always they viewed the harbor scene with wonderment and awe. One Schuette family member described Bremen, one of the principal ports of departure: "On arrival at this seaport we saw for the first time what we had longed to see, ships of all nations, in all colors, with symbolic figureheads and majestic spars - oh how different from our inland town! What a grand and enchanting picture!" (Zeitlin)

 

Up until the 1850s, most emigrants traveled on sailing ships, with an average voyage lasting 43 days. Steamships, which made sailing ships obsolete by the end of the 1870s, shortened the voyage to 12-14 days. Steamships began replacing sailing ships as early as 1850, although some emigrants continued to choose sailing ships for nearly thirty years because of their cheaper fares. The last sailing ship left Hamburg in 1879.

 

Judging by their diaries, reminiscences, and letters, most immigrants seem to have had similar shipboard experiences - poor food, seasickness, deaths, births, disease, crowded sleeping quarters, joys, sorrows, and hopes. Generally they carried foodstuffs along with their scanty possessions. One German traveler advised bringing zwieback, dried meat, and prunes, as well as vinegar "which will be useful aboard ship to mix with the ill smelling drinking water." Even so, meals were monotonous, sometimes insufficient, and often badly prepared.

 

Boredom and seasickness were the two most common complaints. Forty-four-year-old Johann Diederiehs, bound from Elberfeld to Manitowoc with his wife and four children in 1841, wrote in his diary: "Only a few days at sea and how bored we are with life on a ship." On September 23 he noted: "Seasickness in full swing, and it is amusing to see how big strong men writhe and choke and roar.”

 

Storms added an element of danger, as well as intensifying the pervading seasickness. Of one such storm Diederichs wrote in his diary: "Saturday 9 October: Doleful awakening or rather doleful waking, for there was no thought of sleep since the spirit was too agitated over shattered hopes. Stormy southwest winds have met we, the sea is running high, a sail has been torn by the force of the gale, and now we are drifting, the Lord knows how long. I am completely downcast from the long duration of the journey."

 

But the transatlantic crossing was not all suffering and dogged endurance. Shipboard friendships blossomed, and since the majority of the passengers were young, on warm nights there was much socializing on deck and the singing of folk songs. A never-to-be-forgotten thrill was the first sight of the shores of their new home, heightened by the knowledge that the initial and most trying stage of their voyage was ended. Commonly, arrival in New York proved a shock as an army of con men and fraudulent agents of all types descended on the newcomers, some offering to sell Wisconsin "farmlands" on the spot. "One must guard against dealing with . . . others in New York," Diederichs noted in his diary.

 

By far the most effective stimuli to German immigration were the unsolicited testimonials of recently arrived settlers. Immigrants wrote back to their friends, relatives, and neighbors in the Old Country, describing their new lives in America. This was information to be trusted and acted upon. From his new home in Waukesha County, J. K. Meidenbauer wrote to his sister in Germany in 1849: "You will next ask: is it really good in America...? and I can give you the answer, from my full conviction . . . Yes, it is really good here. I would advise my sister Barbara to come over with her intended for she can do better than in Germany. There are no dues, no titles here, no taxes . . . no (mounted) police, no beggars.” (Zeitlin)