The Southwest German Immigrant Experience in 19th-Century Wisconsin

all right it is exactly 12 noon here in the united states but in the early evening or mid-evening in germany and i'm very very pleased to welcome an old friend of the moxcata institute capital f friend and also a lowercase friend of institute dr habil helmut small who is uh born and raised and living and coming to us this evening this afternoon and evening from outside located in the heart of southwestern germany dr shmal as i say is from outside which is located in the region of rain hessen he has spent his entire academic career in terms of his training at the university of mainz which is located not that far from outside he has not one but two degrees two dissertations that he completed there the first for his first phd was completed in 1999 and the topic of his dissertation was translated into english transplanted but not uprooted the migration from hessen darmstadt to wisconsin in the 19th century and then four years later he completed his second phd which is described in german as a habilitation again the title of his uh his book that i will also translate into english city upon a hill or land of the humbug american exceptionalism from the german perspective 1700 to 1850. and dr shmall is really one of the leading ex historians of 19th century immigration uh from germany to or central german-speaking central europe to north america he continues his affiliation at the university of mainz as a a an instructor a lecturer there but he's also a senior teacher at the gymnasium the college preparatory high school at the ruma castel which is located in his hometown of alzai and so i'm very very pleased to welcome helmut today i'm very excited that so many people are able to join us on zoom today for this second of our zoom presentations from the moxcata institute the title of helmut's presentation which will be supported by powerpoint slides in a moment is thousands of rhine hessians are living here the southwest german immigrant experience in 19th century wisconsin and with that i turned the floor over to dr shma okay thank you mark yeah good afternoon or good evening wherever you are in the world i'm sure there are also a couple of listeners from germany among us right now um thanks for having you having me with you it's my first video conference and of course my first zoom conference as well therefore i'm quite excited and i hope i will i won't mess up things i am really looking forward to also talking or answering some questions later on but let me first share you some thoughts about the life of 19th century southwest german immigrants to wisconsin in 1817 johannes nip the mayor of neither sideline near mainz encountered a long track of immigrant families passing through his village this scene moved him so much that in the following night he dreamt that he was relocated to an unknown land near wandered around and finally came to a signpost with names of places he knew well mannheim oppenheim mainz darmstadt and alsai nate was flabbergasted there were no hills with vineyards in the area the landscape was not dotted with small villages and there was no side of the majestic river rhine just white tracts of uncultivated land soon afterwards nape met a man who introduced himself as the justice of the peace of oppenheim on the ohio river in florence german he told nape that many immigrants from reinhessen had settled in the area and that they were living there happily the stranger invited nate to stay and nib fund of the idea wanted to shake hands with him however he hit the bad post and woke up nape's story which was published in 1821 under the title neue deutschland in america had a basis in fact since the late 1600s people from his area in southwest germany more precisely the northern part of the old palatinate later known as reinhessen had emigrated to eastern europe and north america nip possibly knew that there was a place called oppenheimer in the united states it was not on the ohio river however but in the mohawk valley in new york state and had been settled by emigrants from this area a hundred years earlier nape's dream also makes clear that people from reinhesten knew that there were settlements overseas where people from their immediate area clustered and which were a magnet for later emigrants at the time of nib's death in 1843 many villagers from his hometown were on their way to the great lakes area of the united states where they settled in a sparsely populated wilderness called wisconsin in my following presentation i will mainly focus on the province of reinheissen which as i said is the area between warms minds and being on the left side of the rhine i will outline the social economic situation there in the first half of the 19th century then i will explain why wisconsin was so popular among immigrants from the eastern part of reinhessen but not in the rest of the province and how this chain migration started and continued to be stimulated afterwards we are going to cross the atlantic i will focus on areas where the majorities of immigrants from rhein has been clustered the so-called darmstadter settlements in southern washington county and northern sheboygan county and the city of milwaukee i will touch on agriculture and european occupations especially beer brewing and the wine imports business as well as religious and social life and attitudes towards the civil war finally i will illustrate housing communities in their home country benefited from the support of public projects and donations made by the former citizens who had become successful in wisconsin needles was part of reinhessen the smallest of the three provinces of the grand duchy household so tomb of hessen darmstadt situated on the left side of the rhine reinhardt was under french rule between 1797 and 1814 and receded to hessen armstrong in 1816 after the congress of vienna at that time reinhardt's main cities were mainz worms bingen alsai and oppenheim with a mere 531 square miles reinhessen's territory embraced less than half of the size of dane county wisconsin most of its soil is fertile and the mild climate allows the production of wine and grain with the population of 213 in 1840 the province had about 4 400 residents per square mile which at that time made it one of the most densely populated areas in germany as in most parts of central europe population growth had been immense within the previous 25 years the number of orientations had increased by one quarter within one generation which posed severe problems to an agrarian area where it was common practice among peasants to divide up their land in equal shares among their heirs we call this real thailand in germany emigration was regarded by many middle-class families as the only remedy against impoverishment especially after a series of crop failures in the 1840s in 1847 the coolness item a colon newspaper reported that among the numerous families who were leaving ryan heston quote there was not even one which could be considered poor unquote obama who had auctioned his estate for twelve thousand golden or five thousand dollars explained his decision to emigrate with the following words quote you can call me a wealthy man but i have nine children after my death each of them would not even inherit 1500 golden or 600 and they would belong to the porpoise in this country and could not aspire asked to earn as much as to live without sorrow i therefore prefer to go to north america now with the funds i have at my disposition buy a large homestead for my family at a nominal price and thus lay the foundation for a worry-free future for my descendants not only people from neeps neither solemn were caught by wisconsin fever between the early 1840s and the american civil war nearly 2 000 people from christ oppenheim the district of okenheim also choose this part of the united states as their new home in other parts of reinhessen as well as in most parts of southwest germany as i said people preferred other regions of north america and were not that much attracted by wisconsin the next question is why of all places was the bachelor state so popular among people from the oppenheim area the answer is quite simple there was a chain migration process taking place which was typical for many migrations to the midwest and other parts of the united states instrumental in stimulating emigration from rhinestone to wisconsin was franz neuike the nurkish family had lived in gunda's plume near oppenheim for many years franz was a forester in a subordinated position and in constant quarrels with his superior who tried to get rid of him in 1839 he charged neuklesh with having forged documents 43 year old noikish declared he was innocent nonetheless charges were filed against him and since things did not look good for him neukish decided to escape to america immediately after his arrival in new york he went to milwaukee and purchased 80 acres of government land south of the city in the town of franklin despite his hard work he found enough time to write letters home to his wife relatives and friends in which he praised the advantages of life in the forest the soil on his farm was fertile he wrote and the climate healthy game fish and a wide array of berries and fruits offered enough food for the newcomer it was very easy to raise pigs and cows because they did not have to been fed but found their food in the forest neuquiece was very fond of the close contacts he had with his german and anglo-american neighbors schools and churches were built everywhere as well as streets and canals in spite of low wheat prices prospect for agriculture looked very good to noikish and he resumed in his letter to his wife in 1839 quote under these circumstances every poor day laborer who is not needed in germany should come here where most germans have earned enough money to buy their land after a short period as laborers and thus lay and thus have reached an independent and safe existence and crowd noikier's wife filipina made certain that her husband's letters from wisconsin were widely circulated in reinhessen since france still enjoyed a good reputation the mayor of gundersflume and others supported his wife in her efforts when filipina neuquirche and her children joined funds one year later in 1840 five more families from buddhist bloom were also preparing to go to wisconsin as the first reinhesion in the milwaukee area mulcair's advice was sought by many of the immigrants who came in the following year johann schatzel who arrived late in 1840 was disappointed that all the land in north korea's vicinity had been sold in a land office in milwaukee he met valentin phil another reinhessian who told him that government land was still available north of milwaukee in the townships of mequon and germantown and that he and people from the bavarian palatinate just south of renheissen had settled there schetzel and the other gundestrone families took in this wise his advice and purchased land there in the long run noikish was not happy with his life as a latin farmer in 1844 he moved back to milwaukee and took over the brewery of his son-in-law his advice was still in high demand among recent arrivals and one year later the wisconsin banner praised neukkesh as a worthy pioneer of the territory he had not published promotional literature as others had done but his efforts to attract people to settle in wisconsin were the paper wrote no less successful noikish was credited with having quote incited with his truthful letters to wright hessen an almost irresistible wonderlust there thousands of rhine hessians are living here and we have not been aware of even a single case where one of them regretted his decision to come to wisconsin unquote by that time ryan hessels probably numbered less than a thousand people in wisconsin but knowledge had good reason to be proud of his role as colonizer he his brewery flourished and he soon became a wealthy and respected citizen of milwaukee as vice president of the german democratic association of milwaukee norjich was a protagonist of the political interests of the german element in the city he continued to promote immigration to wisconsin especially from his native rendition of christian armstrong as correspondent of the darmstadt-based cir nationally circulated newspaper deutsche austin published between 1847 and 1850 his letters and the count reached a wide audience according to an estimate about 2000 germans came to wisconsin upon his advice this map of reinhessen shows us where the villages were from which the immigrants went to wisconsin you see the red circle around goodness bloom in the vicinity and you see the circle getting bitter bigger that's that's the blue circle then until um until yeah the 1860s and it becomes very clear not the whole province was affected by emigration but just the eastern part of it and noykesh was undisputably the catalyst for immigration from reinhessen to wisconsin however he was not the only one to stimulate it in the year 1842 and 1843 for example the exodus from the village of salzen and its vicinity to washington county was to a large extent due to philip laubenheimer one of the earliest pioneers of the town of richfield and owner of a tavern ensemble there let's talk about settlement patterns of rhinehessians in milwaukee now the 18th census 1860 census manuscripts reveal that hess and armstrongers most of them ryan hessians were scattered in many different counties especially between milwaukee lake winnebago and manitowoc until the outbreak of the civil war there were two major rural dumpsters settlements in eastern wisconsin one in southern washington county just north of milwaukee and a smaller one in northwestern sheboygan county not far from the shores of lake michigan in 1860 about twelve hundred hessen armshedders lived in washington county they were the second largest group of germans after the prussians two-thirds of them mostly from ryan hessen again clustered in the townships of germantown ridgefield polk and jackson you can see that on this plat map here the heads and arm shredders are shaded the shade of the rhinestones can be seen of the hiss and dumpsters can see be seen in the lower left corner you see they were they were not scattered throughout the whole townships but they settled quite a big part of it most immigrants in the dark shadow settlements in washington county came between 1842 and 1848 and when the sale of government land there came to an end the flow of rhinestone immigrants to washington county rapidly diminished instead new arrivals now went 40 miles north to the wilderness of the town ryan in sheboygan county the elkhart lake area where they were joined by families who had previously settled in germantown but had moved on salt and land have come with uh with uh quite a success the the value of the land had really increased a lot since these original settlers had boarded as government land in the 1850s ryan became the new magnet for immigration from reinhessen and it developed into the most solidly reinhesioned township in wisconsin if not in the united states in 1860 ryan hessians and their children accounted for three quarters of the germans in town rhine and half of its population this was unusual in sheboygan county where only one out of five germans came from southern germany with the outbreak of the civil war immigration from wisconsin to wisconsin from reinheisen quickly diminished and as in the rest of wisconsin never reached great levels again let's talk a little bit about accuration for example relationship to other ethnic groups ethnic germans as we have seen were the father dominant group in washington county and the northern half of sheboygan county the darjitta orientation settlement in washington county was surrounded by colonies of pomeranians and reddish russians from the hoonstruck the sugar had already been the neighbors of the reinheigens to the west in germany and the cologne area in washington county german-born and their children constituted about 70 percent of the population in 1860 the town of rhine settlement and de boyne county wins next to group settlements of immigrants from turingan saxony saxony schleswig and the tiny dukedom of lipid detmalt in northwest germany non-german-speaking groups played a numerically marginal role and to a large extent moved out in later years with the exception of the irish the number of americans of german descent in washington county thus rose up to 80 percent by the turn of the century angler americans or yankees were the earliest settlers in the darmstadter settlements and their language and culture were quite different from the germans they were mostly wealthier than the immigrants during the settlement period and like elsewhere both groups held quite a few stereotypes about each other during the settlement process many orientations were dependent on assistance from yankee neighbors johann schetzel in germantown had a cordial relationship with his neighbor from pennsylvania who together with other anglo-americans had helped him raise his log cabin in 1840 he wrote home to germany that his daughter wanted to marry a yankee and that he approved of it because they were also christians and moreover natives of the land scheduled seemed to have been rather an exemption to the rule as more germans poured into the area the interaction of the first days decreased shetzel's younger brother valentine painted the scarving picture of the anglo-american senior he wrote to his father back home in gundersblum quote i have to let you know that an american doesn't have any religion like a european he knows no other holiday than the 4th of july each of his words is accompanied by curses and swears if they can cheat a german out of his money they do so with joy at least they cheat him wherever and however they can unquote when reading german and english newspapers and letters one gets the impression that germans and yankees were living in two different worlds in 1843 e.r woodworth who lived just a few miles away from schetzel wrote a long letter to his relatives in massachusetts he only dedicated one phrase to his german neighbors in this long letter quote there is a great many german dutch come to this territory they seem friendly but not much for society unquote considerable tensions between the german majority and the yankee minority some due to political issues seem to have arisen in washington county during the mid-1850s they culminated in an 1855 lynching case where a mob of rhinehessians and other germans killed george debar a new york born farmhand who had murdered one of their compatriots especially in the darmstadt of settlements there was a strong tendency to enter matrimonial bonds with partners from the same home area well this holds true for most immigrants i guess three out of four reinhesionborn residents in the town of orion who married in the us before 1860 had ryan hessian husbands and wives a few males even traveled back to reinhessen married there and returned with their prides ten years later after the end of the settlement period the situation was different marriages with people from other parts of germany have become more common and the proportion of purely urination couples declined to one-third of our cases remember we must keep in mind these people came not exactly as germans but they came as reinhessians hunswickers eiffel avalos pomeranians or brandenburgers um there was not really a national conscience to be german at the time of arrival and there were also constant uh how should i put it constant quarrels with other uh with emigrants from other parts from germany for example the ryan hessians and the winstreaker they have been neighbors at home hoonsby is just west of reinheisen but in wisconsin in washington county in germantown even though they lived next to each other they built two separate churches in the during the settlement period when this was very difficult to to do but still everyone wanted his own congregation and keep apart even from the old neighbor province in germany agriculture a little bit about agriculture the vast majority of immigrants pursued farming even if they had been artisans in germany there were a lot of differences between farming in germany and wisconsin the most striking was the size of the farm many of the settlers emigrated from the village of seltzen where the average size of a farm in 1817 was a little less than nine acres in 1860 every farmer in washington county from reinheissen owned 70 acres 41 of which were improved this represented about eight times as much land than in the old world in addition there were almost no forest in reinhessen and fire and building would had to be imported from other areas and thus was very expensive hessian immigrants therefore marveled at the prospects offered by the forests on their wisconsin farms the germans of washington county generally enjoyed a good reputation for the diversified farming in 1830 53 john gregory a late land agent from wisconsin milwaukee wrote in a handbook for irish immigrants quote i have seen the truth of this proved in many parts of this state but in no place so fully as in the outskirts of milwaukee where an industrious and skillful german makes more of an acre than the country farmer does of five acres unknown far from being failure periodistic i have to say if this was true there couldn't have been better immigrants than ryan hessians land in the home area was spares and intensively cultivated for grain production the main products being wheat rye barley and oats in many villages especially on the rhine river most family also owned vineyards cattle and other animals were mostly kept for domestic purposes especially in the first years after their arrival in washington county reinhesians like other germans adopted only as much american farming methods as possible as necessary during the self-sufficiency period they attempted to continue to form the german way as much as possible the agricultural census manuscripts reveal that for many years there were considerable differences in production between germans and anglo-americans i will only mention a couple differences wheat was of course king among all ethnic groups rye a much less important cash crop was still the favorite of germans who produce an average of 42 bushels 10 times as much as yankees and irishmen this was due to the fact that rye traditionally was used in germany to bake bread and the immigrants wished to carry on this tradition germans in 1849 also produced twice as much barley as anglo-americans the amount of eight bushels per farm was still small and would expand within the next decades as the demand of the breweries grew ten years later in 1859 there were still considerable differences between germans and yankees in washington county but they were gradually leveling grain farming continued to be the principle occupation of the farmers in washington county and sheboygan county for two decades after 1860 but there were changes on the way as the importance of wisconsin we dwindled on the national and international market day reforming became more prominent first among anglo-americans and soon by other groups the 1860 census reveals that not much cheese and butter was produced in the dark shadow settlements however rhinehessians being the first german settlers there were more acculturated and willing to learn the art of cheese making from their yankee neighbors than the rest of the germans both produced 18 pounds of cheese per year which was not much but twice the german average in sheboygan county the number of cows increased steadily cheese making had become an important source of income for many farmers in the years to come in the town of rhine dairy farming was introduced later but much more intensively the first cheese factory in the town of rhine was started in 1872 by helrish feldman he and his wife learned the manufacturing process from an anglo-american neighbor and many other cheese factories later were also founded in town ryan so much about agriculture let's focus a little bit on religious life farmers were visited people and did not have much time for relaxation churches were the main major centers of religious and social life there were only a few secular clubs or associations for aina in the rural darmstadt of settlements until the end of the 19th century most reinhesians were members of the evangelical church a merger of the reformed and luffin denominations they mostly founded united protestant congregations for einecte evangelii kierschendermainen in wisconsin the earliest of them was saint john's evangelical church in germantown founded in 1843. in germany germantown as in many other places each sizable german group had its own congregation christ church in germantown was known as the hunsrigger creation and in the vicinity of town ryan in sheboygan county people spoke of the damned strategy or schwarzweld when they referred to saint peter emmanuel or st john respectively now in in the current pictures you see two churches one in in washington county one of the reinhegen churches in town jackson and if you compare it to the church in frettenheim in reinhessen you see the buildings are quite similar and one of the most trying resemblances is the rooster on the roof now the rooster on church spice is very common in german me and it also was common in the german settlements in wisconsin particularly in southwest german settlements therefore uh the the ryan hessian church saint peter's in town ryan was also called giggled a rooster church in our local dialect by the people of rhyme to keep it apart from other protestant german churches in other townships in sheboygan county some rhinehessians embraced denominations that were unknown in germany this was important due to the fact that lutheran or reformed ministers were scarce in the rural rural eastern wisconsin until the 1860s another factor was that german-speaking itinerant creatures of other groups were quite active in richfield their work among ryan hessian families was quite successful by the early 1860s three congregations were founded in the rhine-heisen section of town the united protestants or evangelical church the evangelical association a pennsylvania german offspring of methodism and the first presbyterian church of richfield other reinheissen immigrants brought a philosophical heritage that was not approved of by most americans at the time since the mid 1700s and especially since the time of the french revolution many people in germany had outspoken liberal views they questioned traditional creation doctrines and founded the so-called deutsche katowice german catholic church in 1844 ryan hessen was a major center of german catholic activities and congregations were soon found both in cities and in the countryside they increasingly became the forum for people who called for more political freedom and therefore were closely observed by the government and suppressed after the revolution of 1848 had failed sorry takes a moment some german catholic preachers emigrated to wisconsin among them was edward schroeder who had officiated for the congregation in warms he was well known in reinhessen because he held public addresses in many rural locations schroeder became preacher of the freyja mind in milwaukee and was quite active in founding freethinker congregation in wisconsin he also visited the darmshad as settlements and his views found much support among many settlers to whom he was no stranger by the end of 1852 30 congregations had been organized in wisconsin among them were the freimener iron from germantown the freyjage miner the townspoken richfield and the freyjage minder fountain rein most of these congregations however were short-lived and ceased to exist by the mid-1850s because of organizational problems and lack of support by members however many settlers did not join any churches after the decline of the freight commandant some of them openly imposed the foundation of church congregation at their locations a pastor who arrived in the town of rein in 1859 was greeted by a local with the words quote we don't need any fuffin clergy man we are in a free country unquote edward schroeder by the way later was the speaker of the freyja mind of stork city which still exists today he died in 1888 attitude towards the civil war as in the rest of rural wisconsin life in the dark shadow settlement was unspeculated inspector and spectacular in 1881 an observer wrote about the town of polk quote the changes for the past 30 years have been uneventful in mark only the improvement and advancement which have come to the honest and thrifty people who have subdued the forest and made it the happy abode of peace and plenty there was only one event in those 30 years however which influenced the lives of many people it was the civil war many german immigrants were not fond of sending their sons to war after all many young men had left their country to avoid military service in addition most germans in wisconsin sympathize with the democratic party and considered the war lincoln's war in washington county the townships contributed a lot of money for the support of the northern troops but the number of volunteers among german immigrants remained quite low until the end of the war riots even occurred when pressure was exerted upon immigrants by draft commissioners things were somewhat different the germans there influenced by leaders such as the advocate conrad kretz from the palatinid her little south of renheissen were generally not as opposed to the war as reinhessions in washington county soon after the outbreak of hostilities german papers carried appeals to volunteer with the argument that germans as adopted citizens should at least show as much patriotism as the anglo-americans in the county and especially to stir up their nations the chief boy national sheboygan natsuna published a version of the yankee doodle in the pennsylvania german dialect which was quite similar to the vernacular spoken in rhinestone the version of the yankee doodle in the sheboygan national democrat on 7th september 1861 reads as follows so things as follows [Music] is yeah i'm a little bit hoarse today um but i hope you got the impression what pennsylvania german which is sung by reinheim sounds like in contrast to most german immigrants ryan hessian immigrants could understand pennsylvania german because it's really come really comes close to to our dialect mclaughlin tell us much more about it maybe after this presentation well the civil war had pushed accuration of reinheisen immigrants a good deal forward immigrants who served in the war were more than ever aware that they were now part of a nation which it was worth fighting for in 1868 the residents of the town of rhine were praised highly when they erected a war monument a local newspaper wrote the title of ryan has taken the lead in this county in commemorating in marble the patriotism the bravery of the soldiers of that town who gave up their lives in the service of the adopted country during the late war of the rebellion at that time war monuments were still uncommon in rural areas of the united states and germany as a rule but they could frequently be found in winehessen since the 1840s a number of memorials were inaugurated there to commemorate the local soldiers who had fought under napoleon who were still held in high esteem by many veterans this picture shows us the monument for soldiers from the district of verstad which also included quite a few villages that had a strong immigration to wisconsin so the early erection of the town reinward monument it was the second in the state of wisconsin with the names of german anglo-american casualties was not only a patriotic gesture but also the continuation of the old world orientation tradition let's talk about wine nations in milwaukee like other immigrants many orientations spend some time in moak before they purchased farmland others especially craftsmen decided to stay in the city many of them were in close contact with relatives and friends in the darmstadter settlements a young man named philip valdov became aware of this soon after his arrival in the city in 1856 reports that he enjoyed the nightlife of milwaukee maybe a little bit too much soon reached his cousin 50 miles north in his inappropriate behavior was immediately reported to his parents in ulversheim germany who in turn wrote him an admonishing letter the social network of reinhesen's milwaukee also had its good sides many immigrants found work and businesses owned by people from the home district this is especially true for the pioneer brewing business in which rhein haitians played a crucial role most of the early german breweries in the city were run at least for a time by brewers from towns within a 20 mile radius in reinhessen in 1844 phillip best from mettenheim founded a brewery on prairie railroad which under his son-in-law of frederick pabst became the pabsteri one of the nation's giants in the business in 1869 bess took over the south side brewery which from 25 years had been operated by franz neuekersch and his son-in-law c.t mims in 1850 his brother charles best opened the plank road brewery which was later sold to fred miller an immigrant from wurttenberg for whom america's second largest story today is named another early brewer was johan brown or john brown from partenheim he was the business partner of neuquier until 1846 when he founded the city brewery five years later at age 29 brown was killed in a traffic accident and his widow married his former employee valentin blatz from bavaria united brown's brewery with his own new business another success story in the milwaukee brewing business also began with a young widow after brewer august crook from bavaria had died in 1858 his widow married joseph schlitz his clerk who had come from mainz three years before when the man who whose beer made milwaukee famous died in a ship accident on the atlantic in 1875 [Music] he was one of the city's richest men his company manufactured almost 70 000 barrels a year why did people from a wine growing area play such a crucial role in the beer brewing business not only in milwaukee but also in other big cities perhaps the answer is some immigrants from reinhessen such as joseph schlitz had been trained as coopers and were familiar with both the production of beer and why it is also interesting to note that ryan hessians were among the wine dealers of milwaukee not surprisingly john philip kisinger from salzin and adam off from ice started their businesses in the mid 1850s and frequently traveled to europe and imported large quantities of wines especially from the vineyards of their homeland or oath an important client of wine crew is in his native area imported some 100 000 gallons of wine between 1857 and 1867. seventeen years later jacob best became the owner of the company a description of his business in the 1896 promotional book milwaukee a half century's progress shows the advancement of his business which now also included whiskey and other alcoholic drinks and it also beers witness to the continuing economic ties between the milwaukee wine importers and the wine growing areas of southwest germany you see the relevant page from the book here and it is illustrated with a picture of the schloss hanaim or hanhein castle back way back in reinheissen i who don't know who these two people the foreground are if they're the wine dealers or maybe the actual proprietors of the castle which is actually not much more than the farmhouse but don't tell the handhelders let us set it quote from the promotion book the firm of jacob bush of jacob best are the largest importers of rhine and morsel wines in this country the annual importation being over 20 thousand gallons comprising the finest and choices product of the old country although they're favorably known hanheim and hanheimeknov the product of their own vineyards from the rhine wine district of germany ryan essen mr jacob best who has recently returned from europe where he visited the things vine walls is recognized as one of the best judges of wine in america while abroad he secured the sole agency for reingold the finest and most celebrating sparkling wine in germany and the favorite drink of kaiser villain the second german emperor unquote of course this was promotional literature and best had to pay a fee for having such a detailed depiction of his business printed in 50 years of progress in milwaukee we're finally coming to the end or the final part of my presentation me talk about the relationship between ryan hess and immigrants in wisconsin and their relatives and friends who stayed behind in germany naturally many families stayed in contact across the atlantic by correspondence sometimes for years sometimes for decades they exchanged family and community news pictures newspapers and small gifts visits to the whole old homeland were far less frequent although they did occur as can for example be seen in a huge database of passport applications on ancestry.com sometimes immigrants returned from wisconsin to their home village and picked up their future spouse or relatives who wanted to emigrate as well this occurred mainly in the last two decades of the 19th century when travel conditions had improved and the passage overseas had become less costly sometimes contact was even revived in the post-world war ii era when material helped by americans was greatly appreciated by germans in need wilhelm mauver from sheboygan county is a good example of a right christian immigrant who was eager to stay updated on current affairs in his native village of biebenheim near outside he also made sure that he and his family would not be forgotten there even more than 40 years after they had left for wisconsin when the bieber nine tourne fein celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1911 wilhelm had financing the print of approacher by placing the following announcement greetings from america dedicated to the community of bieberheim hess and armstrong germany and its turnfine gymnastics club on the occasion of its golden jubilee by wilhelm maura born in bieberheim on march 6 1837 emigrated to america in july 1867 with my parents kyle marster carpenter and anna maria maura as well as my brothers friedrich we arrived in new york in 1867 after a two-week stay with my uncle wilhelm maura in buffalo we went to our relatives in wisconsin when my father continued to run a carpentry business until we opened a general store in ada in 1880 which i took over from my father after three years and which i have continued to operate on my own until now both of my parents died a few years ago also my brother freitas who was a pastor in the state of nebraska for almost 46 years now i have kept an uninterrupted correspondence with my dear friend wilhelm hussinger senior master blacksmith in biebernheim in order to keep up to date with current events in my place of birth which we also intend to continue in the future he continued so let me bring out this little toast to your bibleheimers you biebernheim have progressed far your gymnastic club no less therefore may happiness and unity remain to you and your children well the german origin actually rhymes but i don't think i have to read that right now well that was the first case right on to the next one think big may have been a suitable title for the next example of showing one's appreciation for the ancestral homestead in may 1958 the pabst brewery celebrated its one millionth barrel of beer brewed in milwaukee in the small reinheisen village of matanheim where jacob best who founded the brewing business was it phillip was born this marketing event which was attended by more than 10 000 people received broad coverage by international media both in the u.s and in germany the saint louis globe democrat wrote quote sunday the villager of the villages of matanheim ironically part of the rhine valley famous for its wine crate growing not beer brewing turned out to the last citizen thousands more from the surrounding area absolutely packed the narrow streets of the village shoulder to shoulder to witness the formalities drink the american beer out of cans and eat the food and so they should have for this was the only the second festival in this tiny community in its entire 100 years of years in history even a heavy thunder shower did not deter the thousands in the street dr joseph baugh a very suitable name for beer brewer balch means belly or birgeli chief brewing technologist of pabst drew the first steiner beer from the golden barrel and proposed a toast the festivities were sparked by ben mentenheim's burgermeister or mayor reichard who had invited pipes to send its historic 1 millionth barrel to the village the festival began with a parade led by a huge tower flower attack float bearing a gigantic replica of the golden barrel the float was followed by horsemen dressed as medieval heralds two bands and dignitaries from both the german and american governments ergomeister ryzer joined dr balf in the first sign of beer after the band played the national anthems of the united states and western germany then the villagers of mittenaire put on a program that included a lot of numbers the program reached the climax when dr bauch and the burgermeister unveiled applause bronze plaque at the house where jacob best lived before going to milwaukee more than 6 000 cans of beer plus the 31 barrel were drained during the festival unquote now elders told me that the 1988 festival is still well remembered among them even today it is said however but the mayors that the mayor and the villagers were somewhat disappointed that aside from the festival the pabst brewery has not shown any further generosity towards the township of its hometown of its founder ever since display of generosity making rhinestone village people happy with american beer and sausage on a sunday afternoon 62 years ago was temporary john philip kissinger a wealthy milwaukee wine dealer chose a less spectacular way of showing his gratitude to his home community but a more lasting one in 1891 together with helena through that the widow of a milwaukee grain dealer he donated the funds for a glass stained window in the church of salzin where both of them had been baptized this beautiful piece of art which depicts christ can still be admired today in the newly renovated sanctuary and you can see the name of the two benefactors on the bottom of the cluster in the window and finally i will mention another benefactor from wisconsin who until today is well remembered in his rhein-hessian hometown because of his name i'm talking about sebastian walter sebastian writer who emigrated from uber flourishing yeah alsai to milwaukee as a poor 17 year old adolescent in 1866 and who worked his way up in the tin ware and enameling industry until he became the co-owner of kik haver brothers company one of america's largest enterprises in that branch sebastian retired in 1900 at the age of 52. he and his american-born wife didn't have children so the wealthy couple proved to be very generous towards sebastian's native place on june 30th 1901 sebastian unveiled this memorial honoring the local veterans of the franco-russian war nine years later he created a social foundation the sebastian welter endowment equating to over fluorescent capital investment of 10 000 marks the interest of which was distributed annually by the local government the endowment supported health services for the village purchased school books for needy children maintained the war memorial and the gravesites of water's parents and they dedicated 30 remarks to annually provide pretzels to children on sebastian water's birthday walter's overflow some endowment was wiped out after the first world war due to inflation but the successful immigrant and honorary citizen is still commemorative commemorated with razan today the square in front of the town hall was named after him before the world war the first world war and today the memorial donated by him no longer stands as much for a long past glorious campaign the franco-prussian war and its fatal long-term consequences but rather in memory of the fact that once upon a time hundreds of penniless villagers set forth to the new world and at least one of them brought back considerably wealth conclusion like most other german immigrants ryan hessians and wisconsin were transplanted but not uprooted in a sense may your name's dream about a new germany or a new rhinestone came true many aspects of the lives of the rhinehesians would have been very familiar to him while others would have been unrecognizable when hessians greatly adapted to their new country but at the same time try to keep as much of that traditional way of living as possible most adaptations were out of necessity necessity as was seen in the switch from rain production to beer production because of the climate in agriculture wisconsin wisconsin ryan hessians enlarged their wheat production but still maintained enough rye production to eat their traditional foods the antagonism between mainstream protestantism and german catholic german catholicism in reinhesen not to be confused with roman catholic catholicism became even more apparent in the free intellectual climate of wisconsin either the prominent speaker freya meinen once commented that at least for a time his humanist ministry on the banks of lake michigan was as successful as during his time in warms on the rhine in rhinestone in an area dominated by the german immigrants the last cultural element to be abolished to be left behind was the language the mother tongue german remained the everyday language of many families in the dark state of national settlements of washington sheboygan counties until the second half of the 20th century the language was taught despite two world wars the language was taught by parents and sunday school teachers but hardly in public schools in the settlements i studied the language handed down was the ancestor dialect which was often far from standard german schoemberg a school teacher in town ryan had two problems when he started to teach first graders in a public school in the early 1930s first of all none of the children had sufficient knowledge of english the teaching language schoenberg had to teach them the basics of english in german first when doing so he encountered a second obstacle the children understood his high german but they replied in the rhination dialect which he who grew up speaking plato it's just a few miles further east hardly understood and if mayonnaise had met some of the elders in the early 21st century he could maybe still speak to them in reinhessen just as i do today thanks very much for listening and i'll be glad to answer your questions in a couple of minutes thank you so much helmot for a wonderful presentation and uh we can open things up for about 15 or 20 minutes or so of questions if people have questions there are a couple of questions that i would invite you to just post them in the q a um there are a few that we've already received and i want to oppose to helmut so the first question was why was real tai long practiced in this area instead of primogeniture yeah well it's been common practice for for centuries um um it very much depends on the territory you're talking about territory you're talking about um as you know germany was there was not something like germany um but a loose confederation called the holy roman empire of the german nation it consisted of more than thousands different territories some big some very small and each of them had their own habits and um in southwest journey for the most part this area the areas the land in has always been split up at least for for three or four hundred years starting in maybe the 1500s however um there are areas particularly in north west germany and also west germany and also until the 18th century in some parts of today's renowned files where you could find the prima genitural system great thank you um this is another uh very interesting comment and question here from russell baldner so he says wunderbar hatsley in 1854 my great-great-grandfather emigrated from elsheim greinhessen garnishville from alzai first to illinois and then to minute iowa and minnesota state line where i was raised on my first trip to germany in 1969 i lived in my great great grandfather's birthplace border guter weinvext please comment about the verstetter union from about 1817. i have written much about my family and its origins in reinhessen nachma philen dank eine freude yeah thank you russell i got your email still new to me to answer it and i'm looking forward to your visit next year enjoyed getting your email um yeah glad to hear that you've already visited uh your ancestral hometown yes divine certainly is very good here now your question the worst letter union of 1817 um that was uh well that's quite a special subject it's um in 1890 the reformed and the luffin church merged in reinhessen by um the differences between lufernes and calvinism the reformed church they had leveled within time and so the attempts were made in different congregations to united to do to denominations each of mostly each of them had one church and the maintenance of the church was expensive it was expensive to to pay for the ministers sometimes the lutheran congregation only was small and so in many places efforts were made to unite to merge these two congregations so the worst that uh the worst declaration of 1817 was was one of the first movements to merge these two denominations into one evangelical branch great and actually this kind of connects with another question here you had mentioned some of the sort of tension between folks immigrants to wisconsin who had come from different regions um so the the the question here is was any of the inter-regional hostility due to protestant catholic differences yes yes that's something i i failed to make of course there was a big barrier between the germans not because only of language and customs but very much so about religion um this becomes very clear for example still in the early 20th century in the uh fond du lac and sheboygan county area where you find the catholic settlements from from people who came from the eiffel area of the northern reinhardt files that were solidly 100 percent catholic um they were some these settlements were some times initiated by priests or by by religious uh institutions and this this area still called today called or nicknamed the holy land yes so um of course intermarriage was out of the question for um for protestants and catholics in rural areas um even i have the impression in the marriage between catholics and protestants was not as frequent as it was in reinhessen in the late 19th century so in a nutshell i dare to say that the gap of the division between protestant immigrants and catholic immigrants from germany was even wider than between protestants and catholics in germany very interesting um we have another comment interesting commenting question here so this is from john rosenbaum we have an ancestor that emigrated from germany to wisconsin in 1854. family lawyer is that he left bavaria because he was about to be drafted in the army by the kaiser was this alike likely a reason to leave germany well first of all there was no kaiser to to to draft people to bavaria um so he must have been the king of bavaria but you you're definitely right um um dodging the draft or getting and not having to serve in the army was an important reason for young people to leave young men for example i i figured out that about 20 percent of all reinhesh who were supposed to be mustered between 1850 and 1854 or 20 of all potential recruits had left the country most of them illegally just a year or two before they were supposed to be drafted in the army being drafted was very unpopular because your army service could take up to three three years and many people calculated i can use those three years much better in america to get a good start not having to serve interesting so the next question is from fran lupke and her question is for those doing research on their ancestors from germany how many of the civil records have been destroyed during the various wars okay it depends on what part of germany you're talking about civil records so birth marriages and deaths were introduced um by under the french napoleonic occupation in 1797 or maybe a little bit later that means all westerns all states in germany all areas in germany west of the river rhine have zero records going back to 1797 as as well as other parts of germany that were under french control now of course there has been a lot of loss of losses of records but civil records were mostly kept in two places there was the original that was kept at the mayor's office under a duplicate at the local district court so if the original is missing originals missing mostly that the extra copy is still around some german states uh uh some uh the the neighboring state of hessen for example which is right next to ren and files has digitized all of its civil records and they're basically complete even those of castle castle was totally destroyed in world war ii but the duplicate copy was still available to be digitized so chances are well 99 you will actually find civil records um if they were ever kept in southwest germany i'm not talking about the region of germany that receded to poland or the soviet union after world war ii of course there were heavy losses of documents there interesting so how was reinhessen affected by the napoleonic wars and later the formation of a unified germany this is from scott peschke well um yeah the napoleonic wars um yeah right hassan was conquered the area was conquered by the french until 1797 and um napoleon introduced full conscription there that meant uh many young men had to join the napoleonic army and found and fight for him in spain or even in russia if you were rich you could uh you could pay for the replacement you could send someone else just to fight and serve for you but of course this was impossible for the majority of young men who were conscripts furthermore um the percentage of ethnic germans within the of the newly acquired french provinces in the are the grand army that fought in russia was higher than of rook recruits from uh central france uh so germa the rhinestones had quite a bloodshed in the napoleonic wars and those wars were also very unpopular especially towards the end when the russians went when napoleon retreated from russia and these soldiers brought many diseases with them speaking of the creation of the german empire in 1871 this was met with great enthusiasm by most uh nations especially if they were protestants catholics were not so in favor of uh united unified germany under prussian rule because prussia was solidly it was had a luffin king and uh the austrians who had been kicked out of the german confederation by bismarck had been the protective power of the catholics so far but it's interesting to notice that also the german americans in wisconsin or many of them they uh they really celebrated the unification of germany because they were now aware that uh they were experiencing becoming a nation from the distance and this also gave them um gave them some more some more self-confident confidence when um when uh making the the german american course clear to a course clear to other ethnic groups interesting great thank you um one comment here from ronald abler or apler german was still commonly spoken in the taverns in mount calvary which is in fond du lac county after world war ii my great-great-grandfather emigrated from manabak in the eiffel to mount calvary in 1846 interesting thing about the language maintenance there and then a another comment but with a question from kathleen swallow ron my great great grandfather immigrated from hessen to central illinois and then to southwest wisconsin in approximately 1834. would he have traveled via new orleans and the mississippi river that's a good question it depends what part of um illinois we're dealing with well if it's 1834 um if it was in northern illinois i would say he may have come via the great lakes of on from the atlantic seaboard but if you settle in central illinois it's also likely that he came up the mississippi so it's it's often difficult to determine but i realized that a lot of immigration immigrants to illinois came by way of new orleans up to the late 1840s interesting so here's a reaction also from russell baldner to your earlier uh response to his question intermarriage indeed my great great grand great great great grandfather was catholic and was disowned by his family due to his marriage to a protestant another so a couple more interesting stories of family history here with questions attached mike so this is from diane samdahl my great-grandparents were born in germany and emigrated to central wisconsin in 1870s 1880s where they were farmers how does that immigration relate to the earlier german immigrants you speak about in the milwaukee area well it depends what part of central wisconsin you're talking about well well as a rule wisconsin had a strong north and east german flavor and you have sometimes you get the impression it was the main main german population came from from pomerania and uh in central in the counties in central wisconsin you find a very strong population that came from pomerania and from north eastern germany because when those areas were settled in the 1860s and 70s the influx from the german southwest had already ceased whereas immigration from the northwest and especially northeast germany reached its highest level so these central wisconsin settlements of i assume north or east german immigrants didn't have very much in common with the dumpster settlements around milwaukee because um because when these people arrived um the railroad had already been built there was already a lot of infrastructure in wisconsin whereas the ryan hessians really belonged to the um um pioneer immigrants who only came a little later than the original euro of american immigrants shortly after the indians american native americans have been expelled interesting so um this next question comes from laurier eggert i have a relative who was born in 1841 in gamersheim kainlan reinfolds and served in the bavarian army yet when he became an american citizen in 1896 he claimed that he was born in baden and renounced the grand duke of baden and he reasoned that his hometown would be considered baden gamma time well he could have served yeah gamma sign was was uh one of the largest bavarian garrison garrisons in the paletine and it doesn't necessarily mean that all of the soldiers were native bavarians maybe he was he was a he was a he was a partner who still served in the bavarian area bavarian army but still more likely it seems to me that there's a confusion maybe in american records between baden and bavaria both start with b and whoever was the census taker or the person who filled out the form who probably maybe didn't know and didn't know the difference between bavarian button that person may have done a bad job i think the easiest thing is to to make sure uh you find your ancestor in this birth records in in gamers time and if you're in gamma sign he was a bavarian definitely not a bad okay good thank you so this next question comes from dewine gartner grimsrude she said could you please say a few words about guild records and where they might be located today are they being indexed and digitized well guild records um guilds we are in southwest germany guilds were abolished during the time of napoleon at the latest after the french revolution in some other parts of germany gills existed up to the revolution of 1848 that's difficult uh i mean who would keep who would take over the archives of deal guilds i mean they're they're um guilds have um have have have other institutions that follow them such as the chamber of commerce chambers of commerce but for the most part um your best bet to find guilt records maybe city archives archives where those records may have been transferred but uh generally speaking there is no central system of um archiving guild records in germany so it's your best bet may be either to write to the city archive where your ancestor lived or maybe to the appropriate or pertaining state archive great thank you and so we have a comment from somebody that met you some years ago her name is caroline brought and she says this just saying hi as i believe i met you at fred and shirley hornak's house when you came to the town of ryan to do some research a long time ago and she says thank you for a great talk very interesting hey thank you caroline glad to hear people from town right now along i know fritz of fred is gone that surely is still around so please say say hello to everyone you know i know and i hope i'll come back to tournament one day nice thank you this next question comes from mike goodman despite the opposition to serving in the civil war which you spoke of nonetheless many of the conscripts in the civil war spoke german as their first and in some cases only language is that true um yeah that's difficult for me to say i'm not an expert on this civil war i've not been dealing with the civil war in general um that's a question you should who gave their last presentation but my guess is my guess is that many um many immigrants didn't speak enough english by the time that the civil war started especially if they came from solidly german areas such as washington county way even in in world war one while the world cup performed in his last presentation from max carter uh he stated that uh there were american soldiers who wrote letters to it who fought against germany and floats letters in german to their families in missouri and of course got in deep trouble but this shows us that uh yeah they may have quite a few germans who had problems german americans who may have had problems uh during a civil war with the language another fact that also may be a hint is a lot of german language books were published about the civil war and also at the time of the civil war for young people great and then we have a very nice comment from dieter arnold he says i have no question i just want to say thanks thank you very much for letting me participate special thanks to helmut small good lecture kind regards from rain hessen dieter arnold [Music] i love it i love it this is one of those nice things those little several lines of the pandemic and he just says duncan thank you and then a comment from beth schlemper you may recognize her name as uh important researcher got her phd in geography here at madison um i enjoyed your presentation very much thank you the early catholic setters from the settlers from the eiffel to the holy land who lived near dotyville even separated the cemetery to ensure the german catholics were not buried on the same side as the irish catholics who shared the saint michael's church i can't recall when this pattern changed st michael's church no longer exists however since it was raised not too long ago sorry i have to leave to teach class nice comment hey great hearing from you beth maybe you can hear my recording yeah i've seen such some militaries too with the irish on the left and the germans on the right and the driveway abroad rivalry right in between yeah but um i was people told me that's those times are over even in remote places where the division was very evident and i there's a church that i've heard about that's to the west of madison there was a small catholic community where it was basically equal parts irish and germans and neither had enough of a critical mass in terms of resources to build separate churches so they grudgingly went together and built one church building but on one side all the stained glass windows represent german saints so like st boniface and and so forth and then the other side of court there's st patrick and the other so that the iconography follows the divisions and they were probably seated in pews on either side as well so yeah by the way the in the settlements of washington county there were also some catholics from reinhardt and they were 21st church but it was mostly run by eiffeller's people from north a hundred kilometers north of france which was quite a distance the dialect there the eiffel was different from rhinestone but well they still had to get along at some point first despite the language barrier interesting remember most immigrants didn't speak high german high german was often was the second language they had to learn after their arrival in america in wisconsin yeah and our last comment here is from fran or another comment here so there were some regiments primarily made up of german speakers this is referring to the civil war again such as in chicago like the 82nd illinois there are comments about these ethnic differences in their letters that's interesting comment from fran um connie also says very interesting presentation thank you we got russell again chiming in many thanks also for transplanted but not uprooted which i cited in my big book so he cites your um your transplanted but not uprooted book and then a very very nice comment from carol jushka uh thank you very much for the informative presentation and with that i think we can sort of wrap things up um i helmet um it's so nice to see you again and we would be nice if we were sort of located in the same space that will happen at some point i have to give you a special pat on the back for singing i think this is one of the very few and seeing not just anything but say you're pennsylvania dutch i mean you just you were already very very high up in my sort of ranking of very cool people and people that i respect and admire very much i said but that just did it for me and so i'm really really grateful for that that is a total highlight thank you i i love singing but i started in my voice was a little bit too low so no but it was a beautiful tone i had practice before spontaneous that was wonderful thank you so much helmet and we look forward to seeing you again at some point in the hopefully near future and to all the folks that have attended today thank you so much and we look forward to welcoming you at future virtual maxcada institute events thank you so much you

Channel: Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies

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Id: R6yKf_g74Vg

Length: 80min 29sec (4829 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 04 2020