German Immigrants - MACE PROJECT RESOURCESmaceprojects.weebly.com/.../4/4/13440532/german_im… · Web viewGerman Immigrants – Document 1 Early 20th century Railroad advertisement

Early 20th century Railroad advertisement of newly cleared land of marketable timber to encourage European immigrants to settle on Midwestern lands. This colored advertising card was issued by the Land Department of the Wisconsin Central Railroad in order to promote the sale of railroad-owned land in northern Wisconsin. One side shows an idealized frontier log cabin home, and the back includes promotional text in both English and German.

German Immigrants – Document 2

Early German immigrants were usually welcomed to New York City’s Lower East Side. They were viewed as they were seen as a 'clean teutonic' (language of German people) because many were Protestant Christians instead of Catholic Christians.

This woodcut from a 1874 issue of Harper's shows a boat departing Hamburg for New York. Photo courtesy of The Library of Congress.

1,000 Lives May Be Lost in Burning of the Excursion Boat Gen. SlocumSt. Mark's Church Excursion Ends in Disaster in East River Close to Land and Safety

693 Bodies Found--Hundreds Missing or Injured

Flames Following Explosion Drive Scores to Death in the Water

Fierce Struggles for Rotten Life Preservers

The Captain, Instead of Making for the Nearest Landing, Runs the Doomed Vessel Ashore on North Brother Island in Deep Water -- Many Thrilling Rescues -- Few Men on Board to Stem the Panic of Women and Children

An estimated total of a thousand dead, besides several hundred injured, is the record of the fire disaster which yesterday destroyed the big excursion steamer General Slocum, which was burned to the water's edge before her Captain succeeded in beaching her on North Brother Island. Nearly all the dead and missing are women and children and were members of an excursion party taken out by St. Mark's German Lutheran Church of 323 East Sixth Street.The estimate that the number of lives lost will be found to reach 1,000 was given by Police Inspector Brooks at an early hour this morning. Fire Chief Croker shared his view, saying that at least 900 persons must have perished.

At 3:30 o'clock this morning the tug Franklin Edson took to the morgue 69 more bodies. Just previously another tug took six, which were burned beyond recognition. Twelve more bodies, also burned, were left at North Brother Island, bringing the total of bodies so far recovered up to 693.The disaster stands unparalleled among those of its kind. Whole families have been wiped out. In many instances a father is left to grieve alone for wife and children, and there was hardly a home in the parish, whence but a few hours before a laughing happy crowd went on its holiday, that was not in deep mourning last night.The scenes attendant upon the disaster have seared themselves in the brains of the survivors never to be effaced. Women were roasted to death in sight of their husbands and children, and babes by the score perished in the waters of the East River, into which they had been thrown by frenzied mothers. With death by fire behind them, hundreds leaped to their doom in the river. Out of the awful record there stands forth bright and clear the heroic work of the watermen, the police, nurses, and doctors, who saved hundreds at the risk of their own lives.It is the opinion of those who witnessed the disaster from the New York shore that Capt. Van Schaick, who commanded the vessel, lost his head. Instead of running the vessel aground on the New York shore near by, he carried her, blazing from stem to stern, to North Brother Island, where she ran on a rocky shore.Four hundred and ninety-eight bodies were recovered up to midnight. Hundreds of charred remains are still in the hulk of the Slocum, which is now beached at Hunt's Point.Survivors say the life preservers were worthless and rotted away in the hands of those who attempted to use them.…The Captain, two pilots, and some members of the crew are under arrest.It is believed that the fire started from the explosion of a stove in the galley on the lower deck, where chowder was being cooked.

German Immigrants – Document 3

RELATED HEADLINESGRIEF-CRAZED CROWDS VIEW LINES OF DEAD: Scores Prevented from Throwing Themselves Into River: BOAT LOADS OF BODIES: Immense Crowds Weeping and Struggling Seek to Identify Them: MANY PATHETIC INCIDENTS: Measures Taken by Officials to Safeguard Interest of Relatives -- Over $200,000 in Valuables Found on the Victims.

From Wisconsin Historical Society(http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/tp-051/?action=more_essay)

“Long before Wisconsin became America's Dairyland, Wisconsin was a beer state. Brewing began in Wisconsin in the 1830s, and by the 1890s, nearly every community had at least one operating brewery. Breweries were as much a part of Wisconsin communities as churches and schools. They supplied steady employment to workers, bought grain from local farmers who in turn often fed brewery by-products to their livestock, and they frequently sponsored community festivals, youth groups, and sports teams. Brewing was intimately tied to Wisconsin's people, particularly its German immigrants, who brought their knowledge and skills with them to North America. Despite beer's popularity and importance to community life, from its beginning the brewing industry fought numerous attempts to restrict its consumption and distribution. Nineteenth century temperance activists and, most profoundly, in the twentieth century prohibition legislation both curtailed its influence.

The process of mashing, boiling, and fermenting grain dates back thousands of years. Beer came to northern Europe around 55 BCE with Julius Caesar's Roman legions and by the Middle Ages, it had become part of everyday life because the boiling and fermenting process

made it relatively free of contamination. European settlers brought their beer with them to North America. The first commercial brewery opened in New Amsterdam, now New York City, in 1612.

As immigration and settlement increased and the population moved westward, breweries followed, and by the 1850s, Milwaukee was contending with St. Louis for brewing supremacy.”

German Immigrants – Document 4

Excerpt: Letter from Charles Steinway to his brother C.F. Theodor Steinway. no date, probably

Fall 1852

Dear Theodor, How are you? I hope you are better than I am, since I am now forced to play the

role of the gentleman. I am moored at home since, due to chest pains, I am unable to work

without risking to ruin my health. . . . I have been bothered by it for a year now. The original

cause was due to strenuous tuning. . . The disease itself is in the build of my chest, that is, in the

joints and muscles, and all the doctors have assured me that heart and lungs are completely

healthy. Rest is the only thing that helps since continued exertion makes it progressively weaker.

. . . From the above you can quite simply conclude that I do not advise you to come here. . . And

I advise the same to everyone, whoever it may be. Because one does have to work here, more

than outside and we get so much used to the better life here that in the end we believe that the

German potato soup tasted better in Germany than the daily roast here. Of course America

offers a home for those who want to work and had no work in Germany and who generally had

to struggle against want and sorrow.

. . . In Germany we had our problems and here we have different ones. In Germany, the doctor’s

bill for an entire year was only one Thaler; here it is more than 50. That is the worst thing for the

Germans any how: very few can stand the climate, almost all people die from chest and lung

diseases, which one has to ascribe to the climate. And yet, New York is one of the healthier

places.

. . . Tell people who do not know a trade to avoid coming here as much as possible, . . . there is

also no way that a man over 21 and without a trade or money can make his fortune here since

nobody takes him to learn a trade.

German Immigrants – Document 5

A 1917 com

ic strip where the character sm

ashes a clown doll present because it w

as made in G

ermany.

German Immigrants – Document 6

William Allen Rogers - Only the Navy Can Stop This (WWI U.S. Navy recruitment poster)

German Immigrants – Document 7