MANY STATES AND KINGDOMS INTO ONE GERMANY

The creation of a German Republic followed decades of political events 

In an area across the channel from Great Britain, below Denmark and Sweden, west of Poland and northeast of France there had been many separate, mostly autonomous political entities in an area slightly smaller than what would become far away Montana. Some of theoe entities were large, such as Prussia. Some were small city-states, like Regensburg.

Borders and alignments for many those areas were formed, then reformed following struggles over centuries. In the 1800s, along with climate variations that caused famine, an unsettled - but not unusual - political climate soon played into an exodus from the area. For those who remained, which were many, the various political entities in that area of Europe would become unified over the next 56 years. They would come together to form what we know today as the country of Germany.

It was not just Germany, however, that experienced an outflow of population. Other areas of Europe and the British Isles also moved outward in the 1800s to other countries, including America. Irish immigration spread across the United States, caused in large part by potato crop failures that began in 1845. The late potato blight from 1845 to 1849, resulted in well over a million former Irish citizens becoming Americans.

A similar number of Germans had already entered the United States from 1820 to 1870. Together, the Germans and Irish eventually comprised two-thirds of the 7.5 million total immigrants received into America during the 1800s. In 1810, the population of the United States was only 7,239,881, or 7.2 million. So the influx was a shock to the American system. Across the century, 5 million Germans moved to America.

Family resolve built from necessity

The thought of picking up and moving a family one-fifth of the way around the world involved a dangerous and expensive ocean crossing. The chances for a family encountering disaster in one form or another were high.

As an influx of Irish, German, Chinese and other nationalities began to grow after 1815, there was a backlash from those who had one to several generations of experience in America. Those who could only afford to, or for other reasons chose to, start their new family lives in the large eastern coastal cities sometimes found themselves in overcrowded slums with little opportunity for upward mobility. Political pressures to keep immigrants constrained were common. Fear of immigrants changing what it meant to be American was widespread.

Even if those arriving had been substantial families in Europe, the crossing and starting over again was an expensive proposition that drained away those resources. And in the face of significant rejection by those who arrived earlier, the stop along the East Coast was difficult for the majority. The oppression many immigrants had sought relief from by leaving Europe was reminiscent of ways the new arrivals encountered in their new eastern seaboard urban habitat. Crime, gangs, and political machines often worked against new arrivals, many of whom were just learning English and at a disadvantage in comprehending the forces aligned to confront them.

Of course, not everything created an antipathetic response from immigrants. Some political machines wanted to use immigrant votes and built systems of patronage to employ immigrants after a win. Public works projects could be manipulated to employ mostly workers of an area, party or demographic. Also on the positive side were America's several openly practicing religions. Something not well known in many of the areas of Europe many immigrants knew well. Those religions included at the time, but were not limited to, Congregationalists, Episcopalians/Anglicans, Quakers, Evangelical Methodists, and Baptists. The formal rejection of an official state religion had been, to the wide approval of those becoming new citizens, codified into the First Amendment of the Constitution.

There was also available in America a commodity Europe had almost made extinct - land available for purchase by the common man or woman. Often, in America, it was beautiful land. Much available in the early 1800s included one of the world’s largest forests at the time - before it was significantly pruned to build homes and make way for farms and villages. As with what is left of the Amazon forests, the Eastern Deciduous (temperate) Forest in America was a major part of the world’s “lungs.” Some of the land available was very similar to the settings of homes the immigrants had left. For example, the Baden-Wurtemburg area the Link family emigrated from was felt by many to be very similar to central Wisconsin.

The expansion of Americans into the Louisiana Territory after 1803 and later settling of the mid-western section of the country following the Homestead Act being signed into law by President Lincoln in 1862, were two factors that steered German emigration into the United States. As a group with many farmers, German Mennonites generally bypassed the eastern seaboard cities and sought farmland in places such as the Ohio River Valley. As more and more Germans arrived, areas where they could support each other helped to eliminate feelings of isolation and longing for home they felt.

In addition to Mennonites, other Anabaptist groups that arrived in America included the Amish, Hutterites, and German Brethren.

Mennonites picking up stakes 

German Anabaptists came to America from 1815-1860 in large numbers. The population of the country nearly doubled in a mere 45 years. At that time, a little longer than the average lifespan (1816).

Anabaptists had originated as a group of European Protestant Reformation churches identified by pacifist views toward war, and their belief in simple religious worship. They also believed differently from most Protestant religions in an important respect for that time. They believed that baptism should not occur at birth, but only after a personal decision was freely arrived at as an adult to become a member. The latter belief was where the name “Anabaptist,” originated. Those beliefs set them apart from most other Protestant reformists.

Common in Europe in the 1800s were state-approved or supported religions. Conscription into military service was expected. That region of small and large states, almost endlessly embroiled in wars and revolutions, often brought down persecution upon Anabaptist practitioners, including Mennonites, because of their Protestant and anti-war beliefs. Other motivation for emigration included general European overpopulation and political uncertainty as a large number of states were pulled together to create a larger Germany. Germany as a unified republic did not officially exist until 1871. It followed the defeat of France in one of many European wars.

The trek

Immigrant travel across the Atlantic up until the 1830s was often by packet ship. Those ships had the advantage of being scheduled, something new to that mode of travel. Prior to packets, ships were generally loaded until full, and passengers might wait weeks for their ship to depart. The problems and expense of that unknown were improved when scheduled packet travel replaced uncertainty.

Packet ships generally carried mail, other cargo, a few passengers with better compartments or cabins, and larger numbers of general passengers in “steerage,” or the “tween deck.” Those accommodations were generally open, shared areas with berths stacked like shelving to sleep. The steerage deck was between cargo decks below and the cabins of passengers able to pay a premium for comparative privacy above them. The travel in packets was relatively fast compared with previous ship designs. However, the trip was still 40 to 90 days, and conditions in steerage were usually damp, odiferous and even by the standards of the time, considered far less than hygienic. In 1827, fare for an adult in steerage would have been the equivalent of about $25. In 2023 terms, that would equate to about $724 dollars a person, but at a time when accumulated money was less common. Bartering was still a common method of exchanged. Children crossed for about half adult price, and a baby of two years, such as young Jacob Link would have, often traveled for free with their mothers. A packet crossing is likely the method the Link family with their two boys, Jacob and Christopher, utilized.

Later, a faster type of ship, the three-or-more-masted “clipper,” made travel much faster across the Atlantic. Unlike packets, clippers were too narrow to carry a great deal of cargo. The term clipper is a broad one covering many types of designs, but all with multiple sails. Passengers could cross in a much shorter time than by earlier packets, reducing illness and discomfort, yet increasing the price.

America fills with immigrants

While Germans had been the first non-English speaking group to emigrate to America in large numbers (beginning at Germantown in Philadelphia, 1688), the overall immigration between 1816 and 1860 from that country was much greater than anything experienced before or since.

There was a slowing of the rise in immigration during the unsettled period leading up to the Civil War and through about 1870. Then came the peak of German immigration in the decade of 1880-1890. In that peak decade, nearly a million and a half additional Germans arrived on United States soil. Hopeful families desirous of building their homes and their dreams in a place that it felt needed people to fill its “open” spaces. Or so a government, seeing the need to settle and hold lands from sea to shining sea, intended to encourage. Those already inhabiting those lands were generally considered only as impediment to such expansion. 

American states receiving the most German influx during the 1800s included Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Kansas. A portion of east-central Texas also received a number of German arrivals or transplants as they skipped across the continent with an eye for bettering themselves and their holdings. By 1910, the largest group of immigrants in 18 of the 46 states then existing, or about 40 percent of the states, were of German birth. That included every state in what is today thought of as "the Midwest."

Germans form tightly supportive communities

As larger numbers of Germans began to enter America, they represented the first significant group of non-assimilating immigrants who tightly retained their language and customs.

The large number of German immigrants made their stubborn refusal to give up all from their past in their adopted country possible. While all groups entering America hoped to bring their cultures and values effectively with them, it was generally the Germans and the Irish who were able to do this effectively. Numbers were important.
Entire areas of cities, larger population centers and even entire regions of states became enclaves for speaking German and honoring traditions from their recent homes in Europe. In particular, the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota were heavily populated by German immigrants. It was not until the period leading up to World War I in the early 1900s that political conditions made it necessary to assimilate to a much greater degree. Language and accent changes, as well as cultural habits generally, became essential to being accepted during a time of war with Germany. Anti-German sentiment was encouraged even by government propaganda and extended to German-American populations. The often unspoken yet sometimes clearly spoken goal was to eliminate a feeling of dual identity.

President Wilson said after America joined the fight in Europe, that "Any man who carries a hyphen about with him, carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic when he gets ready." The reference was to hyphenated German-Americans and other groups that still held on to traditional culture and languages.

German communities were increasingly pressed to demonstrate patriotism, and that they were more than just transplanted Germans. The vast majority of them were, but numbers had allowed them to hold onto much they also valued from prior generations. That experience varied from family to family and community to community. Reprisals ranged from general ostracism to lethal violence. Government propaganda villainized “the Hun” and a part of that message carried over to the German-American population.

The Link family, like many German and Mennonite immigrants, found communities where people who spoke German and understood their culture had come before them.

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