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Forty-Eighters

 
US History Encyclopedia: Forty-Eighters
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Forty-Eighters were a group of four thousand to ten thousand Germans who immigrated to the United States as political refugees following the failed revolutions and social reform movements of 1848. Although their numbers were not large, their impact on the organizational, cultural, and political lives of German Americans and Americans in general was tremendous. They tended to be liberal if not radical, agnostic, and intellectual. They were instrumental in the proliferation of German-American organizations, such as the Turnvereine, or the Turners as they became known. The Turners were gymnastic clubs and remained so into the twenty-first century. They were initially established in Germany in 1811 to promote well-being through exercise and to advocate a kind of nationalism thought necessary to defend the fatherland against Napoleon. In the United States they served largely as social and recreational organizations that brought together the heterogeneous German-speaking population. The Forty-Eighters also played leadership roles in other national organizations, such as the Nord-Amerikanischer Saengerbund, established in 1849.

The Forty-Eighters contributed to the development of German-American cultural life in the German-language press, theater, and music. This was especially evident in cities where German numbers were greatest, like Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, and Milwaukee. In Milwaukee the circulation of the German-language press was twice that of the English-language press by the late nineteenth century. In the area of education, they strongly supported German bilingual instruction as well as physical education. They advocated for public, secular educational systems and played a role in establishing the first kindergartens in the United States. Margarethe Meyer Shurz opened the first kindergarten in the United States in Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1856.

In politics the Forty-Eighters were instrumental in solidifying a "German vote" that could not be overlooked in the national political arena. Numerous leaders emerged from their ranks, but Carl Shurz, husband of Magarethe Meyer Shurz, stands out. Shurz has been described by some historians as the most influential U.S. citizen of German birth. Shurz fled to Watertown, Wisconsin, via Switzerland following the failed revolution. He was instrumental in helping Abraham Lincoln gain the presidency and also in helping abolish slavery. He served as a Union brigadier general during the Civil War and as the first U.S. senator of German birth. In the latter role he fought U.S. expansion in the Caribbean, corruption in government, and unfair treatment of Native Americans.

He continued to champion those causes as secretary of the interior in President Rutherford B. Hayes's cabinet. Overall the Forty-Eighters played a pivotal role in creating a German identity among German immigrants in the United States and contributed to the cultural and political lives of the nation during some of its most formative years.

Bibliography

Brancaforte, Charlotte L., ed. The German Forty-Eighters in the United States. New York: Lang, 1989.

Galicich, Anne. The German Americans. New York: Chelsea House, 1989.

Tolzmann, Don Heinrich, ed. The German-American Forty-Eighters: 1848–1998. Indianapolis: Max Kade German–American Center, Indiana University–Purdue University at Indianapolis: Indiana German Heritage Society, 1998.

—Timothy Bawden

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Wikipedia: Forty-Eighters
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The Forty-Eighters were Europeans who participated in or supported the revolutions of 1848 that swept Europe. In Germany, the Forty-Eighters favored unification of the country, a more democratic government, and guarantees of human rights.[1] Disappointed at the failure of the revolution to bring about the reform of the system of government in Germany or the Austrian Empire and sometimes on the government's wanted list because of their involvement in the revolution, they gave up their old lives to try again abroad. Many emigrated to the United States, Canada, and Australia after the revolutions failed. They included Germans, Czechs, Hungarians, and others. Many were respected, wealthy, and well-educated; as such, they were not typical migrants. A large number went on to be very successful in their new countries.

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Forty-Eighters in the USA

In the United States, many Forty-Eighters opposed nativism and slavery, in keeping with the liberal ideals that had led them to flee Germany. Several thousand enlisted in the Union Army, where they became prominent in the Civil War.

Many Forty-Eighters settled in the Texas Hill Country in the vicinity of Fredericksburg, and voted heavily against Texas's secession. In the Bellville area of Austin County, another destination for Forty-Eighters, the German precincts voted decisively against the secession ordinance. [2]

More than 30,000 Forty-Eighters settled in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. There they helped define the distinct German culture of the neighborhood, but in some cases also brought a rebellious nature with them from Germany. During violent protests in 1853 and 1854, Forty-Eighters were responsible for the murders of two law enforcement officers.[3]

After the Civil War, Forty-Eighters supported improved labor laws and working conditions. They also advanced the country's cultural and intellectual development in such fields as education, the arts, medicine, journalism, and business.

Famous German Forty-Eighters in the US

Famous Czech Forty-Eighters in the US

  • Prokup Hudek, one of the "Slavonic Artillerymen" of the 24th Illinois Infantry Regiment, and one of the co-founders of the Workingmen's Party of Illinois[4]
  • František Korbel, winegrower in Sonoma County, California
  • Vojta Náprstek, Czech language publisher in Milwaukee

Famous Hungarian Forty-Eighters in the US

Forty-Eighters in England

Giuseppe Mazzini used London as a place of refuge before and after the revolutions of 1848. In the early years after the failure of the revolutions of 1848, a group of German Forty-Eighters and others met in a salon organized by Baroness Méry von Bruiningk in St. John's Wood, England.[5] The baroness was a Russian of German descent who was sympathetic with the goals of the revolutionaries. Among the people who attended her salon, hosted by herself and her husband Ludolf August von Bruiningk, were Carl Schurz, Gottfried and Johanna Kinkel, Ferdinand Freiligrath, Alexander Herzen, Louis Blanc, Malwida von Meysenbug, Adolf Strodtmann, Johannes and Bertha Ronge, Alexander Schimmelfennig, Wilhelm Loewe-Kalbe and Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim.[6] Carl Schurz reports “A large number of refugees from almost all parts of the European continent had gathered in London since the year 1848, but the intercourse between the different national groups — Germans, Frenchmen, Italians, Hungarians, Poles, Russians — was confined more or less to the prominent personages. All, however, in common nourished the confident hope of a revolutionary upturning on the continent soon to come. Among the Germans there were only a few who shared this hope in a less degree. Perhaps the ablest and most important person among these was Lothar Bucher, a quiet, retiring man of great capacity and acquirements, who occupied himself with serious political studies.”[7] Another German who fled to England for a time was Ludwig Bamberger.[8]

Forty-Eighters in Holland

Ludwig Bamberger was in Holland for a time,[8] as was Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim.[9]

Forty-Eighters in France

Ludwig Bamberger settled in Paris and worked in a bank from 1852 until the amnesty of 1866 allowed him to return to Germany.[8] Carl Schurz was in France for a time before moving on to England.[10] He stayed there with Adolf Strodtmann.

Forty-Eighters in Switzerland

Friedrich Beust, a Forty-Eighter from Germany, settled in Switzerland to work in early-childhood education. He lived and worked there until his death in 1899. The Forty-Eighter Gottfried Kinkel, also from Germany, moved to Switzerland in 1866 after living in England. He was a professor of archaeology and the history of art at the Polytechnikum in Zürich, where he died sixteen years later.

Forty-Eighters in Australia

In 1848, the first non-British ship carrying immigrants to arrive in Victoria was from Germany; the Goddefroy, on February 13. Many of those on board were political refugees. Some Germans also travelled to Australia via London.

  • In April 1849 the Beulah was the first ship to bring assisted German vinedresser families to NSW. [11]
  • The second ship, the Parland[12] left London on 13 March 1849, and arrived in Sydney on 5 July 1849[13]
  • The Princess Louise left Hamburg March 26th of 1849, in the spring, bound for South Australia via Rio de Janeiro. The voyage took 135 days which was considered slow but nevertheless the Princess Louise berthed at Port Adelaide on August 7th 1849 with 161 emigres, including Johann Friedrich Mosel. Johann, born in 1827 in Berlin in the duchy of Brandenburg had taken three weeks to travel from his home to the departure point of the 350 tonne vessel at Hamburg. This voyage had been well planned by two of the founding passengers, brothers Richard and Otto Schomburgk who had been implicated in the revolution. Otto had been jailed in 1847 for his activities as a student revolutionary. The brothers along with others including Frau von Kreussler and D. Meucke formed a migration group, the South Australian Colonisation Society, one of many similar groups forming throughout Germany at the time. Sponsored by the scientist geologist Leopold von Buch, the society chartered the Princess Louise to sail to South Australia. The passengers were mainly middle-class professionals, academics, musicians, artists, architects, engineers, artisans and apprentices, and were among the core of liberal radicals, disillusioned with events in Germany.
  • The barque Kinnear was actually the first to carry German vinedressers to NSW in 1838. 6 vinedressers and their families (altogether 12 adults and 17 children) were recruited from the Rheingau region in Hessen by Major Edward Macarthur for his brother William's property at Camden. These first German vinedressers to arrive in NSW on April 23, 1838, were Friedrich Sickold, Johann Justus, Johann Stein, Caspar Flick, Georg Gerhard and Johann Wenz.

Many Germans became vintners or worked in the wine industry; others founded Lutheran churches. By 1860, for example, about 70 German families lived in Germantown, Victoria. (When World War I broke out, the town was renamed Grovedale.) In Adelaide, a German Club was founded in 1854 which played a major role in society.

Famous Australian Forty-Eighters

  • Carl Linger, the conductor and composer who wrote "Song of Australia"
  • Dr Moritz Richard Schomburgk, later director of the Adelaide Botanical Gardens
  • Hermann Büring, in the wine industry
  • Friedrich Krichauff, Chairman of the Agricultural Bureau

See also

References

  1. ^ "Forty-Eighters," Handbook of Texas Online.http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/FF/pnf1.html
  2. ^ Charles Christopher Jackson: Austin County from the Handbook of Texas Online. Retrieved December 23, 2008.
  3. ^ Officer Down Memorial Page: Deputy Sheriff Thomas Higdon
  4. ^ Anarchy and Anarchist: A history of the red terror and the social revolution in America and Europe by Michael J Schaack, 1889
  5. ^ Carl Schurz. Reminiscences. Wikisource-logo.svg Vol. 1, Chap. 13.
  6. ^ Hermann Baron Bruiningk, Das Geschlecht von Bruiningk in Livland, Riga: N. Kymmels, 1913, table of contents.
  7. ^ Carl Schurz. Reminiscences. Wikisource-logo.svg Vol. 1, Chap. 13, p. 371.
  8. ^ a b c Wikisource-logo.svg "Bamberger, Ludwig". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911. 
  9. ^ Karl Wipperman: Oppenheim, Heinrich Bernhard. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Band 24, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, S. 396–399. (German)
  10. ^ See Chapter XII of Volume One of his Reminiscences.
  11. ^ recruited by Wilhelm Kirchner, who published Australien und seine Vortheile fur Auswanderer in Frankfurt in 1848
  12. ^ http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/2299/parland1849.html:departure date given as May
  13. ^ The Board's List, reel 2459, GRK; fiche 851, Germans on Bounty Ships, GRK.

Bibliography

  • Carl Wittke, Refugees of Revolution: The German Forty-Eighters in America, Philadelphia: Univ. of Penn. Press, 1952.
  • Christine Lattek, Revolutionary refugees: German socialism in Britain, 1840-1860, Routledge, 2006.

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