How were German immigrants accepted in America in the 1800s?

Answer 1

Germans were ridiculed by the American people anywhere from comic strips to laws that only effected Germans. It became so bad that children who were the sons and daughters of immigrants would be embarrassed of their heritage. " It was kind of bad for a while till we got to know people and speak the language. People say, you ought to preserve your heritage, but all we could think of was, we didn't want to be different, we wanted to be like the rest of the Americans," said a German boy in 1923. But even through all of this they persevered, they hung on and finally after many years they were accepted into society.

Beginning in the 1830s, large numbers of Germans began to settle in Cincinnati. During this period, Cincinnati was becoming a major American pork-processing center. Many Germans lived in the area of Cincinnati known as Over-the-Rhine. Like Lancaster and other German communities, Over-the-Rhine emerged as an important center of German immigrant culture. The neighborhood had its own churches, clubs, and German-language newspapers. The German immigrants were not always fully accepted by other residents of Cincinnati. Some people felt threatened by the Germans and blamed them for many of the city's problems. Anti-German sentiment led to violence in 1855. A mob tried to invade the German neighborhood, but armed German-American militia units pushed it back.

Because of violent episodes like the one that occurred in Cincinnati in 1855, German immigrants tended to establish their own communities. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many native-born Americans feared outsiders. Some of these people objected to the immigrants' religious and cultural beliefs, while others believed that the foreigners would corrupt the morals of United States citizens. These people also contended that the quality of life within the United States would decline, as there were not enough jobs to employ the millions of people migrating to America. Many native-born Americans hoped either to limit Immigration or to force foreigners to convert to American customs and beliefs. It would take several generations before the immigrants became truly accepted by the vast majority of white Ohioans.

Some observations on the above

1. Did Irish or Italian or Polish communities fare any better? I wonder. Did they, perhaps, fare worse on the whole?

2. It seems to me misleading to quote what a boy said in 1923 as evidence of what happened in 1800s. Moreover, there was a wave of anti-German feeling in the U.S. during World War 1 ... This needs mentioning if one quotes from 23 years later.

3. The reference to "laws that affected only Germans" needs some examples. I assume that these laws were local, and not state-wide, let alone Federal Laws.

4. The statement "children who were the sons and daughters of immigrants would be embarrassed of their heritage" needs viewing in the context of the "melting pot theory" of the U.S. If I understand the position correctly, between c.1890 and 1970 or so, there was considerable pressure on all new arrivals to become 100% American ... In connection with loss of heritage, the insistence on schooling in English for all kids (from about 1890 onwards) is widely seen as a key factor.

5. Despite troubles of the kind described in Cincinnati, the number of immigrants to the U.S. from the German-speaking countries remained high throughout the period c.1830-1910. Only a small proportion were religious or political refugees.