Why did many American cities change the German names of streets in their neighborhoods?

Answer 1

Prior to WW1 In 1890 when the Kaiser began to embark on an aggressive foreign policy this began a movement in the United States of "super patriotism " and all things German became suspect. The Germans had always been a vital part of the colonies and the development of various industry, but the movement toward the super patriotic took a harsher view of German Americans. By the early 1900's there was also a greater relationship with Great Britain and this produced an Anglo-Saxonism view ( this was a view that anything Anglo saxon was superior) and they wanted German Americans to give up their German culture. At the time many cities had areas German areas where newspapers, shops, and foods catered to German culture. By the time of Wilson there was discussion of German loyalty to the United States and 200,000 volunteers were deputized to spy on German immigrants for the FBI. Soon they were investigating anyone with dissenting views and as this took hold anything German was automatically suspect. Street names were changed, cities changed their names, foods were renamed, even the "German" measles was renamed. The German language was outlawed and books written in German were burned or taken out of libraries . Soon people were seeing German spies everywhere and German Americans were interned in concentration camps and in 1918 South Dakota passed a law where it was illegal to speak German over the phone. Some government officials stated that anyone seen as disloyal should be shot or hung. In the spring of 1918 a crowd in Florida attacked a German American and all over the United States people were attacked because they were German decent. So, the least of the movement was to change the names of places and things and finally the espionage act was changed by Congress to the sedition act that placed the most restrictive laws on the freedom of press and speech in the countries history.

Answer 2

During periods of anti-German sentiment, especially during the world wars, American cities changed the German names of streets to distance themselves from German heritage and show allegiance to the United States. This was done to avoid association with the enemy and demonstrate patriotism.