Deutschland in the US, Part II: Coming to New York

Written by Sabrina Axster

“German immigrants on the steerage deck of the immigrant ship Friedrich der Grosse.” Source.

This is the second installment of our History of German Immigrants series. Read the first installment.

Germans contributed to the creation of New Amsterdam in the early 1620s. But immigrants from Germany first began to settle in Manhattan in high numbers in the 1830s. By 1855, the city had the third largest population of Germans in the world after Berlin and Vienna (roughly 30 percent of NYC’s inhabitants were first- or second-generation German immigrants) and by 1860, over 200,000 Germans lived in New York.

German immigrants first moved to the areas that now cover most of the Lower East Side (LES) and parts of the East Village, particularly around Tompkins Square Park, where people lived in newer tenement buildings than those found on the LES. And, in the early 20th century, Little Germany — or Kleindeutschland — housed more than 50,000 people. The Irish called the area Dutchtown (it is quite common for non-German speakers to confuse “Deutsch” with “Dutch”) and Avenue B was dubbed German Broadway.

Despite the long tradition of guilds in Germany that produced many highly skilled laborers — predominantly cabinetmakers, tobacconists, barbers, bakers, shoemakers, locksmiths, tailors, and brewers — working and living conditions were difficult for immigrants in the mid-1800s. Because of this, many Germans joined the fight for higher wages and better working conditions. In the early 1850s, they took part in labor actions and strikes through German workers’ associations and unions. In 1857, for example, immigrants assembled in Tompkins Square Park to demonstrate against unemployment and food shortages.

In the 1860s, a number of wealthier Germans left Little Germany to move to Yorkville, which centered around East 86th Street. It was then also nicknamed German Broadway.

What happened to Little Germany?

It almost sounds like the plot of a dramatic movie, but on June 15, 1904, a large portion of the Little Germany’s population died in the General Slocum Disaster. As part of the St. Mark’s Lutheran Church’s 17th annual picnic, the boat “General Slocum” was chartered to take guests to Long Island. Since it was a Wednesday, the passengers were mostly women and children — a total of 1,300 people. The boat caught fire, killing around 1,000 of those aboard. It was “the most deaths by far of any disaster in the history of the city until the horror of September 11, 2001,” says Dr. Richard Haberstroh. The captain initially did not believe that the ship was on fire, and neglected to act.

Almost all of the families in Little Germany lost a family member that day, and suicides among the community increased almost immediately as a result of the tragedy. It is hard to say whether this disaster was the only reason for the demise of the community. It occurred during a time of socioeconomic change: families were moving uptown and other immigrant communities moved into the traditionally German neighborhoods. Moreover, with the beginning of the First World War ten years later, anti-German sentiment grew, making Germans less likely to rebuild their communities. It led to a decline of German sub-culture as German magazines ceased publishing and German Americans stopped speaking German in public. This trend further accelerated during the Second World War, under the shadow cast by Nazism.

Come back in two weeks to learn about the migration of Jewish Germans to the United States.