Deutschland in the US, Part I: tracking German migration

Written by Sabrina Axster

German immigrants board a ship for America. Source.

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

Recently, I convinced a Spanish friend of mine to try German food with me. Together we ventured to Zum Schneider in Alphabet City, one of the many German restaurants and beer gardens dotted across the city. While trying to explain to my friend that Zum Schneider really serves Bavarian food and that the dishes from my own region, the Rhineland, are very different (Germany has a lot of regional variation), I started to wonder about German immigration to NYC.

Back home, there’s a myth that at one time there were so many Germans in the US that German almost became the most popular language instead of English. The quintessential New York immigration story, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, also mentions many Germans in the immigrant community — so I decided to do some research.

German immigration to the US

Germans have been part of American history since 1608, when several Germans were among the settlers at Jamestown (the first permanent English settlement). Though it’s important to keep in mind that until the late 19th century there was no single Germany. German immigrants came from smaller states that all spoke German: Prussia, Bavaria, Hessia, Rhineland, Pomeria, and Westphalia. These only became a unified Germany in 1871.

Initially, the immigration of Germans to the US consisted of small groups driven largely by heavy taxation at home and laws that permitted only the eldest sons to inherit their father’s land. In the early years of post-colonial America, there were few non-English speaking immigrants to the US — until a catastrophic famine hit Europe in 1816.

The small groups of immigrants turned “into a great wave as poverty and political unrest in Germany continued to grow,” according to accredited genealogist Dr. Richard Haberstroh. This trend was further exacerbated by the Industrial Revolution when the economies of German states began to rely less on agriculture and more on manufacturing. It caused many Germans to begin searching for new farmland, leading many to the abundant US.

In the 1850s, nearly one million Germans came to America, and during the 1880s, the number of immigrants increased to 1,445,000. By 1910, Germans made up 19 percent of foreign-born Americans.

From the mid-1800s, hostility began to rise against the Germans and other dominant immigrant groups, particularly the Irish. The backlash was fueled partly by religious sentiment as many German immigrants were Roman Catholic. But it was also fueled by political ideology (many Germans became Democrats) and economic factors — people feared that the Germans and Irish would take away American jobs. Germans were also targeted for their unfamiliar language and customs.

Though Germans are no longer among the top groups immigrating to the US today, the US Census Bureau found that more than 47 million people claimed German ancestry in 2013. Today, German-Americans reside predominantly in non-coastal states, with the largest number residing in Maricopa County, Arizona.

Come back next week to find out more about the history of German immigrants in New York.