The growing Western cities called to the skilled artisan, the small
tradesman, and the intellectuals. Cincinnati early became a German
center. In 1830 the Germans numbered five per cent of its population;
in 1840, twenty-three per cent; and in 1869, thirty-four per cent.
Milwaukee, "the German Athens," as it was once called, became the
distributing point of German immigration and influence in the
Northwest. Its _Gesangvereine_ and _Turnvereine_ became as famous as
its lager beer, and German was heard more frequently than English upon
its streets. St. Louis was the center of a German influence that
extended throughout the Missouri Valley. Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit,
Buffalo, and many of the minor towns in the Middle West received
substantial additions from this migration.
Unlike the Irish, the Germans brought with them a strange language,
and this proved a strong bond in that German solidarity which
maintained itself in spite of the influence of their new environment.
In the glow of their first enthusiasm many of the intellectuals
believed they could establish a German state in America. "The
foundations of a new and free Germany in the great North American
Republic shall be laid by us," wrote Follenius, the dreamer, who
desired to land enough Germans in "one of the American territories to
establish an essentially German state.
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