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by Angela Horn
The Max Kade Institute's staff is happy to welcome Kevin Kurdylo, our new librarian and archivist, into our midst. He will be working half time for the Institute and half time for the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Studies (CSUMC).
Kevin joined our ranks in August and ever since has been sorting out the puzzles and conundrums that are the essence of the Keystone House. To date, he has worked to become familiar with grant applications of the recent past, sort among the books in the Institute's many closets and crannies, drain an upstairs wall of rain water and socialize with his fellow coworkers. He is looking forward to digitizing CSUMC's archives in the near future and to working with the Friends and the general public.
Although Kevin was born in Staten Island, New York, he enjoyed the scenery of both coasts growing up as he moved from one to the other with his family while his father was with the Navy. He moved inland to attend college at the University of Iowa, where he received his Bachelor of Arts in German in 1988.
Kevin is no stranger to the Madison area, however. He completed his Masters in Library Sciences at UW-Madison's School of Library and Informational Sciences in 1995. Kevin then returned to the East Coast, working at the Corning Museum of Glass as a bibliographer.
While there, he also married his wife Shawn in September 1999. Fortunately for the Institute, Shawn is a Wisconsin enthusiast -- she grew up on the western edge of the state -- and brought the couple back to Wisconsin. Shawn works here as the coordinator of youth and special services for the South Central Library System. They recently bought their first home on Madison's east side, where they live with their spunky brood of four felines.
Kevin is very happy to be part of the MKI team. "I'm honored to be a part of both the MKI and CSUMC during this time of great growth and change," he says. "I enjoy being a part of such a dedicated and creative team."
by Emily Engel
The Max Kade Institute participated this summer in the celebration of Wisconsin's and Hessen's twenty-fifth anniversary as sister-states by setting up a display in the Capitol Rotunda.
The MKI's display showcased Hessian immigration to Wisconsin during the nineteenth century and important state figures who originated in the German state.
The highlight of the event, however, was Wisconsin Governor Scott McCallum and Hessian Minister-President Roland Koch signing a reaffirmation of the two states' relationship in a ceremony on July 30.
The partnership was initiated in 1976 to strengthen dialogue on issues of mutual concern and promote exchanges in business, tourism, education, culture and the arts.
Joseph Heibl, a longtime resident of Madison and supporter of German Studies and Education, died on March 8, 2001, at the age of 96. It is with great gratitude that we acknowledge his generous bequest of $25,000 to the Max Kade Institute.
Heibl was born in Bajmok/Apatin (Abthausen), a Danube-Swabian community located 100 miles north of Belgrade, Serbia, that was then part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. When he was six years old, his widowed mother immigrated with him and a younger brother to the United States, settling in South Milwaukee, where she joined people from her home region and remarried. Joseph grew up speaking the Danube-Swabian dialect with his family and immediate neighborhood.
His experience growing up as a poor immigrant child in Milwaukee led Heibl to a lifelong interest in education, his heritage and German language and culture. His mother, although she spoke German, English and several Slavic languages, never learned to read and write. His stepfather never learned to speak English even though he spent most of his life in Milwaukee. Heibl early on saw how lack of education equaled lack of opportunity, and how the knowledge of other languages could open many new horizons. It was especially hard for him when, as a schoolboy during World War I, he was forbidden to speak his native language.
After graduating from high school, Heibl went to UW-Madison, where he studied economics, German (quickly realizing that the High German taught at the university was practically a foreign language to him), literature and civil engineering. He eventually became a statistician, working for the Department of Transportation most of his life. The highlight of his career was several years in Alaska, where he worked on the Alaska Highway project.
After retiring, Heibl again pursued his lifelong love of learning, taking classes at UW-Madison. One of those classes was a German honors course taught by Charlotte Brancaforte that was also taken by Arthur Hasler, a noted UW biologist. "The two retired gentlemen had an important role in the class," says Brancaforte. "Both played to their audience, which was the students -- and the students loved it. They also recited poetry and thus sparked an all-class memorizing and reciting contest."
According to Brancaforte, the students learned from them that, as Heibl once put it, "looking at the world with a comparative attitude has its advantages. There is no topic concerning a foreign culture that cannot be discussed and studied, and there is no event in history from which you cannot learn."
Heibl also wanted to give others the opportunity to advance their education. In hopes of doing this, he created the "Heibl Award" in 1994 for exceptional undergraduate students at the UW-Madison German Department. At the same time, he researched his own heritage and the history and culture of his birthplace.
Heibl's gift to the MKI comes at a time when the Institute is stepping up its efforts to reach out beyond the university, involving the community in its research and making its resources available to a larger public, including K-12 teachers and students. His legacy will live on.
by Jack Thiessen
The Story Thus Far...
Soo jintj daut meist dree Wäatj, bett de Henritjsche äah Hund äah Mooda eenes Morjess mol wada hinjeraun wea, enn ahr ditmol de eene Sied ohpjeflerrt haud. See wudd daut Schohp schlachte motte; see schluad nijch lang. Oba doatoo musst see enne Schien een Baultje äwre Dräajasch laje, omm den Moohda opptootritze enn uttoonehme. Enn de Baultje wea ahr too schwoa. Aulsoo: "Joakob, etj woa vondoag noch Schohpsborsch moake, enn Du tjrijchst uck eene Kommvoll, oba eascht motst Du mie biem schlachte too Haund gohne, joh?"
"Daut dooh etj, oba bloß wann..." säd Panna, oba de Henritjsche wisst je aul waut kaum.
"Du enn Diene, leewa jesajcht, miene Betjze. Waut hast Du enn Dienem Ella noch väl too vesteatje? Oba etj weet je, woa Du mol wada hanwest enn woa mie toom schlachte, mol wada eenen Rock auntratje. Tjemmst?"
"Joh."
Beid hilde se Wuat, enn boold wea de Mooda enne Jläsa, em Frostschaup, enn em Borsch.
Von nu aun jintj daut bediedend bäta tweschen dee Nohbasch, enn Panna fung sijch enn siene Phantasie daut aulwada mett de Henritjsche enn sienem Ella macklijch too moake.
Bett aum dredden August. Panna haud siene Uage wada Erlaubnis jejäwt bie de Nohbasche een bestje too nieschiere. Enn waut hee doa jäjen Owend aun dem Dach sach, wea dochwoll daut aula Latzte. Bie de Henritjsche stund hinje aum Goadetun jelehnt, een bunta Tjeadel, een strauma Maunsmensch!
Panna jintj fuats nenn, enn drunk vom Schleef Wota, soo dreajch wea ahm daut Mul enn de Seel jeworde. Hee tjitjcht noch eemol von sien Schlopstowefensta, enn wann sien Bletj uck muzhrijch wea, hee sach doa noch emma den Tjeadel hinjrem Jreens stohne, enn waut hee sach, jefoll ahm kratjcht soo schlajcht aus de Baundiete en Rußlaund zasstijch Joah tridj.
Panna wisst sijch meist nijch Roht, enn hee schleep schlajcht. De Welt wea mol wada too seea toonijcht. "Enn wann daut nijch bett morje aundasch woat, dann mott etj dochwoll...,"säd hee, enn läd sijch dohl.
"Dentjcht junt daut doch bloß mol ut...eascht lange Betjze, dann dee aufschniede, dann wada een bätje tjristlijch biem Moodaschlachte, enn nu haft see doa sogoa bie sijch eenen jnerjen Bädel em Goade gaunz sonda Sorj stohne. Eena haud je aum Nippa bliewe kunnt, schlemma ess daut doa uck nijch jeworde," meend Panna, enn schleep langsom enn. Oba nijch eea hee sijch siene Schrootflint väahold, enn dee aum Footenenj enn sien Bad hanläd.
Aum näjchsten Dach jäjen Owent wudd Panna Rosmack hoole. "Eent fe aulemol, wann de Bädel doa wada steiht enn jniesat."
De Bädel stund aulwada doa, soo wiet aus de ziepauagja Panna seehne kunn. Panna muak sijch siene Brell rein, schoof een poah Patroone enn sienen Tweeloopa, enn sad loos. Wiet rundomm, oba emma dijchta nohm Ziel.
"Waut hast Du hiea bie miene Nohbasche veloare? du lestja Scherniesel. Schämst die nijch mol, Du goaschtaja Biekrupa, heh? Na, wacht mau. Enn wann Du mie nijch fuats sajchst, waut Du hiea too seatje hast, woa etj Die mett miene Schrootflint de Betjze utneie," kommendead Panna, enn schlijcht sijch nohda.
Panna wea aul tjeene dartijch Schooh auf, haud de Flint aul haulf bette Schulla, enn de Scherniesel haud noch emma tjeene Auntwuat jejäwt.
"Dit ess Diene latzte Jeläajenheit Diene Sind too betjanne," säd Panna. Oba dann, joh oba donn kaum de Auntwuat von hinja ahm. "Joakob, Du wurscht Die doch nijch aun miene Heazhgrul vejriepe?"
by Steven E. Aschheim, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 2001. 269 pages.
Reviewed by Christoph Strupp
Steven E. Aschheim, professor of history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a frequent guest-lecturer at universities throughout the world, is one of the most distinguished historians of modern German-Jewish and German intellectual history. His books on Brothers and Strangers: The East European Jew in German and German-Jewish Consciousness, 1800-1923, published in 1982, and The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 1890-1990, published in 1992, and articles on various aspects of German and Jewish history of the nineteenth and twentieth century have been critically acclaimed both in Europe and the United States.
His newest publication In Times of Crisis is a collection of fifteen previously published and unpublished essays, grouped in four sections titled "The Crisis of Culture - Then and Now"; "(Con)Fusions of Identity - Germans and Jews"; "Understanding Nazism and the Holocaust: Competing Models and Radical Paradigms"; and "Historians, History, and the Holocaust." The structure of the book occasionally appears random, e.g., articles on Hannah Arendt and Daniel Goldhagen and his controversial book Hitler's Willing Executioners (1996) are situated in three different sections.
All essays collected here are examples of sound scholarship, but I was especially impressed with a short autobiographical digression on "Growing Up German Jewish in South Africa" (59-63). Aschheim was born in Johannesburg in 1942, the son of German-Jewish refugees who had fled Europe in the 1930s. He had to bear the double stigma of being "German" and "Jewish" in an alien surrounding that produced its own victims of racial discrimination. The experiences in South Africa sensitized Aschheim to his intellectual heritage in a special way and ultimately led to his choice of career: "I have never doubted that essentially biographical and existential impulses were behind my later scholarly interests: understanding the nature of the German catastrophe and the complexities of the German-Jewish experience" (62). Aschheim is fascinated by the legacy of German-Jewish humanism, as it is reflected in the writings of authors ranging from Marx, Freud and Einstein to Scholem, Cassirer, Adorno and Kafka and continues in the works of exile-intellectuals such as Arendt, Hilberg, Mosse, Stern and Gay. There is a complex correlation between the rationality of the works of a large number of these German-Jewish writers and thinkers and the irrationality of German history in the twentieth century.
The first two essays deal with the controversial figure of Friedrich Nietzsche and his impact on intellectual history. Aschheim points out the paradigmatic character of his writings, which stimulated long-forgotten contemporaries such as Max Nordau as well as eminent social philosophers of today to deliver heated responses. He sums up the complicated history of the international reception of Nietzsche's thinking, which should not be reduced to his appropriation in the Third Reich. Nietzsche has deeply influenced the philosophical and theoretical debates of the twentieth century, while at the same time these debates have shaped the reading of his writings. Currently, the "Nazi philosopher" of the 1930s and 1940s has been replaced by various postmodern "liberationist" interpretations: There is a Foucauldian Nietzsche as well as a Derridaian and even a feminist one. Every interpretation of Nietzsche tends to be selective to the point of seriously distorting the German philosopher's positions. Aschheim predicts that Nietzsche's ideas will live on and trigger further discussion because "Nietzsche remains perhaps the most potent symbol of the variegated, continuously experimental, post-Enlightenment project" (23).
In "Against Social Science," the third article in this section, Aschheim brings together Hannah Arendt; Leo Strauss; and the Marxist leaders of the Frankfurt School: Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse. The three are an odd combination at first glance because they seriously disliked each other and stood for different political worldviews. They do have similar biographies though -- all were German-Jewish intellectuals and philosophers who were deeply influenced by the experience of the Weimar Republic, Nazism and their years of exile in the United States. They also shared a rejection of modern social sciences. Sociology of a Weberian kind was strongly disowned for its positivism and its conceptions of politics and the modern mass society. They developed alternative "humanizing" concepts of social science, which according to Aschheim were directly linked to their Jewish status and the way they perceived the German tradition of Bildung.
This essay as well as the last one in the first section -- an overview of the way Nazism and the Holocaust have become metaphors and are instrumentalized in contemporary culture and politics -- are prime examples of Aschheim's approach to intellectual history: He presents a panorama of authors, texts and standpoints -- a fine intellectual web held together by superior knowledge and a clear focus. Occasionally, the political and social context remains too much in the background, even though Aschheim certainly is no postmodernist who reduces the world to texts and their interpretations.
The second part of the book deals with the difficult identities of German Jews. Aschheim presents the "Case of Moritz Goldstein," a Germanist who in 1912 proposed a separation of German and Jewish culture to solve the problem of the ambiguous German-Jewish identity. He then analyzes the difficult relationship between Hanna Arendt and Israel: She embodied the skeptical, ambivalent, fissured and multi-loyal Western Jew that the new nation-state and its Zionist intellectuals had difficulties dealing with for a long time. She "was indeed inassimilable in Jerusalem" (85), and only last year was the first of her books translated into Hebrew.
In "German History and German Jewry," Aschheim argues with verve for a reconceptualization of "the relation between `normative' national and `minority' Jewish history." (87) Current debates on multicultural identities have helped pave the way to interpretations that emphasize interdependencies and interactions in the process of assimilation. Aschheim tests the "co-constitutive model" against the lively culture of the Weimar Republic and comes to the conclusion "not that modernism ... was `Jewish' but rather that it was jointly constructed by both Jewish and non-Jewish intellectuals who were not acting in their `Jewish' or `non-Jewish' capacities" (89). Ironically, this provoked German nationalists to construct countermodels of a "Deutschtum" purged of Jewish influences.
The last article of this part is the first of three that discuss the controversy triggered by Daniel Goldhagen's book, Hitler's Willing Executioners. Aschheim is intrigued by the overwhelmingly positive public response to the book. In his opinion, it stands for a heuristic model that stresses the exceptionalism of the murderers and, in fact, contributes to the "Sonderweg" thesis by claiming that the "ordinary Germans" of these days were anything but Christopher Browning's "ordinary men." This position may be academically dated but remains a part of the "polysemic," multilayered German-Jewish dialog that wrestles with the question of whether the Holocaust was an exceptional or paradigmatic event.
In the third part of the book Aschheim continues this discussion with an article on "Nazism, Normalcy, and the German Sonderweg." He traces the debates between a younger generation of German social historians and their Marxist critics like Geoff Eley and David Blackbourn, circling around the question of whether Germany took a different road to modernity that culminated in the horrors of the Third Reich. He confronts them with interpretations strongly informed by modern cultural history--George Mosse's view of the development of nationalism and the German and European bourgeoisie, and Jeffrey Herf's concept of "reactionary modernism." For Aschheim, both offer more convincing explanations because they emphasize the ideological factors that shaped -- and in turn were shaped by -- reality. Aschheim argues that we should take these factors seriously and makes a strong plea for comparative intellectual history.
The last two articles -- a reassessment of Hannah Arendt's famous and highly influential book The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), and a comparison of Arendt's and Goldhagen's images of Germany: "the most extreme, mirror-opposite, postwar Jewish scholarly paradigms of Germany, Nazism, and the Holocaust" (137) -- elaborate on the problems already raised in the book.
The fourth part opens with Aschheim's original review of Goldhagen's book, in which Aschheim joins the ranks of Goldhagen's academic critics from around the world. He points out its problematic appeal to emotions; the unidimensional, simplistic model of explanation; and Goldhagen's ignorance of newer scholarly literature.
The book closes with two elaborate biographical articles on George Mosse and Saul Friedlander. Aschheim portrays Mosse as "perhaps the contemporary historian of the manifold strategies of inclusion and exclusion, of racism and stereotypes, outsiders and respectability, war, `irrationalism' and mass murderousness in the modern age" (155). He deeply sympathizes with Mosse's approach to cultural and intellectual history, as he moved beyond the classical history of ideas years ahead of his time. Aschheim gives a thorough overview of Mosse's oeuvre, dealing with a wide range of subjects that are all linked in one way or another to the fissured project of modernity in Germany and Europe. Equally balanced and informed is his treatment of the writings of Friedlander, a survivor who today is one of the leading experts on Nazism and the representation of the Holocaust in light of the challenges of postmodernism.
Steven Aschheim's In Times of Crisis offers a fascinating range of insights into European and German-Jewish cultural and intellectual history. Its well-written articles with clear-cut statements serve as an excellent introduction to his treatment of the major subjects that have occupied him as a scholar for the last twenty-five years.
Christoph Strupp is a research fellow at the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC. He holds an M.A. and a Dr. phil. from the University of Cologne.
by Eric Platt
Bob Bolz brings a great amount of leadership ability to his position as vice president of the Friends.
Although Bob is new to this particular position, he has years of providing guidance to organizations. Being the maternal grandson of the founder of Oscar Mayer, he spent much of his life working in the top echelons of the company, retiring as vice chairman of its board in 1980. "It was great to see the company grow," he says of his time at Oscar Mayer. "I set a high standard and tried to do the best that I possibly could for it."
Bob takes this work ethic to his new position with the Friends. In fact, Bob already has many plans for his tenure as vice president. Top on his list is helping the Friends grow. "I would like to see the Friends add more programs and be able to raise more funds," he says. "I am very interested in fund raising."
Fran Luebke, president of the Friends, says that she is thrilled to be working with someone with Bob's abilities. "I'm absolutely delighted to be working with Bob," she says. "He's a wonderful individual, and his insights into and experience in working with foundations are very valuable."
Bob says that he has always been interested in learning more about his own German roots and about the history of Germans in Wisconsin in general. "I've always wanted to find out more about the Germans in Wisconsin; to discover how we got here," he says.
He was not really familiar with the Max Kade Institute, however, until four or five years ago when the staff of the UW Foundation told him about the Institute and encouraged him to find out more about it. He joined the Friends a little while later after talking to Joseph Salmons, director of the Institute, about the MKI. He says that he has greatly enjoyed his time as a member. "I enjoy being with people," he says. "I also always like to learn more about an organization."
Bob does not limit the generous giving of his time to the Friends, however. He also is active in foundations such as the Alumni Foundation, the State Historical Society Foundation and the Madison Art Center.
When Bob is not helping out the Friends or one of the other boards of which he is a member, he enjoys the arts, playing golf, gardening and travelling. Although he has journeyed to Germany many times and has travelled throughout the United States and world, he says that his favorite place to visit is the home that he owns in Colorado.
Bob says that one of his favorite things is seeing people put effort toward making an organization succeed. His hard work is definitely doing just that for the Friends.
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We are in the process of updating our e-mail address list. If you are not receiving announcements via e-mail and would like to, please send your address to our librarian, Kevin Kurdylo, at kkurdylo@wisc.edu |
| The Friends of the Max Kade Institute Board of Directors are: Robert Bolz (Vice President), Madison Dennis Boyer, Dodgeville Charles James, Madison Fran Luebke (President), Brookfield Bob Leuning (Treasurer), Madison Trudy Paradis, Cedarburg Antje Petty (ex-officio), Madison Karyl Rommelfanger, Manitowoc Joseph Salmons (ex-officio), Madison Kent Salomon, Appleton Sue Stoddard (Secretary), Wausau William Thiel, Eau Claire Hermann Viets, Milwaukee |
The Wisconsin Historical Society is now offering a new Online Genealogical Research Service that allows individuals to search for their roots without leaving their homes. For a nominal fee of around $10.00 - $25.00 users can submit requests for pre-1907 Wisconsin birth, marriage and death records and receive them in two to four weeks. Rush service is available for an additional fee. For more information, visit the Research Service's web page at http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/genealogy/ogrs/index.html
Exchange Program Expanded
On the eve of the twenty-fifth anniversary of their sister-state relationship, Wisconsin and the German state of Hesse signed an agreement in may that bolsters their student exchange program. The new arrangement expands the program to include students from all campuses in the University of Wisconsin system and all fourteen participating institutions in Hesse.
Terrence Miller, director of overseas programs at UW-Milwaukee's Center for International Education, says that several things already make the Wisconsin/Hesse agreement unique. These include the program's allowance for nontraditional forms of international educational experiences such as internships and short-term immersion programs.
Engelhard to Speak on U.S.-European Relations at UW
Michael Engelhard, consul general of the Federal Republic of Germany, will discuss U.S.-European relations in a talk entitled "At Crossed Signals? Transatlantic Transitions, Global Agendas and Current Challenges for European-American Relations" on Tuesday, September 25, at 3:30 p.m. in room 206 of Ingraham Hall on the UW-Madison campus.
This lecture comes at a time of reassessment of the U.S.-European relationship. It is also, in a sense, a farewell. Germany's consul general in Chicago since 1997, Engelhard is retiring at the end of October, returning home after a distinguished 30-year career in the German Foreign Service. During his tenure in the Midwest, he was a frequent participant in UW-Madison conferences.
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Fall 2001 Tues., Oct. 2: Glenn Gilbert. "Atlases of the Language of the Descendants of German Immigrants in the United States: A Comparison of Pennsylvania and Texas." (Pyle Center) 7:00 p.m. Followed by a reception in honor of Lester W. J. "Smoky" Seifert at the Max Kade Institute. Wed., Oct. 3: Joseph Salmons and Antje Petty. "'Klein Deutschland': German Immigrant Life in Milwaukee in the Late Nineteenth Century." (Hales Corner Historical Society) 7:00 p.m. Wed. Nov. 28: Tobias Brinkmann. "Jews, Germans, or Americans? Jewish Immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe in Nineteenth-Century America." (Pyle Center) 7:00 p.m. |
by Heidi Marzen, former MKI librarian
The MKI library has received several private donations recently that have proven to be valuable additions to our collection. Most of these items fit into our collection of German-language items published in the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, while others are newer scholarly materials. Please contact the Institute at (608) 262-7546 if you are interested in viewing any of them.
Bible. German. Die Bibel, oder, die ganze heilige Schrift des alten und neuen Testaments, nach der deutschen Uebersetzung D. Martin Luthers. Teubner-Hopf'scher Text. Milwaukee, Wis.: Brumder, 1915.
"Dir & Mir, You & We: Luxembourgish & American Music." Recorder, editor Frank Schroeder. The Troaterbattien. 1999.
Kirchen-Gesangbuch fuer Evangelisch-Lutherische Gemeinden ungeaenderter Augsburgischer Confession, [...]. St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia, 1899.
Beres, Eric. Auswanderung aus dem Hunsrueck 1815-1871: Strukturen, Ursachen und Folgen am Beispiel der Ehemaligen Buergermeisterei Kastellaun. Kastellaun in Der Geschichte, 7. Kastellaun: Verlag Dr. Eike Pies, 2001.
Carsten-Miller, Ingeborg. Ingeborg in Grand Rapids: Lyrik von Ingeborg Carsten-Miller. Silver Spring, Md: Carmill Press, 2001.
Erlenkoetter, G. Rechenbuch fuer deutsche Elementarschulen in Amerika, erster Theil. Die Vier Species in ganzen Zahlen und Bruechen (Nebst Antwortenheft). 36. Aufl. ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Schaefer & Koradi, 1895.
Janzen, Rod A. The Prairie People: Forgotten Anabaptists. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1999.
Kamsauer, O. Reich und Arm und andere Erzaehlungen. New York, N.Y.: Kaufmann, n.d.
Kunz, J. G. Liederbuch fuer christliche Schulen: Eine Sammlung weltlicher und geistlicher Lieder, zwei- und dreistimmig gesetzt, vorzugsweise fuer Oberklassen. St. Louis, Mo.: Volkening, 1873.
Messimer, Claire. Known by the Work of His Hands. Kutztown, Pa.: Pennsylvania German Society, 2000.
Otto, E. Das Leben George Washingtons: Der Erste im Frieden, der Erste im Kriege, Der Erste in den Herzen seiner Landsleute. St. Louis, Mo.: Eden, 1897.
Rohn, Elisabeth and H. Machwuerth. Konrad der kleine Holzschnitzer: Eine Erzaehlung [und] Samuel: Oder Liebet Einander: Eine Erzaehlung. Columbus, Ohio: Lutheran Book Concern, n.d.
Schuster, J. Dr. J. Schuster's biblische Geschichte fuer katholische Volksschulen. neu bearb. von G. Mey. St. Louis, Mo.: Herder, 1918.
Smith, Uriah. Die Verinigten Staaten im Lichte der Prophezeiung; Oder eine Auslegung von Offb. 13, 11-17. [The United States in the Light of Prophecy]. Unsres Landes Zukunft. Battle Creek, Mich.: Adventisten vom siebenten Tage, 1884.
Stretton, Hesba. Allein in London : Eine Erzaehlung fuer die Jugend und Jugendfreunde. Feierabend-Stunden Fuer Den Christlichen Familienkreis. St. Francis, Wis.: Gerend, n.d.
Uncapher, Wendy K. Lands of the German Empire and Before. Janesville, Wis.: Origins, 2000.
We are grateful for the generous donations that have been made to the Institute's library. Please visit our library catalog online at and search our growing collection!
Heidi Marzen, a librarian at the Max Kade Institute for almost three years, left the Institute this summer to move to Chicago.
Heidi first joined the staff of the MKI in September 1998 as an assistant to then-librarian Annie Reinhardt. When Reinhardt retired in April 2000, Heidi took over her position.
According to Antje Petty, assistant director of the MKI, Heidi was a great asset to the Institute. "It was a real pleasure to work with Heidi," she says. "She knew everything and did everything extremely well. She was especially helpful to the people that walked in looking for help, giving them good advice on everything from genealogy to what to do with that German-language book they just found or inherited."
While the Marzens moved to Chicago because her husband received a teaching position there, Heidi quickly found a job in the city as well. She will be working at various branches of the Chicago Public Library, filling in for a few months at a time for people going on leave. While she is looking forward to getting to know the library system better through this job, Heidi hopes to transfer to a permanent position at a nearby branch as soon as one opens up.
The move for Heidi is bittersweet. Although she looks forward to her new opportunities in Chicago, she says that she will miss the Institute. "I love the physical setting of the MKI," she says. "The grounds and building were absolutely beautiful. I'll also miss the wonderful staff rapport we had here, especially during this past year. We went from being rather scattered and not cohesive to being a great team."
Although she is no longer a member of the MKI's staff, Heidi hopes to stay in contact with the Institute. "I look forward to seeing the MKI grow and succeed in the future," she says. "It's definitely on the right path to do so."
by Antje Petty
In the nineteenth century many of the people who immigrated to Wisconsin came from German-speaking regions in Europe, bringing with them their ways of life, especially their foods, recipes and cooking traditions. Before long, German cookbooks were being printed in Wisconsin. These cookbooks provide a fascinating glimpse into the acculturation process that German immigrants went through as they adjusted their traditions to the different conditions they found in the new land and, over decades, blended more and more with surrounding cultures.
Probably the most prominent of the German cookbooks published in Wisconsin, was Henriette Davidis' Praktisches Kochbuch für die Deutschen in Amerika [Georg Brumder, Milwaukee]. In its first American edition of 1879, the cookbook was more or less a reprint of the bestselling version published in Germany. The text is entirely in German; the print in Fraktur. Recipes are traditionally German, with no adjustments for ingredients, even though some would be hard to come by in Wisconsin, such as Sauerampfer (sorrel) and Mangold (a beet-like plant). Only one small adjustment to American customs had been made: German units of weight had been changed to American ones.
Only eighteen years later, however, the second edition of Davidis' cookbook is already much more Americanized. It is written in German and the print is in Fraktur, but all headings and some ingredients are translated into English. Furthermore, the cookbook's content itself had been changed.
Most notably, a number of American dishes were added. In addition to "Springerle," you could now find "Tassenkuchen/cup cakes" and "Maisbrot/cornbread." Ingredients in traditional German recipes measured by weight (Pfund/pound and Unzen/ounces), were now measured mostly in volume.
Nowhere is the process of acculturation more visible than in the changes in German bread traditions. Back in the old country, immigrants used a number of different grains for bread making, such as rye, wheat, barley, millet, flax and buckwheat. In Wisconsin they were introduced to corn (Mais). Barley, millet, flax and buckwheat were no longer commonly used for bread making.
Cooking and baking methods also changed. In Wisconsin, early immigrants were on their own and had to learn to bake bread individually in Dutch Ovens, a hardship commented on in the Praktisches Koch-Buch für die Deutschen in Amerika of 1897:
Old settlers remember the days when in many farmsteads there was no cast-iron oven. Bread had to be baked in cast-iron pots, which had cast-iron lids. Such a pot (Dutch Oven) had to be placed in an open fireplace onto glowing coal. Even the lid had to be covered with red-hot coal. Baking required a lot of care. Women suffered greatly from the embers of the open fire.*
With time, the meal time traditions themselves evolved. In nineteenth-century Germany, as is still the tradition there today, people ate bread for breakfast (either sweet bread with butter and jam or dark bread with cold-cuts and cheese) and for supper (hearty breads with cold-cuts and cheese). A hot meal was cooked for lunch. Over time, German immigrants in America switched to eating a hot meal for dinner and often replacing bread for breakfast with cereal. Cookbooks reflected this change by adding chapters such as "Sandwiches for a Cold Lunch" (Aechte deutsche Kochkunst, Milwaukee, 1909).
Over decades, a change in food preferences can be observed in the German-American community, marking the last stage of the acculturation process. Again, this is most visible with regard to bread. Older cookbooks are filled with recipes such as "Fine Sour Rye Bread" and "Cream of Black Bread." In 1915, however, the Recept-Buch und Haus-Arzt, published in German, has the following quote:
Two things are especially important for good bread: lightness and sweetness. Heavy bread, meaning bread that is neither light nor fluffy, or sour bread is only suitable for piglets.
Thus, German-American cookbooks mirror the evolution of an immigrant community. More than four decades after immigration, the immigrants' native language was still spoken widely enough to justify the publication of a cookbook in German. Their food traditions and way of life, however, had already given way to the dominant American culture.
*All quotes are translations from the original German.
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Cream of Black Bread Brown ¼ grated black bread in butter |
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Eel in Beer 3½ lbs. of eel |
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Cherry Pudding 2 lbs. sour cherries Clean and pit the cherries. Crush about twenty pits and boil them in the water with the cherries for half an hour. Strain the cherries. Add lemon juice and sugar to the water and boil again. Add cornstarch mixture and cook for 5-8 minutes, stirring constantly. Pour into a dish rinsed with cold water. Chill and serve with whipped cream or milk. |
