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by Thor Templin
Glenn Gilbert gave a lecture entitled "Atlases of the Language of the Descendants of German Immigrants in the United States" on October 2. It was given in honor of the late dialectologist and University of Wisconsin Professor Lester "Smoky" Seifert and coincided with the release of his Word Atlas of Pennsylvania German.
Gilbert
was uniquely qualified to give this lecture. A professor of linguistics at Southern
Illinois University, he is the author of numerous books including the Linguistic
Atlas of Texas German. Gilbert also donated his own extremely valuable
recordings of Texan German speakers to the MKI's growing library of German dialects.
When one thinks of Texas, German may not immediately come to mind for most Midwesterners, but the language became so important there that, for example, San Antonio had its street signs in English, Spanish and German for many years and many Sorbian speakers switched to German rather than English. There were approximately 70,000 German speakers in Texas in the 1960s.
Gilbert presented a brief history of some of the key dialect cart-ographers in the post-WWII period. Beginning with Helmut Scholz, a mapmaker in Germany during the Third Reich, who immigrated to the United States after the war and began mapping out German dialects, Gilbert described some of the sociolinguists, such as Heinz Kloss, who researched Pennsylvanian and Texan German dialects and former University of Wisconsin Professor Einar Haugen, who worked on Norwegian dialects in the United States. Haugen's work was a critical point in the study of immigrant languages; his findings about bilingualism and why some immigrants give up their languages while others do not are still the foundations for much scholarship today.
After this historical perspective of the field of dialect cartography, Gilbert discussed the two German-American dialect atlases: his Linguistic Atlas of Texas German and Seifert's Word Atlas of Pennsylvania German. The language situation was much different in the two areas. Spanish, English, Sorbian and Czech immigrants all had contact with Texan Germans, while the German settlers of Pennsylvania had large pockets of Amish, Hutterite and Mennonite settlers who largely only had contact with English and other German-speaking settlers. This, of course, impacted linguistic categories such as syntax and loan words and word order. Gilbert described some of these factors and compared them with their Pennsylvania German counterparts.
A reception in honor of the release of Seifert's Word Atlas followed at the Institute.
Recent visitors to the MKI Web site will notice a change in its appearance. Since the beginning of September, Librarian Kevin Kurdylo and Project Assistant Felecia Lucht have been working on the redesign of the MKI Web site to accommodate its growth in size and to comply with the UW-Madison World Wide Web Accessibility Policy.
While a considerable amount of work has been done, new pages are still being constructed and will be added to the site during the month of January. Kevin and Felecia wish to thank everyone for their input and assistance on the new MKI Web site design and welcome any additional suggestions or comments to make the site as user-friendly as possible. Visit the Web site at http://csumc.wisc.edu/mki
On November 28 the Max Kade Institute lecture series featured Dr. Tobias Brinkmann from the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture at Leipzig University speaking on the topic, "Jews, Germans or Americans? Jewish Immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe in Nineteenth-Century America."
Brinkmann offered a rich and contextualized lecture that focused on the so-called "German period" in American Jewish history. This period roughly covers the years between 1820 and 1880 when more than 100,000 Jews migrated from Central and Eastern Europe to the United States, preceding the larger migration wave of two million Jews from Eastern Europe after 1880. Of particular concern, according to Brinkmann, is the usefulness of the semantically complex term "German Jews" to apply to Jewish immigrants who arrived before 1880.
There are several reasons to be cautious in using the term "German Jews." While many Jewish immigrants did speak German, even larger numbers did not emigrate from what are considered to be the German states proper. Brinkmann notes that the German language and an affiliation with things German played a symbolic role for many Jewish immigrants, especially those active in the religious-reform movement. At various points in history, many Jews felt an affinity with Germans and Germany, especially in the arenas of culture and education. The term "German Jew," which does not seem to have been in wide use before 1880, came to represent a class difference among educated, cultured and more assimilated Jews. The term indicated a status group that set itself in opposition to other Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, so-called "Russian Jews" or "Ostjuden" (a highly-charged term that reflects stereotypical images within the status group), who began to enter America after 1880.
"German Jews," however, were distinct in some ways from other communities of German immigrants. Although some German-speaking Jews, particularly in Chicago, organized and led German community projects, the Jewish population as a whole was never accepted as part of the German community. In addition, many of these so-called "German Jews" spread out and moved to Chicago neighborhoods of higher social and economic status as they became more established, thus putting tensions on the sense of community among Jewish immigrants. In this vein, and to make the issue more complex, the concept of a "German Jew" could be used by later Jewish immigrants to imply those who did well economically but did not strictly adhere to religious laws; it was felt that such "German Jews" acquired status and acceptance at the loss of their "Jewishness."
Brinkmann's lecture also addressed how varying perceptions of America and Germany influenced Jewish immigration and examined how nineteenth-century Chicago serves as a case study in the study of Jewish immigration. In the 1850s and 1860s Jews in Germany were quite critical of America and American Jewry; slavery was condemned and America was viewed as a shallow and materialistic society. But when social and economic conditions were difficult in Germany, America was praised as a place of unique possibilities for Jews, the country being seen especially as the land of destiny for the Jewish reform movement.
Drawing upon his soon-to-be-published dissertation, "Von der Gemeinde zur `Community,'" Brinkmann examined how well Jewish immigrants fared in Chicago, a city that also had a large non-Jewish German-speaking community. He noted how synagogue records indicate that many Jewish immigrants from the Rheinland-Pfalz region knew each other before emigrating, and he explained how relatives in Chicago helped to "pull" the new immigrants from their arrival in New York to the Midwest. Many new immigrants, with assistance from their relatives, worked as peddlers in small towns around the city in order to earn enough capital to allow them to move into Chicago.
Brinkmann discussed how Jewish immigrants organized their community in Chicago, emphasizing the role that strong and well-organized charitable organizations played in unifying a people whose religious differences were often quite pronounced. While their large numbers allowed Jewish immigrants to separate along the spectrum of their religious beliefs, organizations such as B'nai Brith served as "secular synagogues" to unite American Jews and provide a sense of community. Brinkmann also noted that anti-Semitism, particularly as a form of political and religious "modern racism," was not prevalent in America, although anti-Jewish stereotypes did persist. By the 1880s it appears that many Jews were integrated and assimilated and may have been less likely to suffer from direct and overt forms of discrimination. On the whole, Jewish immigrants fared quite well socially and economically in Chicago. Despite internal divisions along the lines of religion and a sense of "Germanness," they managed to create and maintain a transformed sense of community.
Following the lecture, audience members asked well-informed questions that sparked lively discussion, and several expressed appreciation for Dr. Brinkmann's thorough and thought-provoking presentation.
The month of November was an excellent showcase of the many educational outreach activities in which the Max Kade Institute is engaged. Through a number of different venues, MKI staff interacted with K-12 students as well as teachers in different professional areas. These included:
New Webpage for Educators (http://www.wisc.edu/mki/Education.htm)
Felecia Lucht and Kevin Kurdylo not only designed and created a new look for MKI's home page, but also put together a new "For Educators" page. Here teachers will be able to find information on professional-development opportunities offered through the Institute; authentic resources, such as documents taken from the MKI's archives; and lesson plans and lesson ideas, many of which incorporate the above resources. The first lesson plan/resource packs are two units for German teachers, using historic German-American cookbooks. In the coming months units for German and Social Studies teachers on German-American schools and local history will appear on the Web.
Presentation at Wisconsin Association of Foreign Language Teachers Conference in Appleton
At the annual conference for Wisconsin's Foreign Language teachers, Antje Petty presented ideas and lesson plans on how to use authentic historic texts (in this case German-American cookbooks from the nineteenth century) in the German-language classroom. The presentation focused on how these materials can be incorporated into the regular curriculum at many different levels and at the same time can fulfill requirements of the new Wisconsin Academic Standards. For example, historic cookbooks offer an interesting bridge to other subjects and all-school activities and make it easy to involve families and the local community as well.
Workshop at Statewide Multicultural and Equity Convention in Oshkosh
"Diversity in Our Neighborhood: Bringing Local Culture Into the Classroom" was the topic of a workshop for educators held by Antje Petty and Ruth Olson (Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures) at the Statewide Multicultural and Equity Convention in Oshkosh. Many Wisconsin communities and schools deal with diversity issues such as immigrants that don't speak English that at first might appear to be only recent in origin. This is simply not the case, however. Today, the languages these immigrants speak are Asian or Spanish, but a hundred years ago, a significant part of the population spoke only German or a Slavic or Scandinavian language. While the origins of the immigrant groups are different, the societal issues are often very similar. The workshop introduced techniques on how to use local culture and history to address diversity issues in today's schools, by increasing awareness of one's own culture and recognizing the many different cultures that are present even in seemingly very homogeneous communities.
Exhibit for K-12 Students at Neville Museum in Green Bay
Ruth Olson, Joe Salmons and Antje Petty participated in another "UW-On
the Road" event, this time at the Neville Museum in Green Bay. As was the
case at the Public Museum in Milwaukee last February, MKI and CSUMC held the
exhibit "Breaking Bread-Bridging Cultures." Very diverse groups of
children of all ages and backgrounds came for fifteen-minute hands-on presentations
and discovered how at any time in history, up to the present, immigrant groups
have enriched Wisconsin's (culinary) culture. Students were surprised to learn
that the all-common Bretzel originated in a small
region of southwestern Germany. East African Injera
bread, one of the newest additions to Wisconsin's bread selection, was the winner
in the "unusual-smell category." Injera
is similar to sourdough, and since it is very moist, retains a vinegary smell.
[Transplanted, but Not Uprooted: Emigration from Hessen-Darmstadt (Province of Rheinhessen) to Wisconsin in the Nineteenth Century]
by Helmut Schmahl, Peter Lang Publishing, Frankfurt am Main, 2000, 448 pages (in German).
Reviewed by Antje Petty
Every
immigrant coming to this country was first an emigrant. In his book Verpflanzt,
aber nicht entwurzelt, Helmut Schmahl looks at the immigration/emigration
experience as a whole, placing the migrants themselves at the center of the
analysis, while keeping in focus the larger context of an ever-developing society
around them.
The subjects of his study are 60,000 emigrants from the relatively small area
of Rheinhessen (Hessen-Darmstadt) in today's Rhineland-Palatine, 2,000 of whom
came to Wisconsin in the second half of the nineteenth century. Schmahl uses
a multitude of previously unexplored resources from emigration permits, census
data and ship records to newspapers and personal letters to find an answer to
a variety of questions. These include: Who exactly were these people, why did
they leave their homeland, what
brought them to Wisconsin, and how did they settle in this state and adjust
to the new surroundings?
In great detail, Verpflanzt, aber nicht entwurzelt describes the Rheinhessen of the nineteenth century as a place of emigration: the political, economical and social structures of the region as well as the reasons for individuals and whole families to leave for life on a new continent. Economic hardship was the most prevalent reason for emigration. A combination of high birth rate, low mortality rate in the early nineteenth century and the Realteilung inheritance law (stipulated that real estate should be partitioned and equally distributed among all heirs) made it next to impossible for many farming families to make a living.
Between 1832 and 1870, 36% of all emigrants from Rheinhessen were indeed property-owning farm families. But almost the same percentage of immigrants were artisans and craftsmen, mostly coming from the textile and construction trades. In far lower numbers, merchants also left Hessen-Darmstadt. Only a very small number of Rheinhessen emigrants to North America came from the lower classes, mostly because they could not afford the sea-passage. Many, however emigrated to Russia and Hungary, which were also places of colonialization at the time as well as Brazil, which for a while paid immigrants to come to that country.
While economic factors were the main reason for Rheinhessians to leave their homeland, other factors also played a role. Some emigrants left because of dissatisfactions with the political situation, especially after the failed democratization attempts of 1848/49. Others had very personal reasons, such as unwed mothers wanting to escape a life of social ostracism or young men trying to avoid military service. Religious reasons for emigration were not that common, since Rheinhessen guaranteed religious freedom during the nineteenth century. The vast majority of emigrants from Hessen-Darmstadt were Protestants, a few were Catholics, some Jewish (comprising large numbers in some professions) and a few belonged to Freethinker Societies.
Once in North America, it is striking that German immigrants tended to settle in regions were they could find people from their home regions. This holds true for the Rheinhessen immigrants. While most of them settled in the Atlantic Coast states, the 2,000 who went to Wisconsin can mostly be found in rather homogeneous settlements in only a few counties: Washington, Sheboygan and Milwaukee. Schmahl clearly shows that in addition to the push-factors that motivated people to leave their homeland, there were a number of pull-factors that drew them to a specific place in the New World.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, Wisconsin had many attractions for German immigrants. Not only was the state geographically and climatologically comparable to Germany and had land that was still affordable, it also made a concerted effort to entice immigrants, specifically Germans, to come. In 1853, the Wisconsin government created the position of immigration commissioner. In the following years Wisconsin representatives were stationed in East Coast ports to convince new arrivals of the advantages of their state. Every year, 30,000 brochures were printed, many of them in German and distributed in Europe. Articles were placed in newspapers abroad and in the local immigrant press.
However, the biggest pull-factor of all proved to be personal letters, written by early immigrants to their families and friends at home. The Wisconsin Immigration Commissioner Herman Härtel recognized this when in 1853 he placed an article in Milwaukee's German-language Wiskonsin-Banner that gave German Americans "argumentation aids" for letters written to Germany. Among the many of Wisconsin's virtues he listed were:
[translated from Schmahl, 122-123]
Hessen-Darmstädters proved to be a prime example of this pull-factor. The letters of one individual alone, the forester Franz Neukirch, who immigrated to Milwaukee in 1839, induced not only his extended family but also many other families from his hometown of Guntersblum to join him in Wisconsin. Eventually Neukirch's letters were printed in the German weekly Der Deutsche Auswanderer (The German Emigrant), thus reaching an even wider audience.
Once in Wisconsin, Rheinhessians not only settled close to each other, but also transferred their way of life to the new surroundings. Giving many examples, Schmahl details the acculturation process of the first generation of immigrants in agriculture, trade, schools, press, private and religious life, as well as their relationship to other Germans and ethnic groups. Here it is striking that while Hessen-Darmstädters (and for that matter, immigrants from other German regions) had a significant impact on local economic and social life, they tended not to participate in politics and were not proportionally represented in local administrations.
Initially, assimilation into the larger American society did not take place in the Hessen-Darmstädter settlements. Over the course of generations, however, they too were Americanized. Nevertheless, a walk across an old cemetery in Germantown or Rhine still reveals a majority of names very specific to the Rheinhessen province and to this day, there are people in Rhine who speak the Rheinhessen dialect of their forefathers, who came to the town 150 years ago.
By using the example of a very specific, well defined group of emigrants, Verpflanzt, aber nicht entwurzelt is a wonderfully rich study of German immigration in the nineteenth century. The book is a treasure trove for researchers: There is an extensive appendix with statistics and other documentation as well as no less than 1,519 footnotes. At the same time it is very accessible to the non-academic reader who is interested in local history and nineteenth century migration.
Helmut Schmahl is working on an English translation of Verpflanzt, aber nicht entwurzelt (to be published by the Max Kade Institute) that will also include information on emigrants from Hessen-Nassau and Hessen-Kassel, both located today in the German state of Hesse. We are looking forward to it!
Dr. Schmahl will
be a visiting scholar at the Max Kade Institute this spring. He will also be
teaching a course on Wisconsin immigration history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
as well as several workshops at the MKI. A faculty member in the History Department
of Johannes-Gutenberg University, Mainz, Schmahl completed his dissertation
in 1999 on immigration from Hessen-Darmstadt to Wisconsin. He is currently researching
Protestant churches in Alsace-Lorraine during the nineteenth century. The following
interview was conducted with Schmahl via e-mail by newsletter staff.
How did you first become interested in German immigration?
I come from Rheinhessen, an area in Southwest Germany with a long emigration tradition. Since I was a teenager, I have been interested in what happened to emigrants after their arrival in the New World. From my small hometown of Ober-Flörsheim alone, more than 200 people left for North America between 1750 and 1890. One of them, Sebastian Walter, who came to Milwaukee in 1866, especially caught my interest, since elderly villagers talked a lot about him. Walter worked his way up from a poor tinsmith apprentice to a co-owner of one of the world's largest ironware companies, the Kieckhefer Brothers Company. He paid several visits to his birthplace in the early 1900s and proved to be very generous. He donated money for poor relief, and the veteran monument he inaugurated in front of our town hall in 1901 still is a local landmark today.
What are some interesting things that you've learned about German immigration to Wisconsin in the course of your research?
When I started my research, I was surprised to learn how vigorously most German immigrants tried to keep up as much of their traditional way of living as possible. Even Hermann Janke from Pomerania, who changed his name to Yankee after he moved to Clark County in the 1850s, was far from denying his ethnic background. He married a German and chose German names for his children who were baptized in a German-speaking Lutheran church.
It also was interesting for me to see that the mix of immigrants from various regions of Germany differed widely from county to county--often even from township to township, as an anecdote from Sheboygan County shows. In the 1850s, an inhabitant of the Lippe-Detmold settlement in Town Herman lost his way in the forests and eventually ended up three miles west in the Hessen-Darmstädter settlement of Town Rhine. Since the locals spoke a High German Hessian dialect which differed considerably from the Detmolder Plattdeutsch (Low German) vernacular, the man could not understand them and told his friends that he had found a colony of Yankees after his return. Whether this is a true story or not, it gives an idea of the enormous cultural differences between various German groups in Wisconsin.
Finally, I was amazed to find out that most of the early German breweries in Milwaukee were run, at least for a time, by brewers (e.g., Joseph Schlitz and Philip Best) from towns within a 20-mile radius around Mainz--an area which is famous for its wines, not for its beers.
How did you become acquainted with the Max Kade Institute?
Jack Holzhueter from the State Historical Society of Wisconsin introduced me to the members of the Institute during one of my first research trips to Madison. Joe Salmons and his staff have been extremely helpful to me with suggestions for my research and also provided help in many ways. I am very much looking forward to my time in Madison next semester!
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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 |
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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 |
This fall, the German publishing company Peter Lang GmbH released a new book detailing the experiences of Michael Zimmer, a newly arrived emigrant from the Palatinate, during the American Civil War. The book, entitled Michael Zimmer's Diary: Ein deutsches Tagebuch aus dem Amerikanischen Bürgerkrieg and edited by Jürgen Macha and Joseph Salmons, is the first volume in a new series by the publisher detailing transatlantic cooperation between Germany and the Americas. It contains the original German entries written by Zimmer during the Civil War as well as an English translation of it and detailed annotations concerning military history and Zimmer's already Americanized German. Interested individuals can order the book through Peter Lang's English-language web site: http://www.peterlang.de/all/
The Max Kade Institute is also releasing two new books this spring: The first is the second edition of Hans Bahlow's Dictionary of German Names, translated by Edda Gentry. This new edition builds on the success of the original dictionary, listing over 15,000 German names, together with variant spellings, and giving the meaning and history of each name. The second is Land Without Nightingales, edited by Phillip Bohlman and Otto Holzapfel, a collection of essays detailing the musical history of German-speaking Americans and their descendents. A companion CD will accompany the book.
The Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Studies (CSUMC) of which the MKI is a part learned in early December that the NEH had given it one of eight awards in its regional humanities centers competition. The $378,900 grant, to be used for start-up and operational costs and endowment building, carries a 3:1 matching requirement. The University of Wisconsin-Madison has also contributed generously to the nascent Center.
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Spring 2002 Sat., Jan. 12: MKI exhibit at the Wisconsin State
Genealogy Society's annual Genealogy Fair. (Coventry Presbyterian Church,
Madison. Corner of Mineral Point Road and Sat., Feb. 9: Helmut Schmahl will be leading
a miniworkshop on German Genealogy: "Traces They Left Behind: German
Archival Sources on Immigrants to North America." Sat., Mar. 9 and Mar. 16: Workshop on "Old German Script." Led by Helmut Schmahl. (MKI.) 9:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. Sat., April 20: Conference: Dane County Kölsch.
Invited speaker: Dr. Peter McGraw of Linfield College. |
by Eric Platt
Sue Stoddard brings a love for learning and an amazing family tree to her position as secretary of the Friends.
Sue's family has been involved in Wisconsin history since the early nineteenth century. On her mother's side, her relatives include a senator and Solomon Juneau, the first mayor of Milwaukee. Her father's side boasts another interesting ancestor—Jacob Sternberger, who left Germany after the failed 1848 Revolution and settled in Wisconsin. His letters, which are housed at the Max Kade Institute,1 reveal much about the lives of Wisconsin's 48'ers. Included in the collection is a draft of the statutes for a commune named Marienstern outlining, among other things, an agreement among all the members to combine their property and wealth.
Sternberger, Sue's great-grandfather, actually helped her become involved with the MKI. When she unexpectedly discovered his letters in her parent's house a few years ago, she at first did not know what to do with them. Enough of the letters were eventually translated by her friend Walter Lewinnik to let her know that they contained valuable historical information, but where would be the best place to deposit them? Although she first considered the State Historical Society, a historian friend suggested that she think about depositing them at the MKI with which she was then not acquainted. She contacted a very-interested Institute, deposited the letters there and has been an active member of the Friends ever since.
Sue, who became secretary of the Friends earlier this year, hopes to use her position to encourage people with old family letters and other potentially valuable historical documents to follow her example and donate them to the MKI or other similar organizations. "Who knows what people are keeping?" she wonders aloud. "These documents need to be at places where people will not only preserve but also use them."
She plans to also help the efforts of Fran Luebke and other Board members to spread knowledge about the MKI throughout Wisconsin. "We need to go out into the State and let people know that we're here," she says. "Instead of making the horses come to Madison, we need to go to them."
Given Sue's interest in her family's history, it should come as no surprise that she was trained as a historian while an undergraduate here at the University of Wisconsin. Although a professor encouraged her to stay on to study history at the graduate level, she chose to pursue a career as a librarian instead, finishing a degree in library science at UW a few years later.
Sue currently combines her love for history and skills as a librarian working with the Marathon County History Teaching Alliance, which every year brings area teachers together to attend teaching seminars on various topics and swap ideas among themselves. The program received the American Historical Association's Beveridge Family Teaching Prize in 1997 for its work in bringing area high school teachers and university professors together. "You can never stop learning," says Sue describing why she started working with the Alliance. "Everyone needs a stimulation to learn, and the program does just that for local teachers."
When Sue has a few spare moments, she likes to read (mysteries, travel books and history are her favorites), sew, and hike around her beloved Wisconsin. She is also an active member of her community's Unitarian church.
Sue says that she tries to live by a German proverb—Gut oder gar nicht, which she translates as meaning "If you're going to do it, do it right." Those of us that know her know how well she exemplifies this maxim in her life.
1 See the Summer 2000
Newsletter for more information about Sternberger and the Institute's collection
of his letters.
Thanks to my long association with the Max Kade Institute and my service as lecturer/study leader on prior alumni tours abroad, the Alumni Association appointed me its representative for the September tour. The group of participating Badgers numbered twelve; we were augmented by a larger contingent from Penn State and fifty-one other independent travelers. Although all participants were interested in their German-American heritage, few of the UW group knew about the MKI; much the same was true of the Penn State people, even though Penn State has its own MKI too. Needless to say, this was soon corrected by my presentation on our Institute and by comparable words by the Penn State representative, Professor Gregg Roeber. As the result of my efforts, the Friends can now count several new members.
Our
river voyage aboard the well-appointed and comfortable Switzerland II left from
Strasbourg and ended up in Amsterdam. There were stops and guided excursions
in Baden-Baden, Heidelberg (Neckar River detour), Mainz, Rudesheim, Cochem (on
the Mosel), Koblenz, Cologne (the cathedral) in Germany, and in Holland, Arnhem
(including a visit to the magnificent Krëller-Mhller Museum) as well as
Amsterdam (the Rijksmuseum and, as an extra option for the culturally curious,
the "red light" district).
The tour's German-American heritage focus featured a visit to the Institute of Palatine History and Folklife Studies (Volkskunde) in Kaiserslautern. This stop included a lecture on emigration history by the Director, Dr. Roland Powell (who has appeared in Madison to talk at the MKI). Interested individuals were also able to consult the Palatine Institute's archives and genealogical database. Two informative presentations were offered by Professor Roeber on the boat; one treated the importance of the North-South as well as the East-West divide in German cultural and migration history; the other dealt with the history of Cologne from Roman times to the present. I delivered the "Special Cruise Lecture" on "In Search of Germany: Clues from German History and Politics."
News of the dastardly terrorist attack of September 11 reached us in Strasbourg at about 3:30 p.m. of our first full day in Europe. The pall it cast was immediate, palpable and yet almost indescribable. Perhaps most expressive of the new mood was the sudden change of weather; the promise of a long radiant late summer was abruptly broken by the onset of chilly, damp and rainy weather which accompanied us, with nary a sunny interlude, from that day forth throughout the entire trip.
And yet there was warmth. There was warmth in the instantaneous camaraderie
forged among all passengers by our national disaster. There was warmth in the
heartfelt expressions of shared grief by all our local guides and by so many
other Germans as well. There was warmth as well as light in the torchlight parade
of Mosel River valley firemen in honor of their fallen New York City colleagues
that we stumbled upon at dusk in Cochem. And there was the penetrating illumination
provided by Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder when he declared that the
terrorist onslaught was not only an assault on America but also, even more,
an attack on civilization itself. All this added a most poignant dimension to
an altogether memorable venture, exploring our German-American heritage.
by Dennis Boyer
Among the interesting aspects of Pennsylvania German powwowing traditions, or
Braucherei, are the cross-cultural influences introduced by other ethnic groups.
"Powwow" itself, of course, is the most obvious component of this
borrowing process, the word deriving from Algonquin languages of North American
Indians and signifying a combination of spiritual and healing powers. My examination
of over sixty post-1960 individual powwowing practitioners reveals use of non-Deitsch
loan words in powwow contexts. Many of these sources were very open about their
adaptations of terminology from alternative medicine, arcane spirituality and
mythology. Naturally, many of these terms are drawn from the broader English-speaking
culture. However, a surprising number of terms in prolonged usage derived neither
from German nor Anglo-Saxon roots.
Powwow terminology in eastern Berks and southern Lehigh counties bears the most evidence of cross-cultural influence with words drawn from archaic Nordic, Celtic, Roma (Gypsy), Yiddish and American Indian languages. At the outset I should mention that I am not a linguist and that I had a higher density of sources in the two named counties (almost half of my total). I attempted to isolate words that were handed down from older Brauchers. These words almost never made it into conversational dialect and were confined to specific practices. My review did not include Latin in written powwow spells or tonal utterances that I could not attribute to any language. The three terms of French origin all arise from a recently encountered Braucher in Union County within a pidgin French spell meant as an exorcism.
The list below includes loan words encountered in oral spells and cures, not within powwow storytelling forms where there are terms that seem to derive from Old English and Norse that seem to be more recent adaptations not applicable to pre-1960 powwow practice. The terms are as follows:
Aser - spirit of ice. Norse
Bang - derogatory term for the Devil. Roma
Banneck - female spirit of steam and bathing. American Indian, possible Iroquois
Banshie - loud female spirit warning of death. Irish/Celtic
Bekuch - night spirit. Various Algonquin sources
Bodack - chimney spirit that harasses children. Scottish/Celtic
Choveehaney - derogatory term for witch. Roma
Fantome - phantom. French
Golem - animated figure fashioned to fight evil. Yiddish
Goule - ghoul. French
Kenu - giant spirit of rocks and cliffs. Algonquin/possible Shawnee or Munci
Kraken - sea monster. Norse
Odoos - underground race of spirit people. Algonquin/possible Mohican (encountered as Odoh in Great lakes area)
Revenant - returner, restless ghost. French (with more recent usage in Haitian voodoo)
Ruun - mystical pictographic alphabet. Norse (though usually seen elsewhere as rune)
Walum Olem - a written collection of American Indian creation stories and prophecies, but invoked in spell form as a source of power. Lenni Lenape/Delaware
Wandiko - wilderness spirit that causes insanity. Algonquin (also seen in powwow context as vittiko and common among Great Lakes Indians as windigo)
The powwow usages of the above terms are usually distinct and sometimes at odds with the common usage within their languages of origin. I have used the spellings as related to me from sources. In almost all cases they had never before written these words. This cursory examination, of course, does not address the issues of the original cross-cultural transmission setting, the duration of usage, or the evolution of meaning.
While there is continued practice of powwow traditions in some areas, it is becoming more difficult to find Brauchers whose methods are fully rooted in classic Pennsylvania German folkways. Surprisingly, there is a growing number of under-50 Brauchers claiming to use powwow in some fashion. Most of these, however, use the label of powwowing to cover a variety of practices drawn from holistic medicine, new age spirituality, neoshamanism and pop psychology. I am even aware of powwowing as a reference point, if not an actual practice, within one counseling/social-work practice.
It would be very difficult to establish the transmission context of powwowing loan words. There just isn't enough evidence left behind from the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to track such matters. Powwowing adherents came to be marginalized to such an extent that its practicioners might have become increasingly isolated. This may have made them prone to pick up fragments and nonsensical references from other sources and traditions. One suspects that post-1960 powwowing is a very different thing indeed from its fifteenth-century Rhineland ancestor or its remote Neolithic antecedents.
Did Brauchers and Indian medicine people meet and exchange ideas in frontier Pennsylvania? Was early powwowing in dynamic interaction with traveling herbalists, fortunetellers and peddlers of cures? Did interaction and intermarriage of the Appalachian Pennsylvania Germans with the Scotch-Irish as they shared isolation, the horrors of the French and Indian Wars and the passion of the Revolution create a laboratory for a merger of folk medicine? Interesting questions that tempt me to answer yes, yes and yes, but detailed answers are likely beyond our twentieth-century grasp. One may feel intuitively that the powwow/ Braucherei legacy has a connection to our European tribal roots, forms of shamanic healing and an ancient cosmology, but the matter does not lend itself to social science investigation.
I cannot even claim that these loan words I have collected are representative
of general trends within powwowing in the era under consideration. They may
represent anomalous pockets within Berks, Lehigh and Union counties. But I believe
that they do suggest that powwowing was always more than just Hohman's "Long
Lost Friend" manual of spells and arcania.
|
Two Examples of Hohman's Long Lost Lore |
|
An Easy Method of Catching Fish: Remedy for the Whooping Cough: Thrust the child having the whooping cough three times through a blackberry bush, without speaking or saying anything. The bush, however, must be grown fast at the two ends, and the child must be thrust through three times in the same manner, that is to say, from the same side it was thrust through in the first place. |
by Kevin Kurdylo
In the last newsletter, Antje Petty contributed an article entitled "German Immigration Told Through Cookbooks" (see the Fall 2001Newsletter). As a follow-up, I have provided here a bibliography and brief examination of German-language cookbooks published in the United States that are part of the Max Kade Institute's library collection.
While most of these books appeared in print between the years 1865 and 1945, in some cases it is difficult to determine exact publication dates. Some do not list a date, while the majority of them have a statement on the title page verso that reads: "Entered according to the Act of Congress in the year _____, by [publisher name]." This statement reflects an early form of copyright registration and, like today's copyright dates, may only generally indicate the actual date of publication. Also like today's copyrights, it is unclear how well such "entering" worked to protect anyone's rights.
Reviewing evident publication and "entered" dates shows that the Recepte von Dr. Chase… (1865) is among the earliest of the German-language cookbooks in our collection to appear in America,1 although the Recepte in this edition are predominantly medicinal in nature. It would be more than a decade before German-Americans could then purchase the popular 1879 reprint of Henriette Davidis's Praktisches Kochbuch [Milwaukee: Brumder], the focus of Antje's article.
It is interesting to note that the Handbuch der Hausfrau [Milwaukee: Germania], also "entered according to the Act of Congress" in 1879, contains the very same text as the Praktisches Kochbuch but doesn't mention Davidis as the original author — an interesting historical puzzle, especially when one further considers that Brumder and Germania were actually the same publishing house! Furthermore, we find that the Davidis text, appearing under the same Praktisches Kochbuch title, is published in 1889 (actually "entered according to Act of Congress") by the Milwaukee publishing firm of Hoffmann Brothers, but Davidis is mentioned only on the book's spine and nowhere within the book itself. However, Davidis is given due credit for her work once again when Brumder publishes the second edition of Praktisches Kochbuch in 1897; in addition, Hedwig Voss is now noted as the editor, and 247 pages are added to the book. While this is substantial growth for a cookbook, it is still rather slight compared to the heft of later editions of Dr. Chase's Recepte, which reach 873 pages.
Many of the books in our collection contain much more than one would expect to find in a cookbook. In addition to basic hearty dishes (as well as the perhaps uncommon Dachs zu braten or "roast badger") the Davidis work includes a section devoted to Speisezettel für Kranke aller Art, or "menus of all kinds for sick people." Here one can find recipes considered beneficial for those suffering from fevers, measles, smallpox, obesity, leanness, anemia, hemorrhoids, tuberculosis, indigestion, constipation, diarrhea and more, in addition to dietary suggestions for nursing mothers and the newborn. Beyond issues related to health, several books provide advice on a number of other household matters, such as preserving foods, entertaining and keeping a clean house (the Praktische Rathgeber is one such helpful guide, covering topics ranging from ridding the house of ants to forcing bulbs indoors).
As a form of print culture, German-American cookbooks are a fruitful field of study, certain to yield a great deal of tantalizing information. They can be studied with a view toward foodways, household life, medicinal remedies, language change and other aspects of cultural assimilation. And of course, one may be tempted to try a recipe or two!
1There is a claim that
the Vollständiges Kochbuch was published in
Philadelphia by Loes & Sebald around 1860, but so far I've been unable to
substantiate it.
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Bibliography of German-American Cookbooks
Braun, Emil. Deutsch-amerikanische Feinbäckerei und Conditorei. Utica, N.Y.: Conditorei Publishing, 1894. 119 pp.
Buckeye Kochkunst (= Buckeye Cookery) und praktisches Haushalten. Minneapolis: Buckeye Verlags-Gesellschaft, 1880. 599 pp.
Chase, A. W. Deutsche Ausgabe von Dr. Chase's drittem, letzten und vollständigem Recept-Buch und Haus-Arzt, oder, praktische Lehren für das Volk. Cleveland: R. C. Barnum Co., 1915. 873 pp.
—. Recept-Buch und Haus-Arzt, oder, praktische Lehren für das Volk. Detroit: F. B. Dickerson Co., 1890. 873 pp.
—. Recepte von Dr. Chase, oder Belehrung für Jedermann, eine sehr werthvolle Sammlung von ungefähr 800 praktischen Recepten [...]. Ann Arbor, Mich.: A. W. Chase, 1865. 282 pp.
Cooke, Maud C. Die Tafel und die Küche. Chicago: Acme, n.d. 630 pp.
Davidis, Henriette. Praktisches Kochbuch für die Deutschen in Amerika. Milwaukee: Brumder, 1879. 400 pp.
—. Praktisches Kochbuch für die Deutschen in Amerika. 2nd ed. Hedwig Voss, ed. Milwaukee: Brumder, [1899]. 646 pp.
Das deutsch-amerikanische Kochbuch. [S.l.]: Mercantile Publishing, 1891.
Handbuch der Hausfrau bei dem Kochen und Backen von wohlschmeckenden, nahrhaften und gesunden Speisen. Haus-Bibliothek der "Germania," no. 2. Milwaukee: Germania, 1879. 400 pp.
Das kleine Schatzkästlein: Etwas für Jeden in der Familie. Chicago: Fahrney & Sons, n.d. 38 pp.
Meier, Lina. Aechte Deutsche Kochkunst = The Art of German Baking and Cooking. Milwaukee: Lina Meier, 1909. 484 pp.
"Nordwesten" Kochbuch. Neue vergrösserte Ausgabe. ed. Winnipeg, Canada: National Publishers, [1945]. 239 pp.
Praktisches Kochbuch für die Deutschen in Amerika. Milwaukee: Hoffmann Brothers, 1889. [400] pp.
Schultz, Pauline. Schultz's Deutsch-Amerikanisches Koch-Buch: Eine leicht verständliche und praktische Anweisung wie man alle Arten Speisen und Backwerk wohlfeil und gut zubereiten kann. Für den Gebrauch der Deutschen in Amerika. Sowie vollständige Kunst das Einmachen der verschiedenen Früchte, und eine vollständige Anleitung die Herstellung verschiedener Arten von Cordials, Weine, Getränke etc. New York: Hurst & Company, 1891. 286 pp.
Der unentbehrliche Praktische Rathgeber: Ein Schatzkästchen für Jedermann. Enthaltend eine nie versiegende Fundgrube nützlicher und erprobter Rathschläge. Milwaukee: Brumder, 1877. 349 pp.
Vollmer, Wm. Vollständiges deutsches Vereinigten Staaten Kochbuch: Ein Hand- und Hülfsbuch für Hausfrauen und Mädchen, Köche und Köchinnen in jeder Küche [...]. Philadelphia: Schäfer & Koradi, 1879. 165 pp.
Vollständiges Kochbuch für die deutsch-amerikanische
Küche, nebst einer Anweisung zum Tranchiren. Philadelphia: Loes
& Sebald, n.d. 408 pp.
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These are just a few examples of the important materials pertaining to the history and culture of German-speaking immigrants that the Max Kade Institute's library seeks to collect and preserve. Donations of books and materials are crucial to the growth and enhancement of the Institute's library of German-Americana and related research materials.
To ensure our library continues to fulfill the needs of researchers, genealogists and scholars, the Institute has recently developed the following policy for developing its collection.
The library of the Max Kade Institute at the University of Wisconsin is a resource for all those seeking a better understanding of the experience of German-speaking immigrants to North America and their descendants, as well as how those people have helped shape North America and been shaped by it. Our collections include rare German-language items published or otherwise produced in America, ranging from cookbooks and literary works to religious texts and personal diaries. Such materials are significant in helping us understand the experiences, histories and cultures of one large group of immigrants to North America. The Max Kade Institute is dedicated to preserving these documents and serving as a repository for them to ensure that they remain available to scholars and a broad public for generations to come.
Donations to the library are always welcome. We are especially looking to collect:
· Books published in North America in the German language;
· Works by German-American authors whether published in the United States or Germany;
· Books published abroad and written in German that focus on German-speaking immigrants, German emigration or the Upper Midwest;
· Works published in Germany by firms who also published in America (such as Carl Hirsch and Ensslin & Laiblin);
· Primary unpublished documents such as diaries, journals, letters or other family papers produced by German-speaking immigrants and their descendants, or which detail the experiences of such immigrants in America. Recognizing the importance of such documents to family members, the Institute accepts reproductions (such as photocopies and digital images), which can often prove as useful to researchers as the originals.
We work to determine the best location for items that fall outside of our library's
collection; for instance, textbooks or editions published in America for American
students of the German language (such as those published by Heath, Henry Holt,
Allyn & Bacon, Ginn and American Book Co.) are sent to the Ellis Collection
at the University's Memorial Library. Other items not added to the Institute's
library collection may be sent to the Friends of the Memorial Library or the
University's Department of German. Select items may be sold with the proceeds
going to support the Max Kade Institute.
