Published in North America Collection | Subject Collection | Family Histories and Archives | Textbooks | Previous Lists
Click on images to enlarge them
Geyser, Paul. Dein Wort ist meins Fusses Leuchte. Zweiter Band: Predigten über Jeremias 1, 11-7, 34. Erster Teil. Sheboygan Falls, Wis.: Verlag des reformierten Schriftenvereins, 1926. viii, 259 pp.
On title page: Predigten aus dem Nachlasse von Paul Geyser, weiland Pastor der reformierten Gemeinde zu Elberfeld 1861-1882.
At back of book are listings for titles published by Chr. Kaiser, Verlag, München.
Donated by Karyl Rommelfanger.
Horn, W. O. von. Der Herr ist mein Schild. Eine Geschichte, der Jugend und dem Volke erzählt. New York, N.Y.: Kaufmann, n.d. 128 pp., col. ill.
On title page: W. O. von Horn (Wilh. Oertel), Von G. Hartmann durchgesehene Ausgabe. Mit vier feinen Farbendruckbildern nach Aquarellen von Elisabeth Voigt. Verlag von Ernst Kaufmann, 22 & 24 North William Street, New-York.
Illustrated cover. On cover: No. 1158.
W. O. Horn is a pseudonym for Philipp Friedrich Wilhelm Oertel.
Inscribed Lena Stockmeier.
Contents: Der Herr ist mein Schild [story takes place in Russia under the rule of Catherine II] — Die vier Jahreszeiten [poem] — Der gerettete Jüngling [story takes place in Ephesus during the time of the Apostle John].
Donated by Karyl Rommelfanger.
Psalterlust für die christliche Jugend. Columbus, Ohio: Lutherische Verlagshandlung, [1890]. xxiv, 354 pp.
O title page: Herausgegeben von der Allgemeinen Ev.-Luth. Synode von Ohio u. a. St.
Inscribed H. [Hertha] Hanke, S. Hanke, and C. Hanke.
Donated by Karyl Rommelfanger.
[Wilson, Jos. S.] Bericht des Commissionär des General-Landamtes, der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika, für das Jahr 1866. Washington, D.C.: Druck des Regierungsbuchdruckerei [Government Printing Office], 1867. 48 pp., map. Cover title: Oeffentliche Laendereien der Vereinigten-Staaten von America, A.D. 1867.
Theodore Franks, draughtsman, 1866.
Survey of the settlement of individual states and territories of the United States: Minnesota, Dakota, Montana, Kansas and Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Idaho, Utah, Washington Territory, Oregon, Nevada, California, and Spanish and Mexican land grants in California, along with descriptions of natural resources, public services, and economic possibilities for settlers. Includes a large (75 x 145 cm) map of the United States.
Donated by Thomas Schätti, Schwanden, Switzerland. Brought to the MKI by Robert Elmer, New Glarus, WI.
Anderson, Kristen L. “German Americans, African Americans, and the Republican Party in St. Louis, 1865-1872.” Journal of American Ethnic History, vol. 28, no. 1, (Special issue, Racial Divides) Fall 2008, pp. 34-51.
Includes bibliographical notes.
Examines how policy decisions made by the Missouri Republican Party in the years following the Civil War threatened to undermine support for the party among the state’s German population. These policies included a failure to address specific economic concerns, the inclusion of religious language and a loyalty oath for clergymen in the new Missouri constitution, and the issue of black suffrage.
Bode, Daniel. “The Family of Wilhelmine Haferkamp Meyer and Heinrich Meyer.” The Journal (German-Texan Heritage Society), vol. 30, no. 3, Fall 2008, pp. 247-59, ill.
Genealogical information on the Haferkamp and Meyer families, originating in Haldem, Westphalia. Most family members settled in Washington County, Texas.
———. “Ludwig Lehmann Family Cemetery Receives Official Texas State Historical Marker.” The Journal (German-Texan Heritage Society), vol. 30, no. 4, Winter 2008, pp. 327-34, ill.
Includes a brief history of the Ludwig Lehmann Family. Ludwig Lehmann was born in 1794 in Wien, Hannover, Germany. Ludwig and his wife, Caroline Zeye, along with their four sons and Ludwig’s 73-year-old mother, left Germany from the Port of Hamburg and sailed for Galveston, Texas, in 1849. The mother died during the Atlantic crossing. The Lehmanns settled in Washington County, Texas.
Burkhard, Marianne. “Ferdinand Sperl, 1918-2006: The International Life of a Swiss Hotelkeeper.” Swiss American Historical Society Review, vol. 45, no. 1, Feb. 2009, pp. 3-29, ill.
“Franz Peter Ferdinand Sperl was born on June 6, 1918 in the Hotel Bristol in Bern which was owned by his father Johann Baptist Sperl (1874-February 1969) who was a citizen of Bollingen, Canton Bern. His mother, Martha Barbara Helfer (1882-June 1969), came from Murten. The couple also had a daughter Gertrude (born 1909).” Ferdinand Sperl arrived in the United States in 1939; during the Second World War he served in military intelligence, and afterwards returned to his career as a hotelier in Peoria, Illinois. This account includes excerpts from Sperl’s memoirs. Sperl died in 2006.
“A Chronology of Early German-American Singing Societies.” Der Blumenbaum (Sacramento German Genealogy Society), vol. 26, no. 3, Jan./Feb./Mar. 2009, pp. 118-19, ill.
From 1835 and the founding of the oldest singing society in the United States, the Philadelphia Männerchor, to the founding of the Deutscher Sängerbund in Coburg in 1862, an umbrella organization that includes German singing societies in Germany, America, and around the world.
Cotter, Amelia. “Stories from Camp Frederick: German World War II POWs in Frederick, Maryland. Part 1 of 5.” German-American Journal, vol. 57, no. 1, Feb./Mar. 2009, pp. 4, ill.
“Many of the primary sources in this work come directly from the archives at The Frederick County Historical Society in Frederick, Maryland.”.
“This paper will focus primarily on the lives and experiences of the men at Camp Frederick, and although the information available is mostly one-sided, and most of the viewpoints are American, the idea that Camp Frederick was not an unpleasant place for a POW to be, and ran relatively smoothly with little unrest or injustice, is accepted here.” This installment examines Fort George G. Meade and the Maryland POW Camp system.
———. “Stories from Camp Frederick: German World War II POWs in Frederick, Maryland. Part 2 of 5.” German-American Journal, vol. 57, no. 2, Apr./May 2009, pp. 4, ill.
“Many of the primary sources in this work come directly from the archives at The Frederick County Historical Society in Frederick, Maryland.”.
This installment examines life in the POW camp.
Deutsch-Amerikanische 200-Jahr-Feier. Staats-Herold Almanach 1976. [Long Island City, NY]: Staats Zeitung und Herold, 1976. 160 pp., ill.
Contributors include Dr. Theodore Huebener and Harry W. Pfund.
Contents: The Roeblings — Zum Geleit — Vor 200 Jahren — Deutsche Einwanderer, amerikanische Pioniere — Von Cincinnati nach Oldenburg — Germantown protestiert gegen Sklaverei — Die “Mayflower”-Urkunde — Peter Minnewit — Washingtons Abschiedsbotschaft — Washington überquerte . . . den Rhein — Elefant, Esel und . . . Santa Claus — Die Unabhängigkeitserklärung — Wie Amerika seinen Namen bekam — Deutsche Soldaten kämpften in Amerika — General von Kalb — Familie Mühlenberg — John Peter Zenger — Carl Schurz — “Bicentennial Musik” — Lincolns Proklamation — Die Bundesrepublik beim “Bicentennial” — The German Loves His Verein — Amerikas erste Weihnachtsbäume — The German Society of Pennsylvania — The German-American Contribution — John August Sutter — The Lehmans — Charles P. Steinmetz — Carl Follen — Franz D. Pastorius — Kalender — Credits.
Donmoyer, Patrick. “Blumme-Schterne: Flower Stars.” Hollerbeier Haven: Newsletter for the Herbal and Healing Arts, vol. 2, no. 2, Fall 2008, pp. 17, ill.
Examines the significance of Pennsylvania German Hex signs.
Flachmeier, Jeanette. “Peter Henry Oberwetter, German American.” The Journal (German-Texan Heritage Society), vol. 30, no. 3, Fall 2008, pp. 278-81.
Essay submitted by a student as part of the Austin Ethnic History Association’s Contest, April 1980.
Peter Henry Oberwetter was born in Dornberg, Westphalia, on 8 January 1830. In 1848, having sailed on the Canapus, Oberwetter and his wife arrived in New Orleans. They made their home in Comfort, Kendall County, Texas. Oberwetter pursued a scientific interest in botany, both in Texas and–during the Civil War–in Mexico. After the war he lived in Austin, where he worked as a printer and as a landscaper on the Texas Capitol grounds and at the Texas School for the Deaf. “By 1883 he was recognized as an important botanist of the area and from about 1889 to 1896 he had a ‘florist shop with an appropriate greenhouse for all of his exotic plants and bulbs.” He is known especially for his pioneering work with amaryllis.
“The Garden Where Children Grow: The Kindergarten.” Der Blumenbaum (Sacramento German Genealogy Society), vol. 26, no. 3, Jan./Feb./Mar. 2009, pp. 134-35, ill.
Brief discussion of competing claims for the first person to establish a kindergarten in America. Margarethe Meyer Schurz opened a kindergarten class in her home in Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1856. Caroline Louisa Frankenberg is reported to have opened a kindergarten in Columbus, Ohio, in 1838. Although her first attempt failed after a few years, Frankenberg tried again in 1858 and achieved greater success.
Geiser, John III. “Burials in the Tomb of the Swiss-American Society of New Orleans.” Swiss American Historical Society Review, vol. 45, no. 1, Feb. 2009, pp. 51-58, ill.
The tomb is located on lots 44, 46, and 48 on Live Oak Avenue in Greenwood Cemetery. The lots were acquired by the Swiss Society of New Orleans in 1878. Includes inscriptions, information from Greenwood Cemetery records, and information from the records of the Society.
“Grant and Essay Prize Winners.” German-Canadian Studies Newsletter, vol. 13, no. 2, July 2008, pp. 1-3, ill.
Winners of the 2008 German-Canadian Studies Research Studies Grants, funded by the Spletzer Family Foundation (Winnipeg): Esther de Leeuw is exploring how migrants’ pronunciation of their language changes after the long-term use of a second language; Nikolai Penner is studying the use of High German among different groups of Russian Mennonites in Canada; Ulrike Marie Ehrenberg is beginning a comparative study of the Canadian and German press coverage of the so-called “Mulroney-Schreiber saga”; and Pastor Horst Gutsche is collecting information about congregations still using German in their services and other activities.
Green, Nancy L., and Francois Weil, eds. Citizenship and Those Who Leave: The Politics of Emigration and Expatriation. Studies of World Migrations. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007. x, 318 pp.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Articles examine how countries have impeded or facilitated people leaving, how those who leave are perceived and regulated, and what relations countries seek to maintain with their citizens once they have left. Contents: Introduction / Nancy L. Green and Francois Weil — Leaving: A Comparative View / John Torpey — The Exit Revolution / Aristide R. Zolberg — Emigration and Nation Building during the Mass Migrations from Europe / Donna R. Gabaccia, Dirk Hoerder, and Adam Walaszek — The Liberal Italian State and Mass Emigration, 1860-1914 / Caroline Douki — The French State and Transoceanic Emigration / Francois Weil — Emigration and the British State, ca. 1815-1925 / David Feldman and M. Page Baldwin — Holland beyond the Borders: Emigration and the Dutch State, 1850-1940 / Corrie van Eijl and Leo Lucassen — From Economics to Ethnicity and Back: Reflections on Emigration Control in Germany, 1800-2000 / Andreas Fahrmeir — The United States Government and the Investigation of European Emigration in the Open Door Era / Dorothee Schneider — Migration and National Consciousness: The Canadian Case / Bruno Ramirez — Migration Policy and the Asymmetry of Power: The Mexican Case, 1900-2000 / Jorge Durand — The “Overseas Chinese”: The State and Emigration from the 1890s through the 1990s / Carine Pina-Guerassimoff and Eric Guerassimoff — Tracing the Genesis of Brain Drain in India through State Policy and Civil Society / Binod Khadria — Israeli Emigration Policy / Steven J. Gold.
Hanson, Rick. “Publish Your Book Using Lulu.com.” Der Blumenbaum (Sacramento German Genealogy Society), vol. 26, no. 3, Jan./Feb./Mar. 2009, pp. 132-33, ill.
Describes an online publisher that enables genealogists to turn their family histories into hardcover books at an affordable price for any quantity.
Heinsohn, Carolyn. “The Bluff Community in Fayette County.” The Journal (German-Texan Heritage Society), vol. 30, no. 4, Winter 2008, pp. 335-36.
Many of the early settlers were Germans who immigrated to Texas during the mid-to-late 1840s, as well as Moravian and Bohemian immigrants who began arriving in the 1850s. Early family names include: Willrich, Kreisch, Hausmann, Kraemer, Loehr, Helmcamp, Huebner, Laux, Fietsam, Richter, Hensel, Sladczyk, Janda, Klimicek, Hilsher, Lidiak, Adamcik, and Rainosek.
Hielscher, Lori. “Peter Schuch: Early Texas Pioneer.” The Journal (German-Texan Heritage Society), vol. 30, no. 3, Fall 2008, pp. 272-74, ill.
Essay submitted by a student as part of the Austin Ethnic History Association’s Contest, April 1980. Peter Schuch was born on March 1, 1845 at Ober Kostens, Coblenz, Germany. Peter’s father took the family to Texas in 1852, settling in Fredericksburg. Peter grew up to become a blacksmith and served in the Confederate army, Company E, 1st Texas Calvary. He became a U.S. citizen in 1866, and married Dorothea Ahrens in 1868.
Hoff, Lou Ann. “Importance of Church Records.” Dat Pommersche Blatt (Pommerscher Verein Central Wisconsin.), no. 59, Feb. 2009, pp. 7-8.
“From these records we now have their birthdates, birthplace, parents, marriage date, death dates, children listed, some siblings, locations where they lived and even some health information.”
———. “The Name Game. Part 2.” Dat Pommersche Blatt (Pommerscher Verein Central Wisconsin.), no. 58, Oct. 2008, pp. 7-8.
Part two of a two-part article in which the author describes her search to discover more about her Graveen ancestors; in the process, she discovered nine different spellings associated with the surname.
Holliday, Claudette. “The Purysburg Colonists of South Carolina and Their Descendants.” Swiss American Historical Society Review, vol. 45, no. 1, Feb. 2009, pp. 30-50, ill.
Documents a genealogy trip to Switzerland connected with the Purysburg Preservation Foundation, particularly focused in the de Pury family. Includes some editorial notes on the settling of Purrysburg, South Carolina, on the Savannah River in 1734.
“How to Behave under the Direction of the Chorus Master.” Der Blumenbaum (Sacramento German Genealogy Society), vol. 26, no. 3, Jan./Feb./Mar. 2009, pp. 120, ill.
From the German-language newspaper, California Journal, August 14, 1925, on the occasion of the Pazific Sängerfest in San Francisco. The poem, Sänger Disziplin, was written by Dr. Kleinmann of the Schweriner Liedertafel. It is provided in German with an English translation by Ingeborg Carpenter.
Hurley, Donna W. “Alfred Gudeman, Atlanta, Georgia, 1862 – Theresienstadt, 1942.” Transactions of the American Philological Association, vol. 120, 1990, pp. 355-81.
“Alfred Gudeman was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on August 26, 1862, the eldest of four children. By 1965 the family was in New York. . . . When their father went to Cuba never to return, Solomon Zickel, their mother’s stepfather, effectively adopted the family. Zickel had come from Germany to New York where he published and edited several nationally circulated German language weeklies; his success with these allowed him to purchase and retire to an estate near Dresden. Alfred Gudeman and his sisters would follow him back to Germany.” Gudeman attended Columbia College, studied under Hermann Diels at the University of Berlin. From 1890 to 1893 he was a fellow and lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, then a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and at Cornell University. “In 1904 Alfred Gudeman left the United States for Germany, never to return for so much as a visit. . . . [H]is German wife and his own family that was as German as it was American may have influenced his decision.” He became a member of the corps of scholars preparing the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, a unique distinction for an American Latinist. By 1917 he naturalized as a German citizen in Berlin. The difficulties of the Hitler era begin to appear in his correspondence by the spring of 1935. His son, Theodore Gudeman, was able to successfully immigrate to Indiana in 1937, but Alfred was not able to do so. Alfred Gudeman died in the concentration camp Theresienstadt on September 9, 1942.
Kamphoefner, Walter D. “Forum: German Americans and Their Relations with African Americans during the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Introduction.” Journal of American Ethnic History, vol. 28, no. 1, (Special issue, Racial Divides) Fall 2008, pp. 10-12.
Includes bibliographical notes.
The three papers presented for this forum address the “most elusive of issues. . . : personal attitudes of German immigrants toward the question of slavery and the social and political rights of African American in the Civil War and Reconstruction Era.” The papers utilize German-language sources to uncover missing aspects of American history, and they “recognize that Immigrant groups can be subjects as well as objects of discrimination and that immigrant acculturation involves interactions not just with the ‘dominant society,’ but with other ethnic and racial minorities as well.”
Keil, Hartmut. “Francis Lieber’s Attitudes on Race, Slavery, and Abolition.” Journal of American Ethnic History, vol. 28, no. 1, (Special issue, Racial Divides) Fall 2008, pp. 13-33.
Includes bibliographical notes.
“On January 9, 1836, only a few months after having moved from Philadelphia to Columbia, South Carolina, in order to assume the chair for History and Political Econmy at South Carolina College, Francis Lieber and his wife bought their first two slaves.” Keil examines how German immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century perceived of slavery, and describes Francis Lieber’s personal and practical encounter with and analysis of race and slavery.
Klimke, Martin. “The African American Civil Rights Struggle and Germany, 1945-1989.” Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, no. 43, Fall 2008, pp. 91-106, ill.
Includes bibliographical notes.
“The permanent stationing of the US Army in Europe after the Second World War brought about 3 million African American GIs to the Federal Republic during the Cold War. Shortly after the fall of National Socialism, Germans were directly confronted with the presence of African Americans in the country, be it as soldiers, customers, tenants, husbands, or sons-in-law. In recent years, historians like Haria Hoehn, Petra Goedde, and Heide Fehrenbach have begun to analyze and interpret the relationship between these two groups and the impact it had on the Cold War. This project will extend these groundbreaking studies by exploring the mutual relationship between the African American civil rights movement and German attitudes toward race and ethnicity, focusing in particular on how Germany was perceived by African Americans during the Cold War.”
Kline, Dick. “Chasing Family Myth through Canada to Germany.” Germanic Genealogy Journal, vol. 11, no. 4, Winter 2008, pp. 15-21, ill.
“Describes the research conducted to determine locations, dates, and circumstances surrounding the multi-step immigration of my Klein (Klein) ancestors from Germany in the 1830s to Ontario and finally to the border counties of Indiana and Michigan. . . illustrates research strategies and approaches used to make and test hypotheses.” Identifies the Klein home village as Remmesweiler in the St. Wendel area of today’s German state of Saarland.
Knopp, Kenn. “Texans Forever! The Germans of the Hill Country: Die Friedrichsburger Manuskripte = The Fredericksburg Manuscripts. Part VIII: The New German Texans Confront the Slavery Question. The African-American ‘Underground Railroad’ to the Hill Country.” The Journal (German-Texan Heritage Society), vol. 30, no. 4, Winter 2008, pp. 354-60.
Konopka, Nicole K. “Finding an Image of the Past: Traces of 19th Century Geman Immigrants in Today’s USA = Auf der Suche nach Bildern: Die Spuren deutscher Auswanderer in den heutigen USA.” Bild Bewegung. Bilder von Migration, Migration von Bildern. Rostock, Germany: Universitätsdruckerei Rostock, 2009, pp. 60-91, ill.
Ein Photoprojekt von Mitgliedern des DFG-Graduiertenkollegs “Kulturkontakt und Wissenschaftsdiskurs.”
“My primary interest lay in the tracking and recording of visual traces of German-American immigrants. . . Several questions dominated this documentation of cultural contact: to what extent are cliches and conventional images consciously and unconsciously depicted in everyday life? How may the photographic gaze be used to (re-)shape the imagination of an audience? Does the medium of photography serve, or subversively undermine this purpose?” Photographs include a landscape of Mazomanie County, Wisconsin; Prospect Hill Cemetery, Washington, D.C.; St. John’s Lutheran Church, Clayton County, Iowa; Amana Colonies, Iowa; Old Town, Chicago, Illinois; Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, Illinois; German Fest, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Over the Rhine, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Donated by Nicole Konopka.
Langer, Nils. “German Language and German Identity in America: Evidence from School Grammars 1860-1918.” German Life and Letters, vol. 61, no. 4, Oct. 2008, pp. 497-512, ill.
Paper examines how “the transmission of cultural and linguistic knowledge takes place between motherland and linguistic enclaves,” with regard to the “retention and loss of German culture and language by recent and settled immigrants in America at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries. . . . [E]vidence from German school grammars printed in the USA will be examined to investigate what kind of cultural references were taught to school children.”
Donated by Nils Langer.
“A Living Legacy: German Song in America.” Der Blumenbaum (Sacramento German Genealogy Society), vol. 26, no. 3, Jan./Feb./Mar. 2009, pp. 116-17, ill.
Reprints an article from 1873 about the Sängerfest, or “singing festival,” a mainstay of German culture in 19th-century America, and describes the controversy surrounding the 1909 Sängerfest in Madison Square Garden in New York. The Concordia Gesang Verein from the small town of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, “gave an incredibly strong singing performance” but was denied the coveted Kaiser’s Prize by the judges. The denial may have occurred because the Concordia Gesang Verein had already won prizes in other competitions, or it may have had some grounding in the fact that the singing society comprised some forty percent non-German members. A contemporary newspaper account noted that, “if Concordia, with a big nucleus of Germans, is spreading its song influence among its cosmopolitan membership of
Americans. . . , is it not eloquently serving the great object of the Bund [to spread the love and the influence of German song]?”
Newman, Carol. “From Small to Huge, Then Gone: Timeline Tracks Some of the Memorable Moments in Former Factory’s History.” Tri-County News / New Holstein Reporter, 14 February 2008, pp. 16-17, ill.
Timeline marking important dates in the history of the Lauson Implement Company (later the Tecumseh Products Company) of New Holstein, Wisconsin. The parents of the Lauson brothers emigrated from Schleswig-Holstein in 1867 to Calumet County, Wisconsin.
North, Paul, ed. Publishing in Exile: German-Language Literature in the U.S. in the 1940s. New York: Goethe-Institut, [2009]. 59 pp., ill.
With a contribution by Wulf Koepke.
Catalog accompanying an exhibition at the Leo Baeck Institute, Center for Jewish History, New York, April 23rd to June 28th, 2009.
“This catalog features the seven most prominent publishers who issued German-language literary texts in the United States between 1940 and 1950”: Gottfried Bermann Fischer, Fritz Landshoff, Wieland Herzfelde, Otto Kallir, Felix Guggenheim and Ernst Gottlieb, and Kurt Wolff.
Donated by Goethe-Institut, New York.
Ostoyich, Kevin. The German Society of Pennsylvania: A Guide to Its Book and Manuscript Collections. Reference Guide, No. 20. Washington, DC: German Historical Institute, 2006. 130 pp.
“The library currently consists of six collections: The Main Collection, the German American Collection, the Manuscripts Collection, the Newspaper Collection, the Carl Schurz Pamphlet Collection, and the Carl Schurz Periodicals Collection. . . . The Main Collection is a model of nineteenth-century German Bildung. . . . A reading of the catalog reveals that all of the traditional arts and sciences are covered. . . . [T]he holdings reflect more the interests of the common man than of the scholar. Although scholarly titles are well represented, titles in such non-scholarly genres as popular novels, cookbooks, travel literature, biographies, devotional literature, and children’s books abound. Thus, the library serves as a window to German-American culture during the nineteenth century. . . . The German American Collection was founded in 1867 by Oswald Seidensticker (1825-1894). . . . Seidensticker’s goal was ‘to publish the first bibliography of German printing in America. . . [which he published in] 1893 under the title The First Century of German Printing in America, 1728-1830.’ As a result of Seidensticker’s efforts, the German American Collection is a mine of German-American printing (containing books from the press of the celebrated Sauer family, as well as Benjamin Franklin. . . . In addition to books, he gathered journals, magazines, and newspapers. . . . The Pamphlet Collection consists of thousands of entries on all types of German-American associational life (mostly within the Philadelphia area).” The Manuscripts Collection contains materials pertaining to the German Society of Pennsylvania, dating from the society’s founding (1764) through the twentieth century, as well as other manuscripts related to German-American life and culture. The Carl Schurz collections of pamphlets and periodicals came to the German Society after the dissolution of the Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation (organized in 1930).
Donated by Prof. Frank Trommler.
Paulsen, Marcia. “Discovering My Paulsen Ancestry.” Germanic Genealogy Journal, vol. 11, no. 4, Winter 2008, pp. 21-24, ill.
“When I began researching my Paulsen family. . . little information was available to me. . . . Basically, all I knew was that my great-grandparents, John and Marie Paulsen, had emigrated from Schleswig-Holstein and settled in Clinton County, Iowa.” Describes how the author identified twelve individuals in a family photograph and conducted research in Schleswig-Holstein.
Rippley, LaVern J. “St. Paul for the Germans: An Affectionate Reconnaissance to Frogtown.” Germanic Genealogy Journal, vol. 11, no. 3, Fall 2008, pp. 20-23.
Edited transcript of a speech given at a German Day celebration in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Robbins, Mark. “Family History.” The Journal (German-Texan Heritage Society), vol. 30, no. 3, Fall 2008, pp. 275-78.
Essay submitted by a student as part of the Austin Ethnic History Association’s Contest, April 1980. Adolph Carby was born 13 March 1833 in Saxon, Germany. He and his family immigrated to the United States. Adolph married Teresa Jenull, who had come to Texas from Austria. Both Adolph and Teresa are buried at Blackjack, near La Grange, Texas.
Rosenvold, Susan. “Major Heros von Borcke.” German-American Journal, vol. 57, no. 1, Feb./Mar. 2009, pp. 5, ill.
On January 30, 1864, a resolution of thanks was issued by the Confederate States of America Congress in Richmond, Virginia to Major Heros von Borcke. Born in Ehrenbreitstein, Prussia, Baron Johann August Heinrich Heros von Borcke was an eight year veteran of the Prussian army. “It has been suggested that he abandoned Europe for the American [Civil] War due to boredom and a desire to test his skill in combat.” After returning to Prussia in 1866, von Borcke wrote his memoirs of service; in 1884 he returned to visit the U.S., and donated his sword to the State of Virginia, where it is kept at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond.
Rubin, Julius H. The Other Side of Joy: Religious Melancholy among the Bruderhof. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. xii, 264 pp.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-252) and index.
“Traces the history of the Bruderhof (“Brothers who dwell together”) from their origins in Germany in the 1920s up to the present day, examining the development of Bruderhof theology, religious vocation and church-community, and their troubles associated with the Hutterian Church. Through the use of case studies, the author focuses on the incidence of “religious melancholy” among the Bruderhof, an affective disorder that is characterized by a sense of abandonment by God. Rubin also examines evidence for religious melancholy among other Anabaptist sects, such as Mennonites, Brethren, Amish, and the Hutterites, concluding that any religious community committed to the fulfillment of a utopian vision of total harmony and unity of thought and action, of the surrender of the self to the sect, will create a purgatory for many believers.”
Donated by Robert Meier.
Seele, Herman. “A Christmas Day in Texas 1849.” The Journal (German-Texan Heritage Society), vol. 30, no. 4, Winter 2008, pp. 363-69.
Translated by Randy Rupley.
Friedrich Hermann Seele (1823-1902) was a teacher, public official, writer, and cultural leader. The son of Jonas and Anna (Runge) Seele, he was born in Hildesheim, Hannover, Germany, on April 14, 1823. He was educated at the Andrenaeum Academy in Hildesheim and subsequently immigrated to Texas.
Sicher, Matthew. “How to Have Fun with Groundhogs.” Hollerbeier Haven: Newsletter for the Herbal and Healing Arts, vol. 2, no. 2, Fall 2008, pp. 14-15.
The first Grundsau Lodge (Groundhog Lodge) was formed in 1933 to help keep the Pennsylvania Deitsch language alive in the face of negative sentiments towards German langauges since World War II. Paul Kunkel, “longtime Grundsau Grossdaadi and tireless promoter of Deitsch language. . . . is concerned that, ‘in twenty years from now, there will be virtually no native Deitsch speakers left who are not in the plain sects (Amish, Mennonite, etc.).'” The author plans to raise his child speaking Deitsch in the home, and Kunkel concurs that the “most effective way to ensure the continuation of the Deitsch language is to raise children speaking and hearing Deitsch from their first days. ‘It is important for children to grow up knowing that it is possible to be a part of their Deitsch culture, as well as English culture; to be a part of local tradition, and part of America as a whole.'”
Siemon-Netto, Uwe. “What, a U-Boat on the Ohio River? The Fate of German Immigrants during WWII in the U.S. Finally Gets a Hearing.” The Atlantic Times, June 2009, Life, pp. 19, ill.
“After war broke out between the U.S. and Germany 67 years ago, 11,000 German immigrants, including women and children, were sent to detention camps. . . . Finally, a Congressional subcommittee has begun looking into their fate.” Provides the story of Eberhard E. Fuhr, who spent nearly five years in confinement in Crystal City, Texas.
Smart, Terry L. “Houston’s German Heritage.” The Journal (German-Texan Heritage Society), vol. 30, no. 4, Winter 2008, pp. 339-44, ill.
From a presentation at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the German-Texan Heritage Society held at Houston on August 23.
Stolz, Gerd. Gustav Dethlef Hinrichs: Ein Naturforscher von Weltruf aus Dithmarschen, 1836-1923. Zugleich ein Beitrag zur schleswig-holsteinischen Amerika-Auswanderung im 19. Jahrhundert. Lunden, Germany: Verein für Heimatgeschichte des Kirchspiels Lunden, 1998. 96 pp., ill.
Published on the 75th anniversary of the death of Gustav Dethlef Hinrichs Gustavus Detlef Hinrichs was born in Lunden, on December 2, 1836. Now within Germany, Lunden was was part of Denmark in 1836, and Hinrichs considered himself to be Danish. In 1896 he immigrated to the United States, settling first in Davenport, Iowa. Hinrichs conducted research and published in many fields, including chemistry, physics, astronomy, meteorology, and geology. He was one of six researchers credited with the discovery of the Periodic System of Elements during the 1860s. He founded the Iowa Weather Service and was active in the Iowa Geological Survey. In the field of astronomy, Hinrichs wrote about the Amana Colonies meteorite shower, which fell on February 12, 1875 in Iowa County, Iowa. In 1889 he moved to St. Louis, serving as professor in the St. Louis University Chemistry Department. Dr. Hinrichs was fluent in Danish, French, German, Italian, and English, and knew some Greek and Latin.
Donated by Henning Peters jun., Verein für Heimatgeschichte des Kirchspiels Lunden e.V., 2009.
———. Hans Reimer Claussen: Der vergessene Revolutionär aus Dithmarschen, 1804-1894. Fedderingen, Germany: [Gemeinde Fedderingen], 1994. 30 pp., ill. Herausgegeben von der Gemeinde Fedderingen anlässlich der 100. Wiederkehr seines Todestages am 14. März 1994 und der 190. Wiederkehr seines Geburtstages am 23. Februar 1994.
Hans Reimer Claussen was a lawyer and journalist from the town of Ditmarschen. He was a representative in the first German National Assembly in Frankfurt, before he left for America due to political oppression, settling with his family settled in Davenport, Iowa. He served as a judge, an attorney, and a state senator.
Donated by Henning Peters jun., Verein für Heimatgeschichte des Kirchspiels Lunden e.V., 2009.
———. W. H. D. Koerner. Der Maler des “Wilden Westens” aus Dithmarschen. Husum, Germany: Husum, 2003. 117 pp., ill. (some col.).
“Herausgegeben anlässlich der 125. Wiederkehr des Geburtstages von Wilhelm Heinrich Detlev Koerner am 19. November 2003 vom Verein für Heimatgeschichte im Kirchspiel Lunden e. V.”
William Henry (Wilhelm Heinrich) Dethlef Koerner was born in Lunden, Germany, in 1878. In 1880, the Koerner family emigrated from Germany to the U.S., eventually settling in the rural midwestern town of Clinton, Iowa. He became a noted illustrator of the American West.
Donated by Henning Peters jun., Verein für Heimatgeschichte des Kirchspiels Lunden e.V., 2009.
“The Story of That Elephant and That Donkey: Thomas Nast, the German Immigrant Who Started It all.” Der Blumenbaum (Sacramento German Genealogy Society), vol. 26, no. 2, Oct./Nov./Dec. 2008, pp. 52-53, ill.
Brief sketch of the career of political cartoonist Thomas Nast, who was born in 1840 in Landau (Rhineland-Palatinate).
Strickland, Jeffery. “How the Germans Became White Southerners: German Immigrants and African Americans in Charleston, South Carolina, 1860-1880.” Journal of American Ethnic History, vol. 28, no. 1, (Special issue, Racial Divides) Fall 2008, pp. 52-69.
Includes bibliographical notes.
Trenckmann, William A. “Christmas in Troubled Times.” The Journal (German-Texan Heritage Society), vol. 30, no. 4, Winter 2008, pp. 310-315.
Translated by Anders Saustrup. Originally printed in Round Top, Texas by the Friends of Winedale, 1976. Reprinted with permission of Mrs. Charles (Helen) Trenckmann of Austin. Original article appeared in German in the Wochenblatt Kalender für 1894/Beilagezu No. 11 des Bellville Wochenblatt/Jahrgang 3 (December 1893), pp. 8-13.
From the translator’s preface: “William Andreas Trenckmann was a settled man of 34, married and father of three, when he wrote this memoir of a Texas-German Christmas. Two years earlier, in 1891, and with only two paid subscriptions in hand, he had started Das Bellville Wochenblatt, a weekly newspaper published in Bellville, Texas and intended for the neighboring Texas-German communities in which English was still a second language. . . . The setting [of this memoir] is the community of Millheim on Mill Creek in Austin county, where a number of Germans had settled in the 1840s and ’50s in reaction to their political and economic frustrations in Germany. . . . As the Civil War drew closer and finally broke out, these struggling, high-principled Texas-Germans were confronted with political and moral dilemmas beyond their comprehension and seemingly without solution: though opposed to slavery, would they still not have to accept that Texas–one of only three of the eleven states of the Confederacy to have a referendum on the matter–by majority vote had chosen to secede from the Union? Or should they put personal principle and conviction above community decision when an immoral cause was pursued? The Christmas memoir tells us what they did in actual practice. Friends and neighbors were divided; there were splits within families; some who remained loyal to their personal convictions fled to Mexico, while others felt equally obligated to serve in the Confederate Army.”
Zamzow, Don. “Platt op Wisconsin Shoot: NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk) Filming ‘Wisconsin op Platt,’ Part of ‘Low German in the World’ Series.” Dat Pommersche Blatt (Pommerscher Verein Central Wisconsin), no. 58, Oct. 2008, pp. 2, 4, ill.
Report on the filming of the Wisconsin episode of Norddeutscher Rundfunk’s “Die Welt op Platt.” The series locates and showcases examples of people who still speak Low German in various dialects around the world.
Zimmerman, Andrew. “Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee Institute, and the German Empire: Race and Cotton in the Black Atlantic.” Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, no. 43, Fall 2008, pp. 9-20.
Lecture at the GHI, April 24, 2008. Includes bibliographical notes.
Describes a January 1901 mission by four African American men from Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute to the German Colony of Togo in West Africa. The expedition, organized by Booker T. Washington, was financed by a German business organization that sought to “transform cotton growing in Togo so that it would supply the world market with raw materials for European industry.” Includes information on the origins of the Tuskegee Institute, the interests of Germans in the American South, the experience of the Tuskegee expedition in Togo, and the transnational influence of the Tuskegee Institute.
Zink, Joel K., trans. and ed. The Indexed Marriage Records of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church of Massbach, Illinois. Record Books 1-3: 1859-1932. Alexis, Ill.: the author, 2008. 35 pp. Translated, transcribed, indexed, and introduction by Joel K. Zink.
St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church of Massbach, Jo Daviess County, Illinois, was founded in 1857. Members of the congregation hailed from various areas of Germany, with a predominance from Massbach, Bavaria, and Dettingen, Wuerttemberg. The first marriage of record was in 1859, and German villages of birth are often noted in the marriage registers.
Donated by Joel K. Zink, 2009.
Clark, Rosanne. Rosanne. Palmyra, Wis.: the author, 1999. [20] pp., ill.
Part of the author’s autobiographical memoir. Rosanne Clark, 1920-2005, was born in the township of Eau Galle in Dunn County, Wisconsin; her grandfather, William Hartung, came from the area of [Bad] Soden, Germany. The author describes life in a rural community during the seasons, recipes, her education, and her wedding.
Donated by Rosemary Sprenger, Madison, WI.
Goedsche, C. R., and W. E. Glaettli. Sutter. Anniversary Edition. Cultural Graded Readers. German Series, I (Elementary). New York: American Book Company, 1963. vi, 50 pp., ill.
C. R. Goedsche, Northwestern University. W. E. Glaettli, Centenary College for Women. Illustrated by Kurt Werth.