The America Line: a Route for Immigrants from Germany's Eastern

Volume 18 No 3 • Fall 2009 The America Line: A Route for Immigrants from Germany’s Eastern Areas to Bremerhaven or Hamburg Cora Lee Kluge The routes of the America Line railroad. hen I was in Germany tential migrants. Likewise, the dif- Germany recently, I heard for ficult journeys undertaken by early the first time about immigrants who ventured into the Wthe so-called America Line, a rail- interior of the United States—long road line whose construction and and arduous overland trips, river INSIDE development were inextricably expeditions, or cruises through connected to the story of emigra- the Great Lakes—became much • Salinger in the News tion from German lands to the easier, cheaper, and more attractive • Dialect Shift in Freistadt, WI New World. • Language Matters for WI when the Erie Canal was opened in The development of transporta- • Online Resources, Part I 1825. Similarly, Chicago’s dramatic tion methods and routes has al- • Study Tour: Students from growth, from a population of just ways been one of the major factors Germany and Poland under 30,000 in 1850 to just under influencing human migration. • American Passage: History of 110,000 in 1860 and nearly 300,000 We know that when transatlantic Ellis Island, Book Review in 1870, was undoubtedly in large sailing ships were replaced with • Friends Profile: part a result of the coming of the Gary Gisselman steamships, the ocean voyage be- railroad to that city, beginning in • American History: 150 Years came less perilous and began to Ago appeal to greater numbers of po- Continued on page 4 DIRECTOR’S CORNER Greetings, Friends and Readers! t has been a beautiful end-of-the- summer season and beginning of the fall at the University of IWisconsin. We enjoyed many weeks of perfect weather—a cool July, fol- lowed by much warmer temperatures The MKI exhibit at German Fest, Milwaukee. in August, and then an unbelievably sunny month of September. Even the Matters for Wisconsin” began with American literature. In the spring local wine growers announced that trips to Rhinelander, Wausau, and my annual general-studies course this was an excellent year. So now we Mineral Point—and a trip to Keno- entitled “The German Immigration know: undoubtedly this is the climate sha/Racine to follow. We also took Experience” (German 271) will be that persuaded our immigrant fore- part in German Fest in Milwaukee offered; and Mark Louden will teach fathers to plant crops, build houses, with Mark Louden’s exhibit “What’s “The German Language in America” and settle in the area. In a German Name?” Our thanks to (German 352/960), which is open Nevertheless, the staff members of the Museum of Wisconsin Art, which to both undergraduates and gradu- the MKI are far from feeling settled. shared our German Fest space and ate students. We are also exploring In August both the Sound Lab and let us use its exhibit walls, and to our the possibility of a second online the Center for the Study of Upper Friends who helped with organizing course, building on last spring’s “The Midwest Cultures, our sister institute, and hosting our table: Peter Arved- German-American Experience”— moved out of the Keystone House sen, Rudi Boeckeler, Sandy Cast- more about that to follow. and into temporary quarters on the erline, Ed Langer, Tom Lidtke, and We are always delighted to see third floor of the University Club Frank and Neill Luebke. you. Drop by the Keystone House, (on Library Mall, in the central part The academic year is well under- or come to one of our public events, of campus). Now, we look forward way, and MKI staff members are which are always announced on our to reuniting in the summer of 2011 offering courses in German-Amer- Web site. Meanwhile: all the best on the fourth floor of the University ican studies. This fall my capstone for the rest of the fall season—work Club. For the time being, of course, seminar for undergraduate German hard, have fun, and stay in touch! MKI enjoys the advantage of more majors has an enrollment of 20 —Cora Lee space in our little house, but there is students who are studying German- the more compelling disadvantage of having our staff split between two The Newsletter of the Friends of the Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies is locations two miles apart. Things are published quarterly at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Submissions are invited and especially difficult for Kevin Kurdylo, should be sent to: our librarian/archivist, who must spend time in both places. Kevin Kurdylo Friends of the Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies The summer months should be 901 University Bay Drive, Madison, WI 53705 a relatively quiet period, and yet Phone: (608) 262-7546 things seemed busy. Jennifer Schultz, Fax: (608) 265-4640 a graduate student in the UW–Mil- [email protected] waukee translation program, did an mki.wisc.edu internship with the MKI. In addition, maxkade.blogspot.com our new project entitled “Language 2 News Note: Interest in J. D. Salinger from the German Perspective Cora Lee Kluge n January 1, 2009, the very tration camp Dachau. In the sum- hausen, in the “Villa Schmidt” in the reclusive J. D. Salinger— mer of 1945 he was hospitalized in a Wiesenstraße, and that—according well known throughout military hospital in Nuremberg for to classmates in Nuremberg, where OAmerica since the 1951 publication “battle fatigue,” and thereafter he was Welter finished her Abitur—she was of his best-selling novel The Catcher assigned to a Counter Intelligence far from being a Nazi, unwilling even in the Rye—celebrated his ninetieth Corps group to work with denazifica- to join the Bund Deutscher Mädel birthday; and when he was in the tion efforts. (the girls’ division of the Hitler news again this summer, it was be- Both Margaret A. Salinger’s biogra- Youth). It seems certain that she was cause of his efforts to protect his pri- phy and another biography published an eye doctor, and Salinger may have vacy. In June he brought a copyright by Paul Alexander in 1999 report that met her during his hospitalization in infringement suit against Swedish in October of 1945, Salinger married the summer of 1945. The marriage author Fredrik Colting, asking that a young woman named Sylvia Welter lasted only about eight months; and the publication of Colting’s work 60 and lived with her a few months in Welter returned from New York to Years Later: Coming Through the Rye Weißenburg before they moved to Switzerland, later remarried, and (written under the pseudonym J. D. America. According to the former, moved for a second time to the California), an unabashed sequel to Welter was a Nazi whom Salinger United States. According to reports, The Catcher in the Rye, be banned. met at a hearing. Now German she died in this country in 2008. The decision of a federal district reporters have been checking into Those of us who grew up in the judge in New York City in favor of the facts. On September 5 the Süd- culture and with the prose of J. D. Salinger has been appealed by Colt- deutsche Zeitung reported that the Salinger will follow with interest the ing, and we have not heard the final bride was French, and that the couple information coming from both the word. But meanwhile, the work has was married in Pappenheim with German-language and the English- appeared in the United Kingdom, so two “special agents” as witnesses. The language press. There is a lot still to transatlantic readers will have some Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, dig- be revealed. access. ging deeper, revealed on September In the last few weeks, the German 22 that their home in Germany was press has also brought stories about not in Weißenburg, but in Gunzen- J. D. Salinger, but they have had nothing to do with his lawsuit against Fredrik Colting. Instead, the focus Board of Directors, Friends of the Max Kade Institute has been on investigating Salinger’s Peter Arvedson Treasurer, Elm Grove experiences at the end of World War Hans Werner Bernet Monroe Sandra Casterline Oconomowoc II. Margaret A. Salinger’s biography Gary Gisselman Secretary, Wausau of her famous father under the title Elizabeth Greene Madison Dream Catcher, published in the year Charles James Vice President, Madison 2000, confirms that he took part in James Kleinschmidt Fitchburg Cora Lee Kluge ex officio, Madison some of the toughest battles of the Tom Lidtke West Bend war, including the D-Day landing Fran Luebke Brookfield on Utah Beach and the Battle of the Peter Monkmeyer Assistant to the Treasurer, Madison Antje Petty ex officio, Madison Bulge; and he was also a member of Karyl Rommelfanger President, Manitowoc the group that liberated the concen- 3 Uelzen railroad station, designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Continued from page 1 in the years 1863 to 1877; and the to the northwest, was chosen. From 1850. third wave came from northeastern Stendal one section of this railroad We know something about how Germany in the years 1877 to 1890. line became the heavily traveled America’s nineteenth-century im- Were the existence of this railway route west to Hanover. The other— migrants crossed the Atlantic and route and its final completion in the the one popularly known still today reached their final destinations in year 1873, which connected eastern as America Line—was to proceed to the United States. But we may be less areas with the large and efficient the northwest, to Salzwedel and then familiar with the routes they used transatlantic steamship companies, a Uelzen, with connections continu- when they set out from their homes direct result—or even a cause—of the ing from Uelzen to Hamburg or to in the Old World for the European increase in numbers of immigrants Bremerhaven.

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