Immigration to the Great Plains, 1865-1914: War, Politics
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Summer 2011 IMMIGRATION TO THE GREAT PLAINS, 1865-1914 WAR, POLITICS, TECHNOLOGY, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Bruce Garver University of Nebraska at Omaha Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the American Studies Commons, Cultural History Commons, and the United States History Commons Garver, Bruce, "IMMIGRATION TO THE GREAT PLAINS, 1865-1914 WAR, POLITICS, TECHNOLOGY, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT" (2011). Great Plains Quarterly. 2711. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2711 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. IMMIGRATION TO THE GREAT PLAINS, 1865-1914 WAR, POLITICS, TECHNOLOGY, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BRUCE GARVER The advent and vast extent of immigration to of mass immigration to the United States from the Great Plains states during the years 1865 to east-central and southern Europe.1 Facilitating 1914 is perhaps best understood in light of the all of these changes was the achievement of new international context that emerged during widespread literacy through universal, free, the 1860s in the aftermath of six large wars compulsory, and state-funded elementary edu whose consequences included the enlargement cation in the United States, Canada, and most of civil liberties, an acceleration of economic western and northern European countries. growth and technological innovation, the Moreover, the extraordinary transformation expansion of world markets, and the advent of the Great Plains from a sparsely inhabited frontier to a region of thriving cities and com mercial agriculture took place in the remark Key Words: dvilliberties, education, Czech Ameri ably short time of forty-nine years, during cans, German Americans, Italian Americans, which Europe and North America enjoyed railroads, religion unprecedented peace and prosperity. Even as Since 1976, Bruce Garver (PhD, Yale, 1971) has been late as 1945, many Americans were aware that Professor of history at the University of Nebraska at the entire history of the Great Plains states Omaha where he teaches courses on the two World had occurred within the living memory of their Wars, the Enlightenment, modern Italy, and transport most elderly citizens. history. He is a fellow of the Center for Great Plains Studies whose A~ri12010 Symposium he co-organized In this essay I discuss these and several with Dr. Miluse Saskova-Pierce on "Czech and Slovak broad, related topics in the history of the Great Americans: International Perspectives from the Great Plains, emphasizing continental European Plains." His publications include The Young Czech immigration facilitated by industrial technol Party, 1874-1901: The Emergence of a Multi-Party ogy. It is understood, as did Jacob Burckhardt System, and articles such as "Human Rights in Czech and Slovak History." in defining such essays, that other scholars who examine the same or similar evidence may draw somewhat different conclusions.2 My [GPQ 31 (Summer 2011): 179-203) perspective is primarily that of a historian of 179 180 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2011 modern Europe and of Slavic immigrants to opened the way to Italian unification; (3) the the United States and to a lesser extent that of American Civil War of 1861 to 1865; (4) the an American who has resided in Nebraska for conflict of 1862 to 1867 in which the Mexicans thirty-five years.3 expelled their French conquerors and reestab The article will address four main topics lished a republic; (5) the Seven Weeks' War of related to mass immigration and the social and 1866 in which Prussia and Italy defeated the economic transformation of the Great Plains Austrian Empire and several smaller German in the half century following the end of the principalities; and (6) the Franco-German War American Civil War. The first is the extent to of July 1870 to May 1871 in which Prussia and which this transformation was made possible its German allies under Otto von Bismarck's by the liberal political order that emerged in leadership defeated France and established an Europe and North America as a consequence authoritarian constitutional German Empire of the six most destructive wars fought between under the Hohenzollern dynasty of Prussia.4 1854 and 1871. The second considers how the Moreover, in the midst of losing this war, the industrial revolution and labor-saving tech French began to establish a Third Republic nology, along with greater political freedom, after overthrowing the dictatorial Second facilitated the rapid settlement and economic Empire of Napoleon III. All in all, the imme transformation of the Great Plains. The third diate consequences of these six wars not only discusses how more than a million young, advanced industrialization, urbanization, civil intelligent, and industrious immigrants from liberties, and the rule of law in North America Europe-and smaller numbers from Mexico and most parts of Europe but also accelerated and Canada-joined American-born citi immigration to the United States from south zens in the establishment of new settlements ern and eastern Europe.5 throughout the Great Plains states. In these The defeat of Imperial Russia by France, developments, the experience of Czech, Britain, and Piedmont-Sardinia in the Crimean German, and Italian immigrants will be War of 1854-56 had persuaded Czar Alexander emphasized as having been broadly representa II and his advisors to emancipate all serfs on tive of those who came from other continental March 3, 1861, as the first step toward limited European nations. Finally, this article will political and economic reforms that would examine the extent to which railways-whose lay the groundwork for industrialization and capitalization and economic benefits exceeded increased emigration by the turn of the century. those of all other innovations of the industrial The defeat of the Austrian Empire by France revolution-conditioned patterns of immigra and Piedmont-Sardinia in the summer of 1859 tion as well as accelerated urbanization, indus opened the way to the creation of a united and trialization, and commercial agriculture on the liberal Italian monarchy and persuaded the Great Plains. Habsburgs to transform the Austrian Empire into a constitutional monarchy whose repre WARS AS PRECONDITIONS FOR SETTLEMENT sentative political bodies removed obstacles to OF THE GREAT PLAINS emigration and encouraged industrialization and state-supported elementary education. The Facilitating all the above developments were unification of Italy, whose principal political the liberal political achievements-including architects were Camillo Benso di Cavour and the rule of law, representative government, and Giuseppe Garibaldi, had required the military enlarged civil liberties-which were largely defeat of the Austrian Empire, the Kingdom of made possible by six costly wars fought between Naples, and the Papal State in order to estab 1854 and 1871: (1) the Crimean War of 1854 to lish liberal Piedmontese law and institutions 1856; (2) the war of 1859 in which France and throughout Italy, to create a national army, Piedmont defeated the Austrian Empire and navy, railway network, and postal system, and IMMIGRATION TO THE GREAT PLAINS, 1865-1914 181 to inaugurate a bonifica agraria-the reclama In defeating the Confederacy, the United tion of marginal lands for agriculture-and to States abolished the economically inefficient begin the conquest of malaria, heretofore the and morally repugnant institution of slavery principal scourge of the Italian people.6 in the most destructive war ever fought in the Prussia's and Italy's defeat of the Austrian Western HemisphereJl By fighting bravely to Empire and its German allies in the Seven the bitter end to preserve this ugly institution, Weeks' War of 1866 enabled Italy to annex the Confederates hastened its eradication and the Veneto and obliged the Habsburgs in their postwar discovery of more profitable and 1867 to grant internal independence to the humane ways to earn a living than by cruelly Hungarians in a reconstituted dual monarchy exploiting human chattel. Moreover, the vic of Austria-Hungary'? In a fifth contempora tory of the United States also facilitated the neous war of 1862 to 1867, Mexican patriots implementation of the Homestead Act of led by Benito Juarez expelled a French army 1862 and the completion on May 10, 1869, at of occupation and reestablished the Mexican Promontory Summit, Utah, of the first North Republic, whose commerce with and emigra American transcontinental railway along "the tion to the United States soon expanded after Overland Route" of the Union Pacific and 1880 in conjunction with the construction of Central Pacific Railroads,l2 compatible railway networks on both sides of the border along the Rio Grande River and REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT, through the Sonoran Desert.8 The Franco INDUSTRIALIZATION, AND TECHNOLOGY German War of 1870-71 enabled the Prussian IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE GREAT monarchy to take the lead in creating a unified PLAINS Second German Empire whose rapid indus trialization, authoritarian political structure, Because the semiarid Great Plains had a and aggressive foreign