Germans in Kansas
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Review Essay Series GERMANS IN KANSAS Eleanor L. Turk he history of Kansas presents a color- EDITORS’INTRODUCTION ful mosaic of peoples and events and Our original vision for this essay can be studied from many perspec- series included widening our knowl- tives. Perhaps the richest of these is edge of well-known historical topics Tthe history of the peoples who have resided in and how historians have treated them, drawing our attention to new the state and built it: the Native Americans who topics, new methods, and new inter- have lived here through the ages; the migrants pretations. We hoped the essays from the eastern and southern states, driven by would reflect historians’ ongoing their concept of “manifest destiny” to incorpo- search for a more complete and in- rate Kansas Territory into their new nation; the sightful understanding of our past Border Ruffians and Jayhawkers who fought to and suggest new research directions. define its political and social character; the Exo- Dr. Eleanor Turk’s essay meets these expectations admirably. dusters from the South who hoped to find a Turk discusses older works that peaceful haven for African Americans in “free” share many characteristics. In partic- Kansas after the Civil War; and the thousands ular they focus almost exclusively on upon thousands of Europeans, lured by the migration and settlement. We learn prospects of land and independence, who chose why European Germans and Russ- to leave their ancient homelands for the chal- ian Germans came to this country and where they settled in Kansas. lenges of the American frontier. Indeed, because These studies emphasize the Russian non-Indian settlers were excluded from Kansas Germans to a much greater extent, until 1854, viewing state history through the noting their intentions to cluster, prism of immigration adds significant dimen- their difficulties in doing so, and the sion and opens up exciting new avenues for ex- reception the immigrants received ploration. from other Kansans. Historians before the 1960s also emphasized the degree to which Germans assimilated into the main- Eleanor L. Turk, a retired professor of history at Indiana University East, earned her Ph.D. in Central Eu- stream of Kansas and American life. ropean (German) history from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She has researched and written on both Underlying these studies is the as- German history and German emigration in the nineteenth century and has focused on the history of the German sumption that abandoning older be- people in Kansas. liefs, practices, and values and tak- The author thanks Rita G. Napier and Virgil W. Dean for offering this daunting challenge and op- ing on American culture was most portunity. She has learned a great deal from the process. desirable. Turk concludes that pre- 1968 histories of Kansas acknowl- Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 28 (Spring 2005): 44–71. 44 KANSAS HISTORY From the Old to the New World is the title of this sketch of German emigrants boarding a steamer in Hamburg, Ger- many, to relocate in America. The illustration was published in Harper’s Weekly, November 7, 1874. Kansas owes its history to its immigrants, American Clark and Roy L. Roberts, People of Kansas: A Demographic and European alike, and they are well-documented. The and Sociological Study, gives a statistical overview of immi- state census reports, compiled every ten years beginning gration by the origins of the migrants. J. Neale Carman’s in 1865, record data about the immigrants’ places of birth superb Foreign-Language Units of Kansas, I. Historical Atlas and prior residences. They complement the data from the and Statistics provides the best introduction to foreign set- United States Census and have formed the basis for infor- tlement, with immigration statistics and detailed county mative population studies. The early analysis of Carroll D. maps identifying where foreign migrants have clustered. GERMANS IN KANSAS 45 edge the German presence but give us James R. Shortridge, in Peopling the Plains: Who Settled Where in Frontier Kansas, “no idea of the actual German dimen- uses both graphs and maps to explain how the Kansas population had its origins sion in Kansas history.” in the existing states and how those settlers tended to cluster, by county.1 He par- Since the 1960s European Ger- allels this with the smaller, albeit significant, influx of foreign nationals. These mans have received more attention, sources allow us to understand how community building took place among both according to Turk, but studies of Ger- American and foreign-born settlers. mans from Russia still predominate. While assimilation continues to be of My purpose in this essay is to consider how historians and other scholars major concern, scholars no longer have identified and analyzed the role of ethnic Germans in the history of Kansas. begin with the assumption that be- My basic sources are some excellent bibliographies, which I recommend to others coming Americanized is the goal. interested in this subject. But we have to begin with the German immigrants James Juhnke, for example, described themselves. The geographers and statisticians help us tally and locate the Ger- the movement of Germans from Rus- mans among the other settlers of Kansas. These statistics are important for un- sia into Kansas political life but also derstanding the populations we are discussing. According to the 2000 U.S. Cen- examined the persistence of more tra- ditional values and behaviors. Turk’s sus, about one-fourth of current Kansas citizens claim German heritage. To help own work emphasizes the lives of make their ancestors more visible, I focus here on the data for the most active pe- Germans in Europe, how they trans- riod of German immigration, the decades preceding the Great Depression. planted their culture, and the central concern with building community. MIGRATION AT THE NATIONAL AND STATE LEVELS, 1820–19302 Recent historians, while stressing processes of change and continuity, have analyzed the direction and rate Decade Total Total Percent Total Total Kansas of change, the persistence of culture for U.S. Germans German Kansas Germans and society, and even the unintended consequences of accommodating to 1820–1829 128,502 5,753 4.5 the larger culture. 1830–1839 538,381 124,726 23.2 Finally Dr. Turk details possibili- 1840–1849 1,427,337 385,434 27.0 ties for future research. She suggests 1850–1859 2,814,554 976,072 34.7 that historians need to examine the persistence of ethnicity in rural areas. 1860–1869 2,081,261 723,734 34.8 135,792* 5,142* Historians might examine how some 1870–1879 2,742,137 751,769 27.4 343,866# 14,551# unique communities combined Euro- 1880–1889 5,248,568 1,445,181 27.5 934,300 38,566 pean and American cultures. In par- 1890–1899 3,694,294 579,072 15.7 1,413,999 62,992 ticular she urges exploring similarities 1900–1909 8,202,388 328,722 4.0 1,470,494 58,204 in the different Russian German reli- 1910–1919 6,347,380 174,227 2.7 1,635,328 65,842 gious groups that made their adapta- tion similarly successful. On the other 1920–1929 4,295,510 386,634 9.0 1,759,257 43,473 hand, for European Germans, who re- main “essentially invisible,” we need to examine their lives before migra- tion and the process of immigration, 1. The Kansas State Census is available on microfilm from the Kansas State Historical Society, and as well as their land use patterns, po- copies are in libraries across the state. The federal census data on migration of the settlement period is litical life, education, family histories, accessible in U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United and generational differences in expe- States: Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial ed. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1975). Carroll D. Clark and Roy L. Roberts, People of Kansas: A Demographic and Sociological Study (Topeka: rience. Urban and rural comparisons Kansas State Planning Board, 1936); J. Neale Carman, Foreign-Language Units of Kansas I. Historical Atlas also would be welcomed. Overall the and Statistics (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1962); James R. Shortridge, Peopling the Plains: studies need to distinguish between Who Settled Where in Frontier Kansas (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995). Wallace Elden patterns of assimilation, resistance Miller, The Peopling of Kansas (Columbus, Ohio: Press of Fred J. Heer, 1906), was the earliest study, but it focuses on “native white Americans” and makes only passing reference to foreign immigrants. and persistence, and accommodation. 2. Four sources were used to compile the migration data. Sources for the data for national immi- _____________ gration, total German immigration, and percentage are acceptable to both Germans and Americans. They are based on the Historical Statistics of the United States cited in the German government publica- Rita G. Napier tion Willi Paul Adams, Deutsche im Schmelztiegel der USA: Erfahrungen im größten Einwanderungsland der University of Kansas Europäer (Berlin: Senatsverwaltung für Gesundheit uns Soziales—Ausländerbeauftragte, 1990), 8. Virgil W. Dean These data exclude Germans from Russia. Kansas data (*) are from Shortridge, Peopling the Plains, 11–12, and are based on the Kansas State Census , 1865; subsequent Kansas data (#) are from Carman, Kansas State Historical Society Foreign-Language Units of Kansas, 9, and are based on the United States Census, 1880. 46 KANSAS HISTORY WHO WERE THESE GERMANS? This question has long vexed historians and even the Germans themselves. While the French and English developed nation states from the speakers of their language by the seven- teenth century, the Germans re- mained fragmented and with- out a unified nation state throughout most of their histo- ry.