Historioa,! Revie^w The State Historical Society of Missouri COLUMBIA, MISSOURI BOARD OF EDITORS LAWRENCE 0. CHRISTENSEN SUSAN M. HARTMANN University of Missouri-Rolla Ohio State University, Columbus WILLIAM E. FOLEY ALAN R. HAVIG Central Missouri State University, Stephens College, Warrensburg Columbia JEAN TYREE HAMILTON DAVID D. MARCH Marshall Kirksville ARVARH E. STRICKLAND II University of Missouri-Columbia COVER DESCRIPTION: This Joseph P. Vorst oil painting (11 5/8" x 25 7/8"), entitled A Corn Harvest, was done as a study for a pro­ posed post office mural in Vandalia. Born in Essen, Germany, Vorst studied at the Folkway Academy in Essen and the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. He came to St. Louis in 1930. In addition to the mural in the Vandalia post office, Vorst painted murals in the Bethany, Missouri, and Paris, Arkansas, mail facili­ ties. This rural scene was recently given to the Society by Elenore Schewe of Vandalia. MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW Published Quarterly by THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI COLUMBIA, MISSOURI JAMES W. GOODRICH EDITOR LYNN WOLF GENTZLER ASSOCIATE EDITOR CHRISTINE MONTGOMERY RESEARCH ASSISTANT ANN L. ROGERS RESEARCH ASSISTANT Copyright c 1995 by The State Historical Society of Missouri 1020 Lowry Street, Columbia, Missouri 65201 The Missouri Historical Review (ISSN 0026-6582) is owned by the State Historical Society of Missouri and is published quarterly at 10 South Hitt, Columbia, Missouri 65201. Send communications, business and editorial correspondence, and change of address to the State Historical Society of Missouri, 1020 Lowry Street, Columbia, MO 65201. Second class postage is paid at Columbia, Missouri. SOCIETY HOURS: The Society is open to the public from 8:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M., VOLUME LXXXIX Monday through Friday, and Saturday from 9:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M., except legal holidays. NUMBER 2 Holiday Schedule: The Society will be closed January 14-16. JANUARY, 1995 THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI The State Historical Society of Missouri, heretofore organized under the laws of the State, shall be the trustee of this State-Laws of Missouri, 1899, R.S. of Mo., 1969, chapter 183, as revised 1978. OFFICERS 1992-1995 AVIS G. TUCKER, Warrensburg, President JAMES C. OLSON, Kansas City, First Vice President SHERIDAN A. LOGAN, St. Joseph, Second Vice President VIRGINIA G. YOUNG, Columbia, Third Vice President NOBLE E. CUNNINGHAM, Columbia, Fourth Vice President R. KENNETH ELLIOTT, Liberty, Fifth Vice President ROBERT G. J. HOESTER, Kirkwood, Sixth Vice President ALBERT M. PRICE, Columbia, Treasurer JAMES W. GOODRICH, Columbia, Executive Director, Secretary, and Librarian TRUSTEES Permanent Trustees, Former Presidents of the Society WILLIAM AULL III, Lexington LEO J. ROZIER, Perryville FRANCIS M. BARNES III, Kirkwood ROBERT C. SMITH, Columbia RUSH H. LIMBAUGH, Cape Girardeau Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1995 WALTER ALLEN, Brookfield W. ROGERS HEWITT, Shelbyville JAMES A. BARNES, Raytown EMORY MELTON, Cassville VERA H. BURK, Kirksville DOYLE PATTERSON, Kansas City RICHARD DECOSTER, Canton STUART SYMINGTON, JR., St. Louis Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1996 HENRIETTA AMBROSE, Webster Groves FREDERICK W. LEHMANN IV, H. RILEY BOCK, New Madrid Webster Groves LAWRENCE O. CHRISTENSEN, Rolla GEORGE MCCUE, St. Louis ROBERT S. DALE, Carthage WALLACE B. SMITH, Independence Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1997 ILUS W. DAVIS, Kansas City DALE REESMAN, Boonville JOHN K. HULSTON, Springfield ARVARH E. STRICKLAND, Columbia JAMES B. NUTTER, Kansas City BLANCHE M. TOUHILL, St. Louis BOB PRIDDY, Jefferson City HENRY J. WATERS III, Columbia BOARD OF TRUSTEES The Board of Trustees consists of one Trustee from each Congressional District of the State and fourteen Trustees elected at large. In addition to the elected Trustees, the President of the Society, the Vice Presidents of the Society, all former Presidents of the Society, and the ex officio members of the Society constitute the Board of Trustees. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Eight Trustees elected by the Board of Trustees together with the President of the Society consti­ tute the Executive Committee. The Executive Director of the Society serves as an ex officio member. WILLIAM AULL III, Lexington, Chairman ROBERT C. SMITH, Columbia FRANCIS M. BARNES III, Kirkwood BLANCHE M. TOUHILL, St. Louis H. RILEY BOCK, New Madrid Avis G. TUCKER, Warrensburg LAWRENCE O. CHRISTENSEN, Rolla VIRGINIA G. YOUNG, Columbia JAMES C. OLSON, Kansas City EDITORIAL POLICY The editors of the Missouri Historical Review welcome submission of articles and documents relating to the history of Missouri. Any aspect of Missouri history will be considered for publication in the Review. Genealogical studies, however, are not accepted because of limited appeal to general readers. Manu­ scripts pertaining to all fields of American history will be consid­ ered if the subject matter has significant relevance to the history of Missouri or the West. Authors should submit two double-spaced copies of their manuscripts. The footnotes, prepared according to The Chicago Manual of Style, also should be double-spaced and placed at the end of the text. Authors may submit manuscripts on PC/DOS, 360K disk. The disk must be IBM compatible, preferably the WordPerfect 5.1 program. Otherwise, it must be in ASCII format. Two hard copies still are required, and the print must be letter or near-letter quality. Dot matrix submissions will not be accepted. Originality of subject, general interest of the article, sources used, interpretation, and style are criteria for acceptance and publica­ tion. Manuscripts should not exceed 7,500 words. Articles that are accepted for publication become the property of the State Historical Society of Missouri and may not be published else­ where without permission. The Society does not accept responsi­ bility for statements of fact or opinion made by the authors. Articles published in the Review are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts, America: History and Life, Recently Published Articles, Writings on American History, The Western Historical Quarterly, and The Journal of American History. Manuscripts submitted for the Review should be addressed to Dr. James W. Goodrich, Editor Missouri Historical Review The State Historical Society of Missouri 1020 Lowry Street Columbia, Missouri 65201 CONTENTS THE MAKING OF A SUPERIOR IMMIGRANT: GEORGE HUSMANN, 1837-1854. By Linda Walker Stevens 119 FRONTIER BRIDGE BUILDING: THE HANNIBAL BRIDGE AT KANSAS CITY, 1867-1869. By Louis W. Potts and George F W. Hauck 139 IMMIGRANT CEMENT WORKERS: THE STRIKE OF 1910 IN ILASCO, MISSOURI. By Gregg Andrews 162 MISSOURI WINTER: A SEASON TO CELEBRATE—AND SURVIVE 184 HISTORICAL NOTES AND COMMENTS Society Holds Annual Meeting 197 Society Libraries: Newspaper Library 206 News in Brief 208 Local Historical Societies 211 Gifts 226 Missouri History in Newspapers 230 Missouri History in Magazines 236 InMemoriam 243 BOOK REVIEWS 244 BOOK NOTES 248 HISTORIC MISSOURI COLLEGES: LAGRANGE COLLEGE Inside Back Cover Husmann Family Collection The Making of a Superior Immigrant: George Husmann, 1837-1854 BY LINDA WALKER STEVENS* Pioneer grape culturist and winemaker George Husmann sprang from a family and a tradition that implicitly demanded honor and accomplishment, and he was not a man to shrink from duty or destiny. Each public act of his maturity embodied that upright dignity with which his background had imbued him. Although naturally of a shy, introspective nature, self-effacing and sensitive, steeped from early childhood in idealism and German Romanticism, and awed by the example of his vigorously moral father, *Linda Walker Stevens is a writer and a viniculture historian who lives in Hermann, where she is currently at work on a biography of George Husmann. She received the B.A. and M.F.A. degrees from Western Washington University, Bellingham. The author wishes to acknowledge research assistance provided by Gail Unzelman. Copyright of this article is retained by Linda Walker Stevens, 1995. 119 120 Missouri Historical Review Martin, and idolized elder half brother Fritz, Husmann subscribed perfectly, if unconsciously, to the peculiarly German notion of a reprasentativ life.1 His solidly middle-class German roots molded his conduct and identity into the form expected of him. In essence, Husmann's heritage shaped his reality. For this precept George Husmann had several prime models to emu­ late in his immediate family. The mid-nineteenth-century virtues of piety, prudence, and sentimentality found full expression in the household of his youth. The ancient and influential Wesselhoeft clan, replete with its patrician trappings and its literary links at Jena, had rendered a daughter of one of its less materially successful scions to forge a respectable connection with the Hannoverian family of Husmanns.2 In 1826, Louise Charlotte Wesselhoeft, the twenty-six-year-old daughter of a deceased Meyenburg merchant, mar­ ried Johann Heinrich Martin Husmann, veteran schoolmaster of Meyenburg. Lotte became Martin's second wife, stepmother to his five children, and on November 4, 1827, mother of Johann Georg Hermann Carl Husmann.3 For all his worthy lineage, the boy's beginning was unimpressive. He proved puny and sickly. The village physician prescribed a milk diet for the struggling lad, and his father kept him out of school, overseeing his educa­ tion at home until the stripling survived into his eighth year. By this time George's eldest half sister, Marianne, his uncle Johann Georg Wesselhoeft, and a coterie of other family members and friends had immigrated to America, "allured by the then popular work of [Gottfried] Duden."4 1 German Romanticism not only exalted nature as the vesture of divinity but also cele­ brated the individual's longing toward unattainable perfection. Humanistic in focus, the phi­ losophy gave rise to German liberalism and the political movements that championed individ­ ual rights. Perhaps its greatest artistic expression is found in the works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In the German sense, reprasentativ indicates the responsibility of leading a public life that is in keeping with one's position and with the world's expectations.