American German Pioneers In The American Colonies

Early Germans played an important part in the settlement of early America. They purchased land. They built factories, not to speak of their composing and artistic talents. They were hardworking and thrifty. During the time of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, large settlements of Germans were in the same state, Virginia, at the same time. They travelled freely from Pennslyvania to Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, following early roads through the Shenandoah Valley. To these early German Pioneers we owe much.

Discusses the history and contributions of the Germans in America from colonial times to the present, noting prominent German Americans throughout American history.

This is a collection of articles pertaining to the European origins of Pennsylvania German immigrants which originally appeared in the magazine "Pennsylvania Folklife," successor to "The Pennsylvania Dutchman." Virtually all the emigrants mentioned in this work are cited with reference to church, parish, and provincial records and other records located in the archival repositories of the old Palatinate and adjoining provinces in southwest Germany; and these emigrants are cited again, where possible, with reference to a corresponding range of Pennsylvania source materials, notably church records, wills, and tax lists. In addition, names of emigrants are collated with Strassburger and Hinke's celebrated "Pennsylvania German Pioneers," from which are drawn dates of arrival, names of ships, and other evidence of immigration.

This book provides the most comprehensive history of German migration to North America for the period 1709 to 1920 than has been done before. Employing state-of-the-art methodological and statistical techniques, the book has two objectives. First he explores how the recruitment and shipping markets for immigrants were set up, determining what the voyage was like in terms of the health outcomes for the passengers, and identifying the characteristics of the immigrants in terms of family, age, and occupational compositions and educational attainments. Secondly he details how immigrant servitude worked, by identifying how important it was to passenger financing, how shippers profited from carrying immigrant servants, how the labor auction treated immigrant servants, and when and why this method of financing passage to America came to an end.

In 1700, some 250,000 white and black inhabitants populated the thirteen American colonies, with the vast majority of whites either born in England or descended from English immigrants. By 1776, the non-Native American population had increased tenfold, and non-English Europeans and Africans dominated new immigration. Of all the European immigrant groups, the Germans may have been the largest. Aaron Spencer Fogleman has written the first comprehensive history of this eighteenth-century German settlement of North America. Utilizing a vast body of published and archival sources, many of them never before made accessible outside of Germany, Fogleman emphasizes the importance of German immigration to colonial America, the European context of the Germans' emigration, and the importance of networks to their success in America

Chapter 1 by Otto Lohr (1912) identifies who the first Germans were in all the colonies and refers to the most prominent individuals. Chapter 2 by Herman Schuricht (1898) provides detail on the first Germans in Virginia--who they were and their trades. Chapter 3 by John O. Evjen (1916) reveals that close to half the population of the New York settlement was German; this chapter includes a biographical directory of New York settlers, giving the names and background of a substantial number of them. The editor provides an introduction to this material and an index of names.

In Citizens in a Strange Land, Hermann Wellenreuther examines the broadsides—printed single sheets—produced by the Pennsylvania German community. These broadsides covered topics ranging from local controversies and politics to devotional poems and hymns. Each one is a product of and reaction to a particular historical setting. To understand them fully, Wellenreuther systematically reconstructs Pennsylvania’s print culture, the material conditions of life, the problems German settlers faced, the demands their communities made on the individual settlers, the complications to be overcome, and the needs to be satisfied. He shows how these broadsides provided advice, projections, and comment on phases of life from cradle to grave.