German-Americans During the Kulturkampf: The Influence of German Affairs in the United States

Abstract

When Germans immigrated to the United States after 1848, many came as refugees of the same year’s failed revolt. These Forty-Eighters were a vocal and elite minority of the total German-American population. As expected of immigrants, many German-Americans decided to migrate predominately because of economic opportunities but religion, politics, and family dynamics also played influential roles in how individuals made their decisions to leave the old world. These Immigrants brought with them the political trends of Germany, both the liberal and the conservative. German-American responses to the Unification of Germany and the Kulturkampf help us understand their own identity and their place in America. Ultimately, Americans in this period––both Germanic and Anglo in origin––were attempting to define what makes someone a true American citizen. Through the use of primary sources consisting of Newspapers and immigrant letters, this paper attempts to articulate German-American immigrants’ opinions besides those of the well-documented Forty-Eighters.