Senior College Course

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A Century of German Immigration to Iowa, 1848–1948

Senior College, University of Iowa, September 2016
W107 Pappajohn Business Building (PBB)
Fridays 10:30 a.m. – 12:20 p.m.

Instructor: Glenn Ehrstine, Department of German
575 Phillips Hall
Office Hours: Mondays 11:00 a.m. – noon; Wednesdays 12:30–2:20 p.m.
glenn-ehrstine@uiowa.edu

Welcome

Welcome to the resource page for “A Century of German Immigration to Iowa, 1848–1948,” a four-week course offered by the UI Senior College. You’ll find the topics for our four course sessions below, together with related readings and materials. You are welcome to read as much or as little as you’d like, according to your interest, for each course session.

Under “Suggested Readings,” you’ll find informative texts pertaining to our topic of the week. “Materials for Browsing” contains supplemental links to websites, maps, and documents that illustrate German immigration to the state.

September 9: Coming to Iowa—One Language, Many Identities

Suggested Readings

Pre-WWI banner texts for “German Iowa” exhibit (PDF)
“Forty-Eighters” in Iowa: Lord Richard Acton, “A Remarkable Immigrant: The Story of Hans Reimer Claussen,” The Palimpsest 75 (1994): 87-100. (PDF)
Iowa City’s “Fabulous 150”: Moses Bloom (Iowa City Press-Citizen; URL)

Materials for Browsing

Interactive Map, Pew Research Center: “From Ireland to Germany to Italy to Mexico: How America’s Source of Immigrants Has Changed in the States, 1850-2013” (URL)
Overview of Census Data on German Immigration to Iowa (PDF)
Map of Wilhelm Fischer’s 1851 Journey from Hamburg to Davenport (PDF)
Interactive Map of German-Iowan Newspapers (URL)

September 16: German Iowans and the Politics of Brewing

Suggested Readings

George H. Daniels, “Immigrant Vote in the 1860 Election: The Case of Iowa,” Mid-America: An Historical Review 44 (1962): 146-162. (PDF)
“Iowa’s Pestilence of Prohibition,” draft translation of “Die Prohibitionsseuche in Iowa,” chapter 11 of Joseph Eiboeck, Die Deutschen von Iowa und deren Errungenschaften (The Germans of Iowa and Their Achievements), 1900. (PDF)
Marlin Ingalls, “The Iowa City Beer Riots of 1884,” Little Village, 26 March 2013 (URL)

Materials for BrowsingGerman-Immigration-to-Iowa

German-American Brewers in Iowa City (PDF)
Packet, “The German-Iowan Press on Slavery, Brewing, and Related Issues” (PDF)
- German-Iowan Republicans on Slavery: Die wöchentliche Iowa Post, Des Moines, 5 May 1860
- German-Iowan Democrats on Civil War and Abolition: Dubuque National-Demokrat, 6 April 1865
- Saloon Destruction by Iowa Temperance Activists: Iowa City Post, 25 June 1884
- Editorial Against State Referendum on Woman Suffrage: Waverly Phoenix, 17 May 1916

September 23: Anti-German Sentiment During World War I

Suggested Readings

WWI Banner Texts for “German Iowa” exhibit (PDF)
Nancy Derr, “The Babel Proclamation,” Iowa Heritage Ilustrated 85 (2004): 128-144. (PDF)
Nancy Derr, “Lowden: A Study of Intolerance in an Iowa Community during the Era of the First World War,” Annals of Iowa 50 (1989): 5-22. (PDF)

Materials for Browsing

German Iowa Digital Archive (From the “Browse” page linked here, click on the “Search Items” link at the top of the white field, and then enter the name of your county in the Keywords field. Your search will produce numerous letters written to or by Governor William Harding concerning the Babel Proclamation, the executive order of 14 May 1918 that forbade the speaking of all foreign languages in public, which included church services and telephone party lines.)

September 30: 1920–1948: Refugees, POWs, and Assimilation

Suggested Readings

Read the sections “New Footing, Continuing Connections,” “Economic and Political Crisis,” and “World War II and Its Aftermath” from the exhibit on “German Iowa and the Global Midwest” (scroll down)
“Haven in the Heartland”: Online exhibit on Scattergood Hostel near West Branch, which took in nearly 200 refugees from Nazi Germany

Materials for Browsing