Ethic Groups and Discrimination

According to my mothers maiden name Germans are a part of my heritage. Thanks to the early German immigrants I will not have to have the struggles and challenges they faced. The Germans Migrated to North America in the 1600 and 1700 after wide spread famine and wars ravaged in Germany. Most German Immigrants settled in Pennsylvania. The first Germans were Quaker weavers. They sought religious freedom but there was much religious segregation when they made it to America. Some Germans left to pursue the “American Dream” of owning their own land. Impelled by an inheritance law, that left numerous sons with no profits in the southern part of Germany, many of the German sons went to the Midwest part of Germany, where there was large areas of land with good soil. At the end of the 1900s, most Germans were manufacturing workers that were not married who came to the United States searching for summer or seasonal work but never went back to Germany.

Like many ethnic groups, Germans established with other people of their same language and origin, where they felt like they were home. They established in regions where farmland was affordable, and where schools and churches were already present. Although there were efforts to structure a new German status in the settlements, such as in Texas in the 1840s, none came into completion. The biggest part of Germans in the 1900s established in the states of Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, Michigan and Ohio. Artisans went to the cities of Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Louisville, Chicago and St. Louis as well as the entrenched cities of Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore. The states to the south seized no appeal for Germans following the Civil War, though more than a few state governments had tried to catch the attention of immigrants.

Experienced artisan produced the major crowd of German immigrants in any phase. Germans became high profile executives and shopkeepers, and skilled laborers in country and city settings. Germans all but completely filled fields such as distillers, land surveyors, breweries, and watchmakers. They too became Butchers and printers, tailors, shoemakers, cabinetmakers, typesetters, blacksmiths, and bakers. The younger women from Germany worked as household servants in American households, which caused larger integration.

One of the many reasons Germans never created a sound community is they were forced to the settlements by significantly conflicting motivation. Prior to 1820, many German immigrants were bonded labors, people who paid for their journey by indebting themselves to the boat owners before meeting their family in America or paying their debt back on or before arrival. Often divided from their family and other German-speakers, the “serves,” as they were called, adapted faster by learning English, getting an education in American agricultural methods, becoming artisans, and educating themselves about the law and trade.

Even though Germans worked with other immigrants, they often spent their time off with other Germans. German-language society began more popular around the nation. In 1857, there was anti-immigrant sentiment, and the sense that an inadequate amount of work was being done to incorporate Germans into American civilization. One of the many groups to encourage the German-American society during the years of immigration was the German-American National Alliance,