The Normal (Yet Interesting) Culture of German Immigrants
Adams, Willi Paul, et al. The German-Americans: An Ethnic Experience. Max Kade German-American Center, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis., 1993.
“That’s great, it is a service to your family” was my grandfather’s response when I presented him with my project proposal on family ancestry. He has an understanding of the struggles that the generations before him endured in Germany and during the voyage to America; my grandfather appreciates that somebody in our family is adding to the family record of ancestry because it basically pays respect to those before him and myself who worked very hard for the lives to follow.
A promise of a better life for an individual and their family is one of the greatest life-accomplishments that anyone can ever achieve. The story of my ancestry begins with the reasons why my ancestors made the big decision to leave Germany for America, and the story is constantly being added to with the different decisions made along the way by myself and my family members. However, I believe that many people (including myself before this project) do not know half of the struggles that their ancestors underwent to get to America, and sometimes the best way to understand the push-pull factors for immigration is to analyze the reasons for departure in the first place. The desire for a better life is a moderately broad reason, yet when dug deep into, the implications of this reason are clear and provide additional insight. This source did just that.
The German-Americans: An Ethnic Experience has a particular chapter which explains the factors which drove a massive amount of Germans to the United States. There were basically three main categories that reasons for immigration can be broken down into which were economic, political, and religious factors. Economic factors involved farming issues where inheritance laws made children acquire equal shares of land which led to dismemberment of family farms. However, in northwestern regions of Germany, the first-born was given priority to do as they pleased with the land which also caused problems with family farms. On top of that, wheat crop failures were common in northern Germany. Next is the political factors; the post-Napoleonic era in Germany saw a persecution of democrats and liberals, and when the German Revolution of 1848 failed, many citizens decided to leave. Finally, there’s the religious push factors from Germany and the American pull factors. 18th and 19th century Europe was already quite religiously intolerant, and in Germany during that time, many Old Lutherans immigrated to avoid forced unification with the Lutheran church. These push factors are very common reasons that I already had a basic understanding of from history courses, but when relating them to family history, they become more clear-cut.
If I were to pick one of those three push factors to be the main reason for my family’s immigration to America, I would say that farming was a central cause. My family relied mostly on farming before and after arrival in America, so by no means is it a stretch to believe that they left due to undesirable farming conditions. I felt the need to include this source because push factors are the basis most European immigration in the 18th and 19th centuries when my ancestors came, and I’m sure they experienced these circumstances in Germany which fueled the biggest decision of their lives.
Crumrine, Boyd. History of Washington County, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men. Closson Press, 1999.
My grandfather grew up in Washington County, Pennsylvania and just about all of his schooling and work before college came from this town. My project proposal shows the one-room schoolhouse that my grandfather attended during his first set of years in school. This schoolhouse was in Washington County. While I couldn’t locate the actual school named in this source, I was able to read about other school houses that were built around the community. They were all one-roomed schoolhouses as well. It is my understanding that these schoolhouses were rather hard to learn from because of the mass number of children in different grades that were crammed inside. Still, my grandfather defends the fact that he received an above average education in his schoolhouse.
My family has always valued education over most things, so I was not surprised to find that this book placed a large emphasis on the role of education in Washington County. A large portion was dedicated to explaining how education functioned and the different levels of it in Washington County. Whether religious, higher, or lower education, or even the development of knowledge used for laboring, many residents of Washington County seemed to make the best use of their abilities.
The Lutheran church was a strong connector between the people of Washington County. The book explains how a Lutheran church was built as $170 was raised for construction. If I know anything about my grandfather and grandmother, it’s that they always go to church on Sunday most of the time they get involved as well — typically with something music oriented. As explained in other annotations, my grandparents’ heavy involvement in the church stems back to their German culture which was typically a strong Lutheran faith.
Fattman, A. S. (2018, October 25). Anne Sheib Fattman: Maternal and Paternal Side [Letter to Max Geiger]. Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
My grandmother doesn’t have a cellphone or use e-mail. Communication with her typically involves e-mailing my grandfather, having him tell my grandmother about whatever it was that I had to say, then receiving his relayed message. Still though, I am able to communicate with them decently, and when I told my grandfather about this ancestry project, he did not waste time sending me a Microsoft document with what seemed to be a saved copy of his written ancestry, but that is for a different annotation. For this one, I want to talk about the ancestry source provided to me by my grandmother and why I believe it should be included in my family bible.
About a week ago, in the mail I received sixteen hand-written pages from my grandmother. I somewhat expected to receive something from my grandmother regarding ancestry since I told my grandfather about this project, but what I wasn’t expecting was the extensiveness of the letter. She wrote a ton. When I say a ton, she told me about her ancestry for both maternal and paternal sides dating all the way back to my great-great-great grandparents. Two very useful components of this letter included the descriptions of each person and their respected places of birth. While reading this, I noticed that the birth locations go all the way back to Heilbronn, Germany. This was the icing on the cake for me because up until now, I somewhat lacked information before my family came to America; I mainly focused on jobs and culture since immigration. So, when I saw a birthdate that began in Germany, I knew I had to incorporate this letter as a source one way or another. I also mentioned the descriptions in the letter. While most of them are brief and no more than a sentence or two, they’re unique and give at least a little insight into the person being detailed.
The very first description that I read from this letter read: “Heinrich and Linette died on the same day — five hours a part”. My initial thought was how perfect of a way to go that would be. Heinrich and Linette were my grandmother’s paternal grandparents, and this was the description I was given about them. While it is unique and brief, I found it pretty cool that my grandmother was able to share something unique about my great-great grandparents from the mid-1800s. Based on the descriptions, my grandmother explains how the family mostly used farming to get by in Germany, but once they arrived in the Unite States, they took up higher education and schooling to get better jobs.
Another stand-out thing that I noticed from my grandmother’s ancestry was the part about Otto Scheib, who I wrote an entire other annotation about. Not only was the description for Otto larger than all the others, but it also confirmed most of what I had already learned about him while providing a few extra details to his life. In my other annotation where I highlight Otto, I explain how he worked in masonry after he immigrated from Germany to America, and the description my grandmother provided about Otto explains how he worked on mostly schools and hospitals in York, Pennsylvania.
Fattman, George. (2018, September 1). Ancestry of Ernest George Fattman [Letter to Max Geiger]. Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
Just like the handwritten ancestry that my grandmother sent me, my grandfather took it upon himself to as well provide me with a record of family history; the only difference is that his was sent via e-mail. I felt the need to include his ancestry source as an annotation solely because it provided me with a base for my portfolio. Like my grandmother’s ancestry report, the structure of my grandfather’s was similar with dates and people, yet his had less people and more description. On top of that, he as well provided me with photos of him and his father when they were children.
I used two of the photos in the portfolio. The one that stood out most to me was of the one-room schoolhouse that he attended as a boy. The schoolhouse had a coal furnace and a water pump in the front yard, and multiple different grades went at the same time. My grandfather has told me about the harsh Pennsylvania winters when he had to walk to school which made me thankful for living in Georgia. The photo showed a medium-sized group of children of different sizes and what seemed to be various ages standing in front of George McGouldrick School.
As mentioned previously, the structure of the two separate reports of ancestry from both grandparents are similar and very comparable. I can tell that my grandfather took more of a story-based approach with his document because it’s written in paragraph format to invoke a different emotion for different family members. The piece is interesting to read and is written quite well, but my grandfather is a professor in journalism, so I expected a somewhat elaborate story.
Most of what is in this source has been explained in the portfolio, but I still want to make a few points on the details he provided within the document. For starters, he placed much emphasis on the role of education and making good grades which I respect to the utmost degree. My family heavily stresses the importance of going to school and succeeding; all my grandparents, uncles, and aunts have gone to college. Likewise, my grandparents have always praised me for maintaining good grades in school and have even offered to help my family financially. I believe this all stems from a long family drive to succeed.
Fogleman, Aaron Spencer. Hopeful Journeys: German Immigration, Settlement, and Political Culture in Colonial America, 1717–1775. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996. JSTOR, www.jstor..org/stable/j.ctt13x1n69.
Throughout every history class that I’ve been in, when learning about immigration, one of the major reasons for a large number of people to drastically move was because they saw a possibility of a better life. From dealing with bad luck in the job-market to undesirable living conditions, different factors can cause mass immigration. These two factors previously mentioned are only a couple of many that caused many Germans, including my family, to sail to America in the 18th century.
Hopeful Journeys: German Immigration, Settlement, and Political Culture in Colonial America 1717–1775 is an overall analysis of German immigration patterns in the mid to late eighteenth-century colonial America. The book discusses many different aspects that made up the struggles faced by German immigrants and the other millions of Europeans that fled to America in the 1700s. This source provided information involving push factors, immigrant statistics, insight into settlement communities, and mobility to name a few major components.
I based my project on my grandfather’s and ancestors’ lives after immigration from Germany to America. Most of my research for this project thus far came from sources that dealt with accounts only in America — Pennsylvania to be specific. Small towns within Pennsylvania, bordering the Pittsburgh area, made up the places that my grandfather and the generations before him occupied. While the book does not specifically detail these small towns of Pennsylvania that my grandfather grew up in, the book does give an evaluation of an overall sense of what it was like to be a German immigrant in Pennsylvania during the 18th century.
Another big contributor from this source was the depiction of German immigrant societies in both America and Germany. Push factors which made people want to leave their communities in Germany was the most helpful information for insight as to why my ancestors may have decided to take the big leap. Of course, after interviewing my grandfather and grandmother I will be able to make connections between this book and our family immigration story.
Garvan, B., Hummel, C., Philadelphia Museum of Art, & Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum. (1982). The Pennsylvania Germans: A celebration of their arts, 1683–1850. Philadelphia]: Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The first two things you’ll notice when you walk into my grandparents’ house is a grandfather clock and an organ/piano setup. These things are rather sentimental to my family (and not to mention very loud). While most of my mother’s side of the family knows how to play some sort of instrument, I feel as if we do not always attribute this interest to our family’s’ German values. The same goes for the grand clock; I would bet that most of the grandchildren don’t correlate a clock with that of German culture. One of my goals through this annotation (and project) is to explain the cultural influences in my life and ancestors’ lives that may go unnoticed.
My grandfather was the president of the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra when my mother was a child. His favorite instrument to play is the organ; him and my grandmother also know how to play the piano equally as well, but she has him outmatched when it comes to the violin. On top of that, my mother took up the violin growing up and came to love the sound of it. I’m pointing this out because one of the top factors of German culture is a combination of music and dancing, and even though I dabble at dancing in the shower, my family has generally stuck to instruments. The Pennsylvania Germans: A Celebration of the Arts, 1683–1850 explains how German cultural instruments brought to the US included violins, clarinets, and zithers which were commonly played in homes, which are primarily woodwind or string instruments.
I delivered the ultimate Christmas present to my family during middle school. My family strongly urged me to join the band in middle school; I was not completely on-board with this, but I knew the program took a trip to Disney World, so I decided to consider joining. Being so heavily involved with sports, I thought I had no musical interest, yet I still gave it a shot. I went along with it and chose to play the alto saxophone and became heavily interested in music solely because I was able to learn modern pieces because older music bored me. One weekend, I was messing around with this program that allowed you to record your music and add background music over your piece. I figured out a way to download Christmas music and record about ten carols which I was able to burn to a CD. After taking a photo of me in a Santa hat holding my saxophone for the cover, I had a nicely developed album (at least for a middle-schooler) ready for distribution. I called it “Max and his Sax”. When my parents and grandparents opened this CD on December 25th, it was evident who won Christmas that year. My grandparents especially loved it because it sounded as if a whole band was playing the songs. My objective behind explaining this CD backs the book’s explanation about the strong influence of music in German culture. It’s amazing to think that I wanted nothing to do with music back then, but deep down I had an interest.
I also mentioned the grandfather clock in my grandparents’ house. Ah yes, the very thing that screams to me that it’s midnight just as I fall asleep during each visit. This thing is mesmerizing, yet the volume of the clock seems equally as loud no matter what room in the house you are. The Pennsylvania Germans: A Celebration of the Arts, 1683–1850 also provides information as to how clockmaking is a component of German culture in America. While my family didn’t indulge in the actual making of the clocks, they certainly don’t shy away from owning them. The grandfather clock is next to the front door, but in the living-room is yet another loud clock which sits on the mantle. The funny thing about this clock is that it’s chime is delayed slightly from the grandfather clock at the front of the house; I’m still unsure if my grandfather did this on purpose when installing each. There is still one more clock I have yet to mention which is the coocoo-clock. This one is actually pretty cool, but I never hear it because it is in the basement. All of these clocks in the house are wooden and made by German companies which is a major display of German culture that this book has shown.
Heinzelmann, U. (2008). Food Culture in Germany (Food culture around the world). Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
Bread is “arguably the most significant German food” (Heinzelmann 40).
I strongly support that statement because of two simple words: bread rolls. I can’t say that I’ve ever eaten a homemade meal with my grandparents without a basket of bread rolls of some shape or form being present. Food culture in Germany (Food culture around the world) contains the quote above and as soon as I read it, I knew this book needed to be apart of my project merely because of how much bread is incorporated into the dinners that my grandparents would prepare.
My father once made a joke about how we never eat bread rolls unless my mother’s parents are visiting. I forget the exact way he put it, but usually his comments crack me up; my parents like to cook a wide variety of meals, but my dad was correct in this situation as every time my grandparents visit there will be a steamy bowl of bread rolls with each meal which I won’t see until the next visit. I understand that bread is a widely used food in many cultures, but German recipes fully utilize bread such as this one type of bread-soup dish called Brotsuppe which I’ve had only once before — it was alright. The point that I’m getting at is that this book on German Food culture explains the variety of different German foods, which includes eating straight bread with most meals. I assume that my ancestors over the generations ate bread as a side with most of their meals as well.
I’m sure I’ve broken some unwritten rules about dinner etiquette when I would hide my spinach, or spinat. As far as the structure of each meal, this book has confirmed a few things that I have noticed in my family regarding dinners together such as how our family will wait until someone says grace before eating. I’ve noticed how my grandparents always place their napkins on their laps when they eat, and my mother usually reminds me to in attempt to create a habit for me. This book explains how this was a common practice at meals in Germany along with keeping your hands above the table. German food culture explained by this book seemed rather extreme, and a good portion of it I believe my family neglects, but the types of food served is precise.
Apparently, our family has a passed-down lasagna recipe, but I’ve never exactly learned it since I’m generally not fond of lasagna… or cooking. Still, it’s the best lasagna that I’ve ever eaten, and I can always go for fish. Food culture in Germany (Food culture around the world) was very accurate concerning the types of food prepared for a meal; there’s a list of different foods and the ones that I remember eating the most is lasagna and fish. These family recipes most likely originated from German culture when my ancestor lived in Germany.
McCREADY, JEFF. “One Man Works to Save Church’s Organ.” The Tribune-Democrat, 23 Oct. 2006, www.tribdem.com/news/one-man-works-to-save-church-s-organ/article_c836812e-e53c-5e70-9e3e-2e16a991a4cf.html.
If you were a child who liked to climb, and you never got the chance to explore the inside of a grand organ, then you missed out — big time.
When my grandfather asked me one summer afternoon, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, if I wanted to tag along with him to run errands (which included stopping by the church), I reluctantly said that I would go. We went through all the errands for the day then got to the church where my grandfather had to set up the choir bells for the next service. I was expecting him to also play a few pieces on the church’s grand organ. He did. After he was done playing, my grandfather came over to the pew that I was sprawled out on and asked if I wanted to see how the organ functioned. In my mind I thought he was going to take me over to where he sat to play the instrument, but I was way off and am glad I said yes to his question.
We went up many flights of stairs and then came to a room where the controls to the church bells were along with an attic-looking entrance in the ceiling with a ladder going into this dark hole. “I’ll follow behind you” he told me noticing my gaze at this ladder that I was probably dying to climb. Once we got to the top, there was lighting, and I was able to see all the inner workings of the grand organ. To give an idea of where I was inside this church, if you’ve ever attended church and noticed that there were pipes high up and on either side of the center stage, I was back inside those. While I was receiving the rundown about the grand organ, I was mostly focused on my climbing mission and at the same time astonished as to how complex the structure was.
After doing research for this project, I stumbled across this source from The Tribune Democrat (a newspaper source for my grandfather’s hometown). My grandfather did in fact work at The Tribune Democrat, but that is discussed in another annotation. Apparently in 2006, two years before I explored the inside of the organ, there were many defects with this exact organ. It’s documented that my grandfather, as a member of the organ task force, applied for a second grant to fix the organ. He received enough funds to hire someone to fix the church’s organ, but the most interesting part is how the repair man explains how the organ is so complex and in tight quarters that the amount of labor is extreme. The website included a photo of the exact spot that I climbed around in.
After reading this source, I was reminded of the time I basically lived a child’s climbing fantasy while my grandfather was able to show me the inside of one of his passions. This passion of course is his love of playing the organ and music in general mingled with his connection to the church. Choirs and music groups are a custom of German culture, so it doesn’t surprise me how involved and devoted he is to the church’s music programs.
Roddy, Roddy B. “Is the Editor of Johnstown’s Newspaper Too Inflammatory?” Is the Editor of Johnstown’s Newspaper Too Inflammatory?, 5 Dec. 1999, old.post-gazette.com/regionstate/19991205johnstown3.asp
Many years ago, when I was in the eighth-grade, my class did a similar project to this one based on ancestry and family roots, and while it wasn’t as in-depth as this one, I still had to analyze the life of my grandfather.
The main part of the middle-school version of this project consisted of an interview with the person of choice and an analysis of that interview. So, over the phone I conducted about an hour-long interview with my grandfather, who I will be interviewing for this project as well, and I asked him a ton of stuff about his life growing up, much of which I was able to incorporate into my project proposal. For the Family Bible project; however, I will be doing a more in-depth analysis including a focus on the push factors of my mother’s side of the family from Germany to the United States in the nineteenth-century. During this interview 6 years ago, my grandfather liked to focus a lot on education. He explained to me about how schooling was rough early on (as depicted in my project proposal), but through hard work, he was able to graduate as valedictorian from high school and first in the college of journalism at Colombia University. He talked a lot about how he worked very hard for that degree which is where I believe that I get a strong work ethic from.
My grandfather continued the interview by explaining how his work ethic and post-secondary education helped him land a solid job after college. He got a job at a seven-day newspaper line in Johnstown, Pennsylvania called The Tribune Democrat. He talked a lot about this job, but what I recognized most was his passion for journalism; he truly enjoyed his job as an editor. To show his passion for his career even more he told me other journalist jobs that he took up as well, one of which included teaching a journalism class at Penn State University.
When I was researching sources on The Tribune Democrat and my grandfather’s name, I came across this source which was interesting for several reasons. First, the source is from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette analyzing a new editor for The Tribune Democrat saying how he is too harsh and provocative with his writing. The article shows how my grandfather backed this new editor and says that he is bringing awareness to new subjects and attempting to keep the readers engaged. Regardless of what the article says, after my interview, which I will thoroughly analyze the Tribune Democrat portion of his life, I will be able to get my grandfather’s honest opinion of this story. Another reason that I found this source unique was that it quoted my grandfather as the “Tribune-Democrat’s editor during its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s” which means that he must’ve done a superb job during that time.
My grandfather’s work ethic and education led him to such a great job which was both rewarding and stable. On top of that, it made him happy. From this source I was able to see how high-up in the Tribune Democrat my grandfather was and hopefully I’ll find factors that led him there.
Shaughnessy, Michael R. German Pittsburgh: Images of America. Arcadia Pub., 2007.
When I walk down into my grandparents’ basement (everyone in my family has a basement), I find a collection of empty beer cans on display. While I’ve never been interested enough to read these cans up close, I have recognized that many of them possess some sort of historical essence; while some may have German roots, most are Pittsburgh based. When I walk upstairs in the house, I find a room with seating and a piano and organ to listen to by a fireplace. Of course, tons of sheet music are lying around in this room ready to be played. If I go back into the bedrooms, I can find old comic books and newspaper articles with outdated headlines about the Pittsburgh Pirates.
German Pittsburgh: Images of America is packed with pictures depicting the culture of German immigrants who landed in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and surrounding areas. The book, while not providing as much informational details, gives a fantastic look at the different aspects that made up German society in America through visual representation. This aspect of the book made it easy to draw on similarities such as those mentioned in the previous paragraph because I was able to recognize certain images and correlate them to what I already know about my grandfather’s lifestyle.
This book has photos that pertain to all sorts of German cultural aspects in America, and when reading it, I was able to make connections to a fair number of the images.
To name a few pictures from the book, the image of beer cans, the Honus Wagner statue at PNC Park, and different musical instruments all caught my eye because I’ve seen them all before. Like I said earlier, my grandfather has a beer collection in his basement of what seems to be about 80+ cans displaying many different logos, most of which contain either a sports team victory for Pittsburgh or some important Pennsylvania event. The beer that Germans drank in America was brewed in America but had some sort of German reference on the label, but I’ll still be sure to find that one can on my grandfather’s shelf that reads “Dunkel Bier” which is German for “dark beer”. A picture of a statue of Honus Wagner, a stud for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the early 1900s, caught my eye immediately as I have walked past this statue many times while on my way inside PNC Park. I never knew that Honus was the son of German immigrants who came to America at the same time as my ancestors’ arrival. Music has also been in my family’s blood for as long as I can remember (at least on my mother’s side of the family). My grandfather has always played the organ and loved it as he and my grandmother would play pieces for their church. This book explains how German immigrants found serenity in the form of music and would acquire members to play in small groups in their communities.
Stoudt, J. (1964). Early Pennsylvania Arts and Crafts. New York : London: A.S. Barnes ; Yoseloff.
My grandparents once told my cousins and I to go around their house with our names on sticky notes and place them on the items that we might want to inherit one day — I put my sticky note on the tetherball in the backyard.
I am as interested in furniture as the next guy, but behind every antique in a house is a story. I have yet to learn about the different old pieces of furniture around both my parents’ house and grandparents’ house (or I might’ve not been paying attention). Still, between these two houses there are around five to six pieces of furniture that are wooden antiques; most notably are the old desks, closets, and radios. Early Pennsylvania arts and crafts vastly covers different types of furniture created by German Americans in the mid-1700s to early 1900s and explains how they pertained to the handmade aspect of German civilization during the time.
There’s this old radio that is perched at the top of the stairs at my parents’ house and is a rather solid structure if you ask the people who have run into the piece in the middle of the night trying to get a glass of water. When I was younger (we’ll say elementary school), I poked a hole in the mesh fabric that overlapped the space for the speaker. I received the scolding of a lifetime for this. While I was being reprimanded, my mother explained how the radio was handmade and a very old antique that didn’t even work anymore. At the time I wondered why we even had something so large in the house that had no function except to stub my toe at night. Since then, I realized the significance of this radio that stands high and mighty at the top of the stairs back home; it was most likely crafted in the early 1900s and was passed down from my great-grandparents. This book explains how wood-crafted pieces were common in German households and woodworking was a common occupation for German immigrants. Likewise, this explains all the wood furniture pieces around my family’s houses, but the radio is more modern of an example since the radio was invented at the end of the nineteenth-century. A more ancient example of wooden furniture our family possesses lies within the desks and cabinet pieces.
My grandparents’ house on the other hand contains furniture which seems absurdly old. There are two antique desks in the basement which are completely wooden and are so heavy that I’m convinced they’re just glued to the floor. I’ve never exactly looked inside either desk, but when I was a kid, all I remember of the desks is attempting to open the top of one which was far too heavy for me. Upstairs there is one antique dresser and a china cabinet in the dining room. After reading Early Pennsylvania arts and crafts, I noticed that many of the images in the book that included china cabinets in a dining setting resembled my grandparents’ dining area quite accurately. The setting the book sets up is a large wooden cabinet with glass windows containing silverware and fancy plates in front of a long dining table with chairs. It appears that the blend of German and Pennsylvania culture influenced the type of dining room design that I see in both this book and my grandparents’ home.
In the depths of my grandparents’ basement is a separate room which functions as a workshop. My grandfather loves to fix things up and build small pieces out of wood. I remember sneaking into the workshop with my cousin when we were younger and making hockey sticks to play around with down there. It wasn’t until we were using aerosol cans near the furnace before a lock was placed on the entrance. While this doesn’t exactly pertain to furniture, it shows how my grandfather enjoyed making small crafts such as birdhouses and chairs, a common aspect of German culture.
Werner, E. (2009). Passages to America: Oral histories of child immigrants from Ellis Island and Angel Island (1st ed.).
A few years ago, my mother wanted to take the family on a trip to New York City to learn about the specifics of the city’s history. This trip, however, preceded our annual family trip to the New Jersey shore, which was my all-time favorite place to go to as a kid. Being so focused on the beach trip at that age, I wasn’t completely interested in the numerous museums that we went through in New York, yet I still did a fair share of reading and understanding of the different places we went. One place that certainly stuck out to me was when we visited Ellis Island.
Before going to New York, I had only heard the name of Ellis Island and that it was in New York. That was all I knew about it. It wasn’t until I visited the island itself to realize that this once three-acre area of land in the middle of the New York Bay was used as an immigration checkpoint over a century ago. I was somewhat in disbelief that a whopping twelve million immigrants passed through the island for screenings before being allowed access to America; it just seemed like there wouldn’t have been enough time and space for such a mass amount of people. Another fact that I attempted to wrap my brain around was how immigrants who were just arriving right as Ellis Island was implemented. I assume they believed they would simply get off the boat and begin life like those before them did, but instead they were subjected to mass amounts of people and medical screenings. Talk about tough luck.
While doing research for this project, I discovered that my grandmother’s father in-fact went through Ellis Island protocol when immigrating from Heilbronn, Germany. His name was Otto Scheib. Ellis Island had around a 98% acceptance rate as it was the largest immigration checkpoint in the United States when Otto went through. Still, the process to be deemed “fit” for entrance to the country could be delayed and depended on one’s physical wellness; Passages to America: Oral histories of child immigrants from Ellis Island and Angel Island explains how some immigrants who appeared to be sick could be detained for weeks to months before admission or denial. Fortunately, Otto was rather healthy to my understanding and did not deal with too many frustrations upon his screening and had a quick acceptance.
This book also explains different courses of action taken by German immigrants during the end of the nineteenth century to become successful. This reminded me of Otto because I have heard the many stories that my mother has shared with me about how he came to the United States rather poor and made something of himself. He settled on masonry work initially where he was a bricklayer, but just like many German immigrants during the time, he learned English. Eventually, Otto made connections to sign contracts for the construction of banks, schools, and office buildings which brought in a nice deal of wealth for his family.
My intention for including Otto’s story of his immigration through Ellis Island is to show how he went through the same screening that millions of immigrants as well experienced, yet he was able to become quite successful.
