How a single German Family Embodied The German Immigration Experience
In a time where German immigration is that it’s peak, many Germans flocked to Missouri. In Osage County, one of these many families included the Plassmeyers.
While the Plassmeyers may not have been unique, their family story gathered from relatives and documents exemplified the German experience in the United States at the time. What might this experience look like around that time? For starters, many Germans in the mid 1800s-1900s settled in rural Missouri to reap the benefits of fertile farmland. Gerhard Plassmeyer, wanting to live off of Missouri land, settled on a farm with his parents.
Sure, farming was something many German immigrants took part in, but why choose Missouri to build a farm? When you think of prosperity and wealth today, Missouri is one of the last states to come to mind. Duden described his experience of Missouri to his fellow Germans back home, making Missouri to be something out of a fairy tale. Throughout his letters, he mentioned countless times that it resembled the geography back home. His letters became widely popular and spurred on this wave of German immigration to Missouri.
Don’t fret, the German experience isn’t made up of just farming and Missouri alone! As you might have guessed from the picture of the Plassmeyer brothers, many Germans at the time were involved in the Civil War, primarily siding with the Union. While there is an ongoing debate about the degree to which the average Germans were against slavery compared to the more radical Germans at the time, the Plassmeyers still illustrate their involvement in the fight against slavery with three of their family members joining the Union. Their involvement demonstrates not only the impact that the Germans had joining the Civil War but also the mindset that almost all German immigrants had in the face of such a dilemma.
One of the Plassmeyer family members was a highly respected key leader in his community, Gerhard Plassmeyer. Around the time where German immigration spiked, there was an immense anti-immigration/German sentiment. The nativists’ aggression arose from a result of many things. In O’Connor’s Forty-Eighters and Know-Nothings he mentions:
The Germans’ stubborn opposition to slavery was held against them. In the Middle West, their persistence in drinking beer on Sunday and otherwise breaking the Sabbath was heartily resented by their Anglo-Saxon neighbors
Yet against all odds, Gerhard managed to secure a position of political power, become Missouri’s state representative for Osage County. To further exemplify this achievement, his win came at a time when German and American cultures clashed over the Sunday question. This culture clash involved political movements to ban alcohol sales and consumption on Sundays. There were also pro-German rallies in reaction to the bans, which lead to an increase in anti-German sentiments. While there is no mention of Gerhard being involved with any German Sunday political movements, the political climate Gerhard had been thrown in likely proved to be challenging. Gerhard’s feat of becoming a politician is a culmination of not only his own hard work and dedication but also the support of his fellow Germans.
Although the Plassmeyer story is a story of a single family, their experiences were shared by many German immigrants in Missouri.
