Postcards, Popes, and Prussians
Objects are a wonderful lens to view history through. A book or lecture can inform people about the past, but objects, items, and photographs make history tangible. Museums don’t advertise how many plaques of information they have; they advertise how large their collections are. To learn about Cole county, Missouri and its German American population, one can examine objects. One such object is an old postcard showing 3 German churches in California, Missouri. Though for the purposes of this writing and the sake of the reader’s time, only one of the churches pictured shall be examined. The image of Annunciation Catholic Church on the postcard shows a church deeply tied to the German history in central Missouri.
Religion is often the most important thing in someone’s life. This has been true throughout most cultures and time periods, and so was true during the 1800s. Coming to America from a different country would have been scary, but for many people, home was where the church was. This postcard shows churches that were central to the lives of German immigrants to Missouri. One of these churches in particular, Annunciation Catholic Church, was established in 1856 and because of this date is a product of particular circumstances in Missouri, America, Germany, and Rome. The mid 1800s were a turbulent time of progress in the world. America had just concluded the Mexican-American war, and was experiencing political and economic pressures that would lead it into a massive civil war. German-speaking lands were beginning to recover from a revolution that happened in 1848, and because of the 1848 revolution was experiencing a large amount of migration of its citizens to America. Missouri was caught between both of these nations, being at the center of questions involving the number of slave and free states, as well as being a massive recipient of German immigrants. Catholicism in the 1850s was also experiencing changes and turbulence. Although culturally oppressed in much of the United States, the Roman Catholic church had become the largest Christian church in America by membership in 1850. It was expanding, and anti-Catholics were taking note. In Rome itself, the church experienced a transition of popes from Gregory XVI to Pius IX in 1846. All these factors made the mid 1800s a very interesting and historically important time.
The postcard itself is a part of the Martin Eichenlaub Postcard Collection housed at the State Historical Society of Missouri. It is a black and white composite of California Missouri’s Evangelical German church, the German Lutheran church, and the Annunciation Catholic Church. J.F. Short photographed the churches in 1907, although the churches themselves are much older than this. The postcard does contain writing in English on the front, though it is difficult to discern what it says as the cursive is difficult to read and some of the letters are very close together. The message is addressed to someone named Ella, and also mentions Harry and an Uncle PP. 9/6–07 is written on the postcard, indicating when the exact date the message was written. Since 3 different churches are included, it is apparent that the postcard was not created by any of the churches alone, and the exclusion of any company names or advertising could lead some viewers to believe that the postcard was commissioned by the local government or shopkeeper.
California, Missouri is located in the center of Moniteau County. The city itself was established in 1834, but the county was not organized until 1845. The city was quite small and did not reach a population of 1000 until after the Civil War. The diocese of Jefferson City was yet to be established, so The German Catholics living in California were under the Catholic Diocese of Saint Louis. There were not many people, let alone Catholics, in central Missouri. Jefferson City only had about 150 Catholics in 1838, and this number included Irish immigrants as well as Germans. Central Missouri was growing during the mid 1800s, being injected with immigrants from Germany. These German immigrants needed places to worship. Father Ferdinand Helias SJ was the man for the job.
To further contextualize Annunciation Catholic Church and its relationship with the German American community, one needs to study Father Helias. He was born in 1796 in Belgium. Helias was a man of Europe, having been educated in France and Switzerland. After joining the Jesuit order, he was moved to America. Father Helias was immediately tied to German Americans as he taught German as well as a few other subjects at Saint Louis University, a Jesuit university. Concurrently with his teaching positions, he put in charge of the German Catholics of North Saint Louis. On May 3, 1838 Father Elias departed Saint Louis and traveled west along the Missouri river to found more churches for Catholics in the area, but especially for German immigrants. Helias worked to support the German immigrants in more than just spiritual ways. Near New Westphalia, Father Helias bought 26 acres of land, which he divided into lots. He leased these lots to German artisans and laborers (but not farmers). The terms of the leases were especially favorable to the Germans, as they were 99 year leases that had no rent payments for the first five years, and afterwards annual payments of between 2 and 5 dollars. During his time in central Missouri, Father Helias served 11 different counties including Franklin, Gasconade, Osage, Cole, Moniteau, Cooper, Warren, Montgomery, Callaway, Boone, and Howard counties. Father Helias would go on to found Annunciation Catholic Parish before his death in 1874. Father Helias’ impact on the communities of mid Missouri was substantial and is still seen in the naming of Jefferson City’s Catholic high school as Helias Catholic High School. The founding of Annunciation Catholic Church says something fascinating about the German immigrants in Moniteau county. The parish was founded for both Germans and Irish (This was before the Second Vatican Council so the liturgy was in Latin which both groups would have had a church level understanding of). The fact that both groups of immigrants united over what they had in common speaks to how they put their faith over national differences and united as fellow ostracized groups.
For further context on the contents of the postcard, one may examine the United States as well as the Vatican in the mid 1800s. It is no secret that the mid 1800s were heavily marked by the American Civil War and the political and cultural events that led up to it. German immigrants in Missouri were at the heart of the civil war, having important roles in important events such as the Camp Jackson Affair. With slavery as the central question of the civil war, church followers would not have necessarily just followed their priests’ opinions, but surely would have been somewhat influenced by the opinions they heard every week. This is relevant because in 1839 Pope Gregory XVI re-emphasized what had been the position of the church for hundreds of years, that slavery was deeply immoral. He drafted the encyclical In Supremo Apostolatus. This was a document condemning the Atlantic slave trade. One excerpt from this work reads,
“This is why, desiring to remove such a shame from all the Christian nations, having fully reflected over the whole question and having taken the advice of many of Our Venerable Brothers the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, and walking in the footsteps of Our Predecessors, We warn and adjure earnestly in the Lord faithful Christians of every condition that no one in the future dare to vex anyone, despoil him of his possessions, reduce to servitude, or lend aid and favour to those who give themselves up to these practices, or exercise that inhuman traffic by which the Blacks, as if they were not men but rather animals, having been brought into servitude, in no matter what way, are, without any distinction, in contempt of the rights of justice and humanity, bought, sold, and devoted sometimes to the hardest labour.”
This encyclical was notable because it not only called for an end to the slave trade, but also acknowledged “blacks” as men. This document would have caused confederate sympathizers to distrust Catholics even more, and probably helped push German Catholics towards the Union.
Overall, this postcard reveals a great deal of the history of Germans in Moniteau county. It shows one of the ways German Americans came together with themselves and with other communities. The church in the photograph stands as a reminder of one of the men who served German Americans in central Missouri. It is easy to read about history, but one can take things a step further. This postcard is at the State Historical Society of Missouri. It can be held and examined by anyone who makes an appointment. Seeing it in person, one may be able to discern what the writing say, be able to add to our understanding of history, and may get a glimpse into the life of 19th century German Americans.
