German immigrants

The development of Illinois and Iowa, especially the farms, is tied up in the story of the huge wave of German immigrants all through the middle of the nineteenth century. They came by the thousands, either through New York, or through New Orleans and up the river, and they were actually recruited by Illinois and Iowa which needed people to settle and farm and fill them up.

Other people were recruited too, and both Illinois and Iowa have Swedish towns, Norwegian towns, and even a few Dutch towns. But the Germans far outnumbered the rest and especially in Illinois and Iowa (Wisconsin and Minnesota tended more toward the Scandinavian). There were several reasons: conditions in Germany made the things the US offered much more desirable. Religious freedom, ability to educate your children, and have a large farm with lots of room, ability to advance economically if you worked hard: these were things that spoke to the average German in those days. So they picked up, moved here, and in many cases bought cheap plots of land to start their farm and raise their families.

Often they would go where their friends were, so there were places that were full of people from Holstein, for example, or from some other part of Germany. Naturally, they would speak German when they got together and this began to alarm some people, who noticed that in many cases the Germans outnumbered the English speakers who were already in a location. Iowa at one point passed a law prohibiting speaking any other language besides English in public, and it was aimed at the Germans; there were enough Germans that German could be heard in many small towns at the time the law was passed.

For the most part assimilation was natural and easy, and they learned English like other groups to the point that their children were fluent and nobody would even know that they were second or third generation immigrants; their advantage here was the German kids were as white as anyone and didn't look all that different from the English that were already here. There were enough Germans that young German children could find others to marry and didn't have to assimilate, but still they did, as was entirely natural.

The Civil War played a huge role in their development and movement; many were already here in 1859 when it broke out. They tended to be living in northern states (Illinois, Indiana, Ohio) and territories (Iowa), but supported Lincoln and in many cases sent their children to fight. They became Republicans as followers of Lincoln were. But something happened after the war that changed that; Republicans began to set their sights on the evils of alcohol and gather political support for prohibition.

This was probably the biggest cultural difference between the Germans and English; the Germans liked their beer, and they saw no reason not to drink it outside, or drink it in front of people, in public, in festive occasions. The English not only were offended by these public displays of alcohol consumption, but even gathered up laws against them in many cases.

Two ancestor families are interesting cases in studying this German immigration; together they produced my paternal grandmother, a product of both of them. One was started by Henry and Margaret Mauer, who immigrated in 1852 and married in 1858. I don't know if they immigrated together (she would have been only fourteen in 1852) but by an 1865 census they lived in the small town of Schaghticoke, New York, just east of Albany, and had already had their first two children, Calvin (1860) and Mary (1862). Charles (1867) would be their third. In New York they spelled their name Mower and it appears there were other spellings too. It's a common name in Germany but in the US they became Mowers, Moors, Mauers, Mours, Maurs, lats of things. Henry and Margaret seemed to change it to Mauer later down the line.

The 1870 census found them in Princeton, Iowa, just up the river from Des Moines, on a farm. It was a German community; they were surrounded by people from Holstein. I have no idea how long they stayed as their next stop was out in the western part of the state, near Council Bluffs. Henry had been a laborer (probably in the mills) back in Schaghticoke, but now he was a farmer, and was surrounded by other German farmers.

We don't know their reasons for moving out to York Township, Pottawatomie County, out by Minden and Council Bluffs, but I suspect they did it pretty quickly, and they were out there by 1900 for sure. Both Calvin (1860) and Mary (1862) married people in Minden, near York Township, so that suggest to me that they came of age there and were probably there before 1875. But how did they get there? What was more desirable about far-western Iowa farmland, as opposed to on-the-Mississippi farmland?

Young Charles, by the way, would move to Council Bluffs, open a hardware store with a partner, marry Lizzie Singelmann, and have three children of his own, the youngest being Verna (1898).

Lizzie Singelman had come the way many Illinois farm-country Germans had, and had landed in Ogle County with her father, mother, and three other sisters. I know less about them and about how Lizzie found her way out to Minden, but it was similar; they knew people. Ogle County was just southwest of Rockford.

We're heading into the turn of the century with Charles and Lizzie, who is now Catherine Singelmann Mauer, having three children before 1900. Henry has brought his mother out to York Towship and everyone lives in Minden, Council Bluffs, or the area. Minden is still heavily German. Alas, World War I arrives. It is hard to be German. One must hide one's Germanness, not speak a word of German. No problem for Verna, she marries an Anglo boy.