German Society of the City of NewYork
Founded in 1784 by early German inhabitants of New York City after the model of the German Society of Philadelphia to aid German immigrants to New York.
It all began on August 23, 1784, when thirteen men gathered informally to discuss the need for and advisability of founding a German society to relieve the local German churches of some of their charitable burdens and to take effective steps to deal with problems arising from the expected influx of immigrants from Germanspeaking lands.
The first meeting was attended by representatives of the Lutheran, Moravian, and Reformed congregations, leading businessmen, and two Revolutionary War army officers. The small gathering decided to contact the German Society of Philadelphia for advice and for a copy of their charter and constitution. An organizing committee was entrusted with preparing the basic rules to be submitted to a more formal meeting. Six weeks later, everything was ready and a public appeal to the Germans of the city brought out thirty- four men for the founding meeting on October 4, 1784. The purpose of the German Society of New York was the encouragement of immigration from the German states, the assistance of needy German immigrants in New York City, and the dissemination of useful knowledge among the German community in the New World.Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, the German hero of the American Revolution, became the second president of the German Society. He formed a committee entitled to draft a petition to the New York State legislature for the incorporation of the society. The legislature passed the bill in 1785. Two years later, the society’s basic rules were revised, and a new version was adopted in November 1787. It placed less emphasis on encouraging emigration from Germany. After Steuben’s death, public interest in the German Society decreased.
However, by 1828 the number of new members and also of new immigrants grew. Already three years earlier, in 1825, the society had been incorporated through the legislature in Albany. In March 1828 Philip Hone was elected president. From then on, the members convened at the Bank Coffee House on Pine Street, the gathering place of the well-heeled in town whose roots were not with the Anglo-Dutch ruling class. Hone, mayor of New York City from 1825 to 1827, was typical of this newly emerging group of self-made men who climbed the social ladder. During his presidency, the society made an appeal for funds to all citizens of German birth or descent to collect money for the society. Because of the increased German immigration and the multiple problems immigrants faced in their new country, the German Society decided to react. In January 1833 it ordered 2,000 copies of a pamphlet printed under the German title Wohlgemeinter Rath der Vorsteher der Deutschen Gesellschaft in New York an Deutsche, die nach den Vereinigten Staaten von Nord-Amerika auszuwandern beab- sichtigen (Well-Intended Advice of the President of the German Society of New York for those Germans who intend to immigrate to the United States). The copies were sent to Germany for distribution in places where emigration originated.
The annual meeting on March 1, 1837, elected John Jacob Astor as the new president. He had been a nominal member since 1787, with often less than a mild interest in the fate of his fellow immigrants. Now, at the age of seventy-three, the richest man in the country had agreed to lead the German Society. For four years, Astor’s keen and far-sighted sense of financial reality served it in good stead, until his health forced him to withdraw. During his presidency, Astor came forward with gifts totaling $20,000. But when he presented the first partial check, it was with the idea that the society would use his money to establish a permanent office with paid staff, where immigrants could turn for help.
Astor’s example encouraged others to contribute money to the society.From the 1840s onward, the number of German immigrants stagnated at a very high level. In order to shield the new arrivals, the German Society and its Irish counterpart persuaded state emigration commissioners to look for a suitable reception center. The commissioner suggested using Castle Garden, the former opera house at the tip of Manhattan, and transformed it into the immigration office of New York in 1855. This was the main entrance for German immigrants during the second half of the nineteenth century. From 30 percent and at times much more between 1840 and 1880, the share Germans made of total immigration had dropped to 15 percent and less in the 1880s. In 1890 the Board of Emigration Commissioners was dissolved, and on the last day of the same year, Castle Garden closed its gates. Along with these events, the direct involvement of the German Society in the formulation and execution of immigration policy in New York ended. For thirty-five years Castle Garden had met all demands concerning immigration. When during the 1880s, the number of immigrants to New York increased again, the City of New York decided to build a new immigration office on Ellis Island in the harbor of New York, where the German Society also had its representatives.
An important task of the German Society was its legal protection of new immigrants. However, the agency’s protection was subsequently transferred to others, and in 1890 the German Society became part of the Legal Aid Society of New York and is still active as a welfare society for German Americans.
Alexander Emmerich
See also Astor, John Jacob; German Society of Pennsylvania; New York City; Steuben, Friederich Wilhelm von
References and Further Reading
Cronau, Rudolf. Denkschrift zum 150: Jahrestag der Deutschen Gesellschaft der Stadt New York, 1784-1934. New York: German Society of the City of New York, 1934.
The German Society of the City of New York. Charter and By-laws of the German Society of the City of New York. New York: G. B. Teubner, 1852.
Wust, Klaus. Guardians on the Hudson: The German Society of the City of New York, 1784—1984. New York: German Society of the City of New York, 1984.