New York City
Although German traders and merchants migrated to New York in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the larger waves of German immigration started in the nineteenth century. This period marks the heyday for German Americans in New York City.
During the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, the type of immigrants changed dramatically: merchants and craftsmen who had brought their families with them were replaced by single laborers and poor workers. Finally, from the mid-1890s onward, the immigration waves from Germany ebbed away. After 1933 Nazi racial policies forced many German Jews and left-wing intellectuals to leave Germany for New York City.The Beginnings
From its founding as a small trading post called New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island in 1626 into the twenty-first century, a part of New York City’s population has always been of German descent. This did not change when the city went from Dutch to English ownership. Most of these Germans were merchants. The first-known significant immigration to New York by Germans was the arrival of Palatine families in 1710. Nearly 15,000 Palatines left their home in 1709 and emigrated to London. An estimated quarter continued their journey to New York (Otterness 2004, 2). These German immigrants settled on Manhattan Island and in the Hudson Valley, where they founded small villages. The founding of a German Lutheran Church in the city in 1748 indicates the presence of a growing group of German residents. However, Germans did not attract much attention in the daily life of New York City because they were well integrated into the community. These Germans were mainly traders and merchants, belonging to the upper classes of New York.
Throughout the eighteenth century, Philadelphia had been the traditional entrance port for German migrants. At the end of the century, New York began to replace Philadelphia as the port of entry.
In 1792 the records of the German Society of the City of New York reported for the first time a larger and increasing number of German immigrants to New York.The Nineteenth Century
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, New York’s German community still consisted mainly of German merchants and traders. Among them was John Jacob Astor (1763—1848), who became America’s first multimillionaire. Famines and economic crises in Germany in the first half of the century forced many Germans to leave their homes. Most Germans decided to go to the United States. During that immigration wave, starting in 1830, New York became the most important entrance port for German migrants. “Little Germanies” (Kleindeutschlands) arose on Manhattan Island, and in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. From the 1840s onward, the Little Germany on Manhattan Island became the largest residential area and most important settlement of German immigrants in New York City. It was located on the Lower East Side, including the Tenth, Eleventh, Thirteenth, and Seventeenth wards. This region was the cultural, social, and economic center for Germans living in Manhattan. Here one could find all the traditional German stores, bars, clubhouses, and theaters. This residential area not only differed from the American settlements in that it featured German architectural styles and street signs in German, but also in regard to its cultural life. Many typical German Biergarten (beer gardens) and breweries were established along the Bowery lane and multiple German balls and celebrations of German clubs took place. English Americans viewed the emergence of this German culture in their midst with suspicion. However, New York’s German population was not confined to Little Germany.
The most important German publication in New York was the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung (New York Public News), founded in 1834 by the city’s German Jacksonian Democrats. This newspaper was the most popular among several German magazines and newspapers in the nineteenth century and it still exists in 2005 as a weekly German-language newspaper.
After languishing under a series of owners, it was sold in 1845 to Jakob Uhl, a native of Wurzburg in Franconia.The German community of New York was also reinforced by political fugitives of the failed German revolutions of 1848-1849. These Forty-Eighters were mostly intellectuals and political activists. They were just a small group compared to the large number of German immigrants that had arrived before, but they attracted much attention in American public life because of their interest in politics, their influence on American policy, and their contributions to and use of German American newspapers. These political refugees were energetic and very talented. Within a short time, their engagement resulted in the doubling of German newspapers during the years from 1848 to 1852. Among the Forty-Eighters was Carl Schurz, later the secretary of the interior from 1877 to 1881, who arrived in New York in 1852 along with his wife.
The census of 1870 showed that in Manhattan alone the number of German- born inhabitants had increased to 151,216, being the second-largest group of immigrants following the 201,999 inhabitants of Irish descent (U.S. Bureau of Census, Census of 1870 for New York City). Among the German inhabitants of New York who arrived in the second half of the century was Thomas Nast, the famous German-born political caricaturist of New York City, who came to the United States as a child in 1846. At the end of the Civil War, Nast had become a nationally known figure who created several political symbols, such as the Democratic donkey, the Republican elephant, and the Tammany tiger. He also created the iconic representations of Uncle Sam, John Bull, Santa Claus, and Columbia, which are still popular to this day.
Already during the nineteenth century, a small group of German Jews lived in New York. Among them was August Belmont from Alzey in Germany. He worked for the Rothschilds in Frankfurt and in Italy and Cuba. In 1837 he emigrated to the United States, where he became a successful banker.
The Jewish migration increased during the years from 1880 to 1920. However, most of these Jewish migrants came not from Germany but from eastern Europe. While the majority remained in the city, a few moved on to the countryside. These penniless Jewish immigrants settled also on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Most of them worked in the sweatshops under poor conditions.The Twentieth Century
By the beginning of the twentieth century, German immigration to the United States and to New York had ebbed away. World
An immigrant family looks out over the New York skyline as they arrive in the USA from Germany aboard the SS Nieuw Amsterdam, ca. 1930s. (Bettmann/Corbis)
War I and the entry of the United States into the war on the side of France and Great Britain, forced German Americans to prove their loyalty to their new homeland. Before the American entry into the war, German Americans favored American neutrality. However, after this was no longer feasible, German Americans retired from public life and many americanized their names. In contrast to the older generation, young German Americans supported the American government, which banned everything German in public life. This period marks the end of New York’s Little Germany. Germans moved out of the Lower East Side and were quickly replaced by Italian and Chinese immigrants, who transformed the area into Chinatown and Little Italy.
Further new immigration waves from Germany arose during the Nazi dictatorship. Many German Jewish and political refugees crossed the Atlantic to find a new home in American cities like New York. The Nazi persecution led to an increase in the number of German immigrants. Jewish and other intellectuals, artists, architects, actors, academics, and authors escaped from Germany to New York exile. Among the fugitives were Albert Einstein; the psychologist Erich Fromm; and Kurt Weill, the famous songwriter for Brecht’s dramas.
In 1936, under the leadership of Hubertus Prinz zu Lowenstein and Volkmar Zuhls- dorff, the German Jewish intellectuals in New York founded the Deutsche Akademie im Exil, as well as the GermanJewish Newspaper Aufbau. The participants in this “intellectual immigration” settled on the Upper West Side and in Washington Heights.
In 1950 the U.S. census showed that 64,976 (U.S. Bureau of Census, 1950 census for New York City) inhabitants of New York City were born in Germany. Compared to the total number of inhabitants of New York, this group seems to be a minuscule and invisible faction of daily life. However, German immigrants left their mark on the history and culture of New York City.
Alexander Emmerich
See also Astor, John Jacob; Aufbau; Brecht, Bertolt; Einstein, Albert; Forty-Eighters; Frankfurt am Main Citizens in the United States; Fromm, Erich; German Jewish Migration to the United States; German Society of the City of New York; Intellectual Exile; Nast, Thomas; New Yorker Staats-Zeitung; Schurz, Carl; Steuben, Friederich Wilhelm von
References and Further Reading
Binder, Frederick M. All the Nations under Heaven: An Ethnic and Racial History of New York City. New York: Columbia University, 1995.
Bretting, Agnes. Soziale Probleme deutscher Einwanderer in New York City 1800—1860. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1981.
------. “‘Little Germanies’ in New York.” In Auswanderung und Schiffahrtsinteressen. Ed. Michael Just. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1992, pp. 57-104.
Jones, Henry Z. The Palatine Families of New York: A Study of the German Immigrants Who Arrived in Colonial New York in 1710. 2 vols. Universal City, CA: H. Z. Jones, 1985.
Kapp, Friedrich. Die Deutschen im Staate New York wahrend des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts. New York: E. Steiger, 1884.
Otterness, Philip. Becoming German. The 1709 Palatine Migration to New York. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004.
Zuhlsdorff, Volkmar. Deutsche Akademie im Exil: Der vergessene Widerstand. Berlin: EMV, 1999.