This book offers a fresh look at the Germans--the largest and perhaps
the most diverse foreign-language group in 19th century America. Drawing
upon the latest findings from both sides of the Atlantic, emphasizing
history from the bottom up and drawing heavily upon examples from
immigrant letters, this work presents a number of surprising new
insights. Particular attention is given to the German-American
institutional network, which because of the size and diversity of the
immigrant group was especially strong. Not just parochial schools, but
public elementary schools in dozens of cities offered instruction in the
mother tongue. Only after 1900 was there a slow transition to the
English language in most German churches. Still, the anti-German
hysteria of World War I brought not so much a sudden end to cultural
preservation as an acceleration of a decline that had already begun
beforehand. It is from this point on that the largest American ethnic
group also became the least visible, but especially in rural enclaves,
traces of the German culture and language persisted to the end of the
twentieth century.