SOCIETY FOR NEWSLETTER SGAS.ORG VOLUME 38 NO.1 PRESIDENT’ S MESSAGE SOCIETY FOR GERMAN-AMERICAN STUDIES PUBLISHED TRI-ANNUALLY MARCH 2017 I look forward to welcoming many of you at our annual symposium in Philadelphia in April, where we are commemorating the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation by focusing on German-American religious history. As you can see from our program, we have a rich and varied offering that ranges widely across time, place, and religious denominations. We are fortunate to work in a field that is of continued relevance, even on Super Bowl Sunday. Some of you probably saw the Anheuser Busch Super Bowl commercial, “Born the Hard Way,” which dramatized, and perhaps also romanticized, Adolphus Busch’s arrival in this country. (If you missed it, it’s still up on the internet). The commercial triggered a movement to boycott Budweiser because of its allegedly pro-immigrant message, showing Busch being told upon arrival, “You’re not wanted here. Go back home.” The Busch commercial, rather than being biased, was generally reflective of the historical record of that era. Adolphus Busch encountered strong Know-Nothing movements crusading “America for the Americans” both in New Orleans where he landed and in St. Louis where he settled. Catholics like Busch were particularly targeted. In 1854 just three years before he arrived, an anti-immigrant riot in St. Louis left 10 dead in its wake. Granted, Busch was a legal immigrant: in his era, unless you were Chinese, it was virtually impossible to immigrate illegally because we took all comers. Various German states sent thousands of convicts and tens of thousands of paupers on one-way tickets to America, and it was totally legal until 1875. Such exceptions notwithstanding, immigrants often proved to be better Americans than those who were born here. Busch is a case in point. His fellow Germans’ votes allowed Lincoln to carry St. Louis in 1860, the only city he won in a slave state, but Busch was not yet eligible to vote. Nonetheless, he “voted with his feet” in 1861 and enlisted in a German Unionist militia that captured Camp Jackson and foiled the attempts of a secessionist governor to kidnap Missouri into the Confederacy. (As a reward for their loyalty, Missouri in 1865 granted immigrants the right to vote before becoming naturalized.) Busch was not alone in his defense of his adopted country; immigrants made up one-quarter of the Union army, German alone one-tenth. Who knows what might have become of these great United States without them? Walter Kamphoefner, Walter D. Kamphoefner President, SGAS Quaker Meeting House, Pennsylvania NOTE: We are still seeking a new editor or editorial team for the SGAS Newsletter which appears thrice yearly. If interested please contact me for details.
Transcript
SOCIETY FOR
N E W S L E T T E R SGAS.ORG
VOLUME 38 NO.1
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
SOCIETY FOR GERMAN-AMERICAN STUDIES
PUBLISHED TRI-ANNUALLYMARCH 2017
I look forward to welcoming many of you at our annual symposium in Philadelphia in April, where we are commemorating the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation by focusing on German-American religious history. As you can see from our program, we have a rich and varied offering that ranges widely across time, place, and religious denominations.
We are fortunate to work in a field that is of continued relevance, even on Super Bowl Sunday. Some of you probably saw the Anheuser Busch Super Bowl commercial, “Born the Hard Way,” which dramatized, and perhaps also romanticized, Adolphus Busch’s arrival in this country. (If you missed it, it’s still up on the internet). The commercial triggered a movement to boycott Budweiser because of its allegedly pro-immigrant message, showing Busch being told upon arrival, “You’re not wanted here. Go back home.”
The Busch commercial, rather than being biased, was generally reflective of the historical record of that era. Adolphus Busch encountered strong Know-Nothing movements crusading “America for the Americans” both in New Orleans where he landed and in St. Louis where he settled. Catholics like Busch were particularly targeted. In 1854 just three years before he arrived, an anti-immigrant riot in St. Louis left 10 dead in its wake. Granted, Busch was a legal immigrant: in his era, unless you were Chinese, it was virtually impossible to immigrate illegally because we took all comers. Various German states sent thousands of convicts and tens of thousands of paupers on one-way tickets to America, and it was totally legal until 1875. Such exceptions notwithstanding, immigrants often proved to be better Americans than those who were born here. Busch is a case in point. His fellow Germans’ votes allowed Lincoln to carry St. Louis in 1860, the only city he won in a slave state, but Busch was not yet eligible to vote. Nonetheless, he “voted with his feet” in 1861 and enlisted in a German Unionist militia that captured Camp Jackson and foiled the attempts of a secessionist governor to
kidnap Missouri into the Confederacy. (As a reward for their loyalty, Missouri in 1865 granted immigrants the right to vote before becoming naturalized.) Busch was not alone in his defense of his adopted country; immigrants made up one-quarter of the Union army, German alone one-tenth. Who knows what might have become of these great United States without them?
Walter Kamphoefner,
Walter D. KamphoefnerPresident, SGAS
Quaker Meeting House, Pennsylvania
NOTE: We are still seeking a new editor or editorial team for the SGAS Newsletter which appears thrice yearly. If interested please contact me for details.
The 41st Symposium of the Society for German-American Studies will be held from 20 to 22 April in Philadelphia. Lodging will be in the Wyndham Philadelphia Historic District hotel, and there will be a reception (“Gemütliches Zusammensein”) at the hotel on the evening of Thursday, 20 April. There will be a banquet there on the evening of Saturday, 22 April.
The sessions of the Symposium on Friday and Saturday will be held in the German Society of Pennsylvania, 611 Spring Garden Street, Philadelphia, PA 19123, located about 9/10 of a mile north of the hotel. This is a short walk or taxi ride from the hotel. There is parking at the GSP, and some participants will have their own cars.
The German Society has a formidable research library in its spacious, historic building. Members of the GSP will be able to attend our sessions, and we will be able to use the Horner Library free of charge.
SOCIETY FOR GERMAN-AMERICAN STUDIES
NEWSLETTER VOLUME 38 No. 1, PAGE 2
Symposium Lodging
The 2017 SGAS Symposium hotel is the Wyndham Philadelphia Historic District. Our conference rate is $144.00 (plus $23.18 tax) per night for up to 4 people. The toll-free telephone number for booking is 1-877-999-3223 or call direct. Use the group rate code: 20046843GS. This special rate will continue to be offered until 21 March.
Please note:
1. Call the hotel direct at 215/923-8660 (recommended).
2. Ask for “in-house reservations”
3. Tell the person the NAME of the conference.
4. Provide the group code.
5. Give them your e-mail address.
6. They will send you the confirmation number.
Symposium Schedule Overview
Thursday, April 20
2 - 4:00 pm: Executive Committee Meeting
4 - 7:00 pm: Registration
5:30 pm: “Gemütliches Beisammensein”
Friday, April 21
9:00 am: Opening Plenary
9:30 - 11:00 am: Concurrent Sessions
11:00 am - 12:30 pm: Lunch on your own
12:30 – 5:30pm: Concurrent Sessions
There will also be a planned excursion by public transportation to nearby religious institutions on Friday afternoon, and there is a possible excursion to other regional historic sites on Sunday. Information on these events will be available at the meeting.
Saturday, April 22
8:30 am - 12.00 pm: Concurrent Sessions
12:30-2.00 pm: Business/Luncheon Meeting
2.00 pm: Excursion to Old Germantown
5:30 pm: Social Hour
7:00 pm: Banquet and Awards
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania20-22 April 201741st Annual Symposium"The Protestant Reformation at 500: Its Legacy from Pennsylvania across German America.”
SOCIETY FOR GERMAN-AMERICAN STUDIES
NEWSLETTER VOLUME 38 No. 1, PAGE 3
Please make check or money orderpayable to “SGAS” and mail to:
Karyl Rommelfanger4824 Morgan Dr.Manitowoc, WI 54220-1026
SYMPOSIUM REGISTRATION FORM – Please detach for mailing.
Please note: Membership in SGAS is required to attend Symposium.
Please complete, print, and return with your payment by 4 April.
Name(s), Affiliation (for name tag): ________________________________________________________________________________
_______ Life Member: $ 500 (may be paid in 5 installments)
European Membership levels differ and are payable in Euro. Please pay online atwww.sgas.org or contact Dr. Katja Hartmann.
Excursion to Germantown, Saturday, April 22, 2-5 pm
1.30 pm (appr.): Leave from German Society after the end of the Business Lunch.
2.00 pm: Guided tour of Grumblethorpe, built in 1744 by John Wister (Johannes Wüster), the father of Daniel Wister, one of the founding members of the German Society.
3.00 pm: Guided tour of the 1770 Mennonite Meeting House where you will see the table at which in 1688, Francis Daniel Pastorius signed the first protest against slavery in the New World, just five years after he had brought the first German settlers to America.
4.00 pm: Visit to Vernon Park and the Pastorius Monument
5.00 pm (appr.): Return to the German Society/Wyndham Hotel, as desired
Deadline so sign up for excursion: April 4.
Arrangements for car-pooling will be made at the conference. The German Society of PA will assist with special transportation needs upon advance notice. Please indicate on registration.
SOCIETY FOR GERMAN-AMERICAN STUDIES
NEWSLETTER VOLUME 38 No. 1, PAGE 4
The villa in Los Angeles once owned by Thomas Mann was recently purchased by the German government, following a petition that was signed by 3000 writers and other individuals, including by another Nobel Prize laureate, Herta Müller. The house in Pacific Palisades, a suburb of LA, had been offered for $15 million dollars when the German government stepped in to negotiate the sale and save the building, not only as a legacy to the writer and his work, but also to create a cultural center and a venue for writers’ retreats. The house was built to Mann’s specifications in the 1940s, after Mann had arrived at the West Coast as a political refugee. It seemed likely that the house would be demolished. The land was deemed much more valuable than the building itself. Thomas Mann and his family lived in LA for ten years.
As the New Yorker Magazine reminded in a recent article, Thomas Mann, himself a refugee from Nazi Germany who became an American citizen and extolled American ideals, nevertheless stepped up to warn against the dangers of intolerance and xenophobia he witnessed in his newly adopted home during the McCarthy era. At the
time of the House Un-American Activities Committee’s hearings on communism in Hollywood, Mann said, “spiritual intolerance, political inquisitions, and declining legal security, and all this in the name of an alleged ‘state of emergency.’ . . . That is how it started in Germany.” Mann subsequently returned to Europe in 1952, albeit to Switzerland.
Former foreign minister and newly elected president of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung that the Thomas Mann residence in LA “was home for many Germans who worked toward a better future for their country, paved the way for an open society and laid the foundations for common transatlantic values” (SZ, Nov 18, 2016).
The Mann house lies in close proximity to the Villa Aurora, the former
home of German-Jewish novelist and playwright Lion Feuchtwanger. Villa Aurora has been a gathering place for German-American cultural exchange since 1994. Both sites together will guarantee a continuation of this important work.
Thomas Mann Villa In Los Angeles Saved
German Historical Institute at the University of California, BerkeleyGHI West is the new German Historical Institute’s branch office on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. The GHI opened this office following a recommendation of the German Council of Science and Humanities. Its goal is to facilitate and expand cooperation with scholars and institutions in the western U.S. and Canada. GHI West is also envisioned as a resource for German scholars in the humanities and social sciences, for whom California is an increasingly important research hub.
The office plans to organize programs in all of the research areas the GHI supports. Through targeted cooperation with other institutions, GHI West will also provide more opportunities and incentives for international and interdisciplinary exchange in research on migration. A central focus for the ‘migration and knowledge’ research network will be ”migrants as conveyors and producers of knowledge.” Special attention will be given to the role of young people as mediators between cultures.
For more information see www.ghi-dc.org/.
SOCIETY FOR GERMAN-AMERICAN STUDIES
NEWSLETTER VOLUME 38 No. 1, PAGE 5
SGAS 2017 SYMPOSIUMFRIDAY, APRIL 21Friday, 9:30 -11:00 a.m. AuditoriumSession I: “Pennsylvania German Religious History andMaterial Culture”
Friday, 9:30 -11:00 a.m. RathskellerSession II
“The Spirit of the Letter”; Calligraphy, Manuscript-Making, and Letter Forms as Devotional Literature in German-Protestant Imagery in German-Protestant Pennsylvania,ca. 1750-1850
Alexander Ames, U. of Delaware/Winterthur Museum
Ethnicity and Cultural Heritage in Diaspora Communities -Worldwide Significance of Progress in German Studies
Le Raw Maran, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Perplexion and Pleasure: The Geistlicher Irrgarten Broadsides in the German-American Printshop, Home and Mind
Trevor Brandt, U. of Delaware/Winterthur Museum
Describing Religion in the German Principality of Hesse-Cassle in the 1850s
Simone A. Wegge, College of Staten Island, CUNY
From Bricks to Breadcrumbs: German Lutherans and the Material Culture of Religion in Early Philadelphia
Lisa Minardi, U. of Delaware/Winterthur Museum
Margarethe Mayer Schurz: a Problematic Biography
William E. Petig, Stanford University
Friday, 12:30-2:00 p.m. AuditoriumSession III: “New Directions in Lutheran History“
Friday, 12:30-2:00 p.m. RathskellerSession IV
Lutheran History as American History
Kathryn Galchutt, Concordia College, New York
Im Netz aus künstlichen Strahlen’: Alfred Gong’s Anti-War Writings of the 1950s
Bärbel Such, Ohio University
A Mighty Power for Good: Women in the National LutheranCouncil
Anna Amundson, Florida State University
Transnational Echoes of Mark Twain’s Dispute with the Mandate of Altruism
Cora Lee Kluge, Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Fracturing Whiteness: Ethnicity and Race in Missouri Synod Congre-gations, 1948-1960
Elliot Worsfold, Western University
German-American Publications in the World War I Era
Antje Petty, Max Kade Institute for German-AmericanStudies, University of Wisconsin- Madison
Friday, 2:30-4:00 p.m. AuditoriumSession V
Friday, 2:30-4:00 p.m. RathskellerSession VI
Piety or Reason: German Theology in the Early American Republic
Kit Belgum, University of Texas-Austin
Defending Deutschtum: The Bennett Law in the Pages of theMilwaukee Germania
Christopher Stohs, Ph.D. Candidate., University of Wisconsin -Madison
Bridging Two Worlds: Georg von Bosse’s 1914 Visit to Germany
Joseph B. Neville, Jr.Stereotypes, Science, and Sensationalism: German-IndianRelationships in Balduin Möllhausen’s Fiction
Nicole Grewling, Washington College
The Evangelical Association in America: A North Dakota Case Study
Jonathan Marner, College Station, Texas
The Use of English Verbs in German-American Varieties
Ryan Dux, Bucknell University
Friday, 2:30-4:00 p.m. Committee RoomSession VII
Friday, 4:00-5:30 p.m. AuditoriumSession VIII
Pennsylvania, New York, Amsterdam and Rotterdam: ADisfunctional Reformed Community
Kenneth Shefsiek, University of North Carolina Wilmington
Friedrich C. D. Wyneken: Lutheran Missionary on the Indiana Frontier
Karen Roesch, IUPUI Max Kade German-American Center,Indianapolis
The Freie Gemeinde von Nord St. Louis: A FreethinkerCongregation in the 1850s
Steven Rowan, University of Missouri, St. Louis
Germans and Czechs in America
David Z. Chroust, independent scholar
Variations on a Schnitzelbank: Varieties of Schnitzelbank Songs in German-American and American Popular Culture
William Keel, University of Kansas
Lutherans and Reformed and the Maintenance of Pennsylvania Dutch
Mark L. Louden, Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
SOCIETY FOR GERMAN-AMERICAN STUDIES
NEWSLETTER VOLUME 38 No. 1, PAGE 6
SGAS 2017 SYMPOSIUMFRIDAY, APRIL 21 (cont.)
Friday, 4:00-5:30 p.m. RathskellerSession IX
Friday, 4:00-5:30 p.m. Committee RoomSession X
The World War has Reduced Interest in Our Institutions: TheGerman-American Community of New Orleans 1914-1918
Andreas Hübner, Kassel University
Ethnic German Lives: The Photographic Collection of Rudolf Zaft
Erika Weidemann, Graduate student, Texas A&M University
Great German Literature Born out of Political Conflict (WW I and after)
Gabriele Münter: A German Painter behind an American Lens
Janice Miller, MA, IUPUI Max Kade German-American Center, Indianapolis
Between Despair and Hope: German Émigrés in the United States after 1933
Karl-H. Fuessl, Technical University of Berlin
Alexander von Humboldt in Philadelphia and Washington (1804) and the Progress of His Fame
Frank Baron, University of Kansas
Saturday, 8:30-10:00 a.m. AuditoriumSession XI
Saturday, 8:30-10:00 a.m. RathskellerSession XII
The De-Radicalization of George Rapp’s Treatise, Thoughts on the Destiny of Man
Silvia Anna Rode, University of Southern Indiana
North Dakota’s Capital: Why Bismarck?
Lavern Rippley, St. Olaf College
The Legacy of Martin Luther in the United States and in East Germany.
Joyce E. Bromley, independent historian, Madison, WI.
Why Philadelphia? Shaping the History of German Americans
Frank Trommler, University of Pennsylvania
Hamlet in Wittenberg - Traces of the Protestant Reformation in Shakespeare’s Tragedy and its Early American Reception and Performances
Marcus Höhne, University of Kansas
Digital Documentaries in Germans to America Courses
Berit Jany, University of Colorado, Boulder
Saturday, 8:30-10:00 a.m. Committee RoomSession XIII
Saturday, 10:30-12:00 p.m. AuditoriumSession XIV
Walking toward Newly Found Freedoms: Kate Chopin and Malwi-da von Meysenburg
Heidi Podlasli-Labrenz, Ball State University
Martin Luther in the German-American Imagination
Thomas Hahn-Bruckart, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz
Mapping German Charleston: A Historical GIS of the Immigrant Community on the Eve of the Civil War
Jeff Strickland, Montclair State University, New Jersey
Migration to America in Moravian Personalia of the Eighteenth Century
Barbara Becker-Cantarino, Ohio State University
Against the Current: Friedrich Torberg, the Anti-Writer
Michael Rice, Middle Tennessee State University
The Role of Pennsylvania Dutch and Quakers in the Founding of Upper Canada 1783-1812
Chet Neumann, Kansas City, MO
Saturday, 10:30-12:00 p.m. RathskellerSession XV
Saturday, 10:30-12:00 p.m. Committee RoomSession XVI
“Ja, er war unser!” Humboldt and the FreemasonsSandra Rebok, independent scholar; advising board of theGerman Historical Institute, Washington DC
Legacy and Transformation: German Nationalism in Turner Societies of Civil-War America
Sydney Norton, St. Louis University
Henry Muhlenberg, the German-American Linnaeus
William Cahill, Retired, Rutgers University
Czechs and Germans in America
David Z. Chroust, independent scholar
John Brinkman — Between Rostock, New York, Guestrow
Ingo Schwarz, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie derWissenschaften
Ingeborg’s Poetry for Pennsylvania
Ingeborg Bradinge, poetry reading
Saturday, APRIL 22
TREASURERAchim Kopp(Mercer University, Georgia)
Born and raised in the Palatinate in southwestern Germany, Achim Kopp studied English and Latin at the University of Heidelberg. He first became interested in Pennsylvania German culture and language as an exchange student at Bucknell University in central Pennsylvania in 1985-86. Having earned his Ph.D. in English linguistics at
Heidelberg, he returned to Pennsylvania to teach at Susquehanna University from 1994 to 1997. A revised version of his dissertation entitled The Phonology of Pennsylvania German English as Evidence of Language Maintenance and Shift was published by Susquehanna University Press in 1999. In August 1997, Kopp joined the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, where he is currently Professor of Foreign Languages and Literatures. In 2008, he published Francis Lieber’s Brief and Practical German Grammar with Peter Lang-Verlag in Frankfurt, Germany. Since 2004 he has been collaborating with his colleague in the Mercer History Department, Dr. John Thomas Scott, on a research and publication project on the Moravians in colonial Georgia. Kopp joined SGAS in 1994 and has been serving on the YGAS editorial board since 2005. He also completed two terms as the Society’s treasurer between 2011 and 2015.
SECRETARY
Bärbel Such(Ohio University)
Bärbel Such is Associate Professor of German at Ohio University in Athens, OH, where she teaches all levels of German in their undergraduate program. Besides German American Studies, Bärbel’s research interests lie in Holocaust and Exile Literature with a focus on German-Jewish author Alfred Gong. Bärbel has been a
member of SGAS since 2007 and has served the society as secretary for the last two years.
VICE-PRESIDENT Cora Lee Kluge(University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Coral Lee Kluge (Ph.D., Stanford University) taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 1965 to 2016, where she also served as Director or Co-Director of the Max Kade Institute from 2004 to 2016. Her areas of interest include the eighteenth century; German-American studies; transnational German studies; and the history of
German studies in America. She has published articles on Friedrich Schiller and Annette von Droste-Hülshoff; edited volumes Paths Crossing: Essays in German-American Studies (2011), Other Witnesses: An Anthology of the Literature of the German Americans 1850–1914 (2007), Wisconsin German Land and Life (co-edited with Heike Bungert and Robert C. Ostergren, 2006), Teaching German in Twentieth-Century America (co-edited with David Benseler and Craig W. Nickisch, 2001), and Christian Essellen’s Babylon (1996). In addition, she served as editor of the German studies journal Monatshefte (1996–2001), was responsible for the creation of a searchable digital bibliography of the Milwaukee Public Library’s Trostel Collection of German Theater Scripts (https://old.mpl.org/file/tools_trostel.htm, 2008), developed and taught an undergraduate course entitled “The German Immigration Experience” every spring for eleven years (2006–2016), and has recently lectured on wide-ranging topics including “Managing the Mississippi: German Engineering, POWs, and the Mississippi River Basin Model,” “John Brown’s Life and Significance as Seen by Friedrich Kapp,” and “The Milwaukee German Theater.” Her article entitled “Mark Twain’s ‘Magnanimous-Incident’ Hero and Bertolt Brecht’s Der gute Mensch von Sezuan” appeared in January 2017 in the Brecht Yearbook (volume 40). Cora Lee’s broad view of German-American studies insists that the field should embrace the story and contributions of German-speaking immigrants and their descendants in the New World, but also inquire into the multi-directional flow of ideas across national and linguistic borders. She has received honors such as the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching (1992) and the Federal Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Verdienstkreuz am Bande, 2008).
SOCIETY FOR GERMAN-AMERICAN STUDIES
NEWSLETTER VOLUME 38 No. 1, PAGE 7
SGAS 2017 ELECTION SLATE(Elections will be held electronically)
