Graphic Representations of Germans in America

Two interesting images recently stumbled upon -- click on them to enlarge!

This one is attributed to Jürgen Eichhoff, the first director of the Max Kade Institute, created around 1985:

As is often the case in America, the German immigrant is pictured as "typically" Bavarian, perhaps because this stereotype is the one easiest to capture and has the most resonance for us. No doubt a dissertation could be (has been?) written on figuring out why!

The second image comes from Paul H. Kuntze's Das Volksbuch unserer Kolonien, published in 1938 in Leipzig.


Note the colossus standing in North America to represent the numbers of German-speaking immigrants! The caption here uses the now-loaded term Lebensräume -- we could sanitize the term and translate the caption to read: "The habitats of the German people." Still, these images likely had political weight and propaganda value for the National Socialists at the time.

German and Polish Students Study Immigration and Ethnicity in the Upper Midwest.

A week ago, a group of sixteen students from the American Studies Institutes of the University of Leipzig, Germany, and of the Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland visited Wisconsin. Led by Professor Hartmut Keil, the group was on a two-week study tour of the Upper Midwest to learn about immigration and internal migration past and present, and issues of ethnicity in rural and urban America. At UW-Madison, the group attended a workshop on Language & Immigration and the following day visited one of Wisconsin’s many small rural communities that were settled in the 1850s primarily by German immigrants: Hustisford in Dodge County. Members of the Hustisford Historical Society graciously showed us their town, the historical museum Founder John Hustis’ old house), and the Lutheran church. Evidence of Hustisford German-American history was everywhere: in names, stories, signs, buildings, and the personal inscription in an old family bible that Prof. Keil translated. Read more about the Immigration and Ethnicity Study Tour on the group’s blog.

MKI Online Course on the German-American Experience

Over the years many of our Friends from outside of Madison and Wisconsin have complained that they were unable to attend MKI lectures and classes. Now is your chance! Together with the Wisconsin Alumni Association, we are offering a six-week online course on the German-American Experience. The course provides you with archived video and audio, interviews, slides and the expertise of six UW-Madison faculty and staff. To enhance your experience even more, the course includes a supplemental reader, other publications and an online class message board for comments and questions.

The cost is $139 per person, with a special rate of $119 for WAA and UW OLLI members, and members of the Friends of the Max Kade Institute. It's not too late to become a Friend of the MKI! Join the Friends! To register for the course now click here: Online: The German-American Experience Registration deadline is Monday, February 9, 2009.

Weekly Topics and Instructors
1. The German Immigration Experience, Cora Lee Kluge,Professor of German and Director of the Max Kade
2. German-American Print Culture, Kevin Kurdylo,Librarian and Archivist for the Max Kade Institute
3. Languages of German-Americans, Joe Salmons,Professor of German and Director of the UW Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures
4. Pennsylvania Dutch: An American Language with German Roots, Mark Louden, Professor of German and former director of the Max Kade Institute
5. Dutchman Bands and Dialect Songs: German Folk Music in the Upper Midwest, Jim Leary, Professor of Folklore and Scandinavian Studies and Director of the UW Folklore Program
6. German American Cookbooks and Food Traditions, Antje Petty,Associate Director, Max Kade Institute.

Spring 2009 Course on the German Immigration Experience

Prof. Cora Lee Kluge at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will once again teach a course that surveys the immigration experience of Europeans from German-speaking lands. The guiding questions of the course will include: Who were these immigrants and why did they come to America? Why did Wisconsin become a particularly strong area of German settlement? What kind of life and what problems and disappointments did German immigrants encounter? Historical, sociological, linguistic, and cultural aspects will be considered, in order both to gain insight into the greatest movement of peoples in modern times and to view the development of the United States from a unique perspective. The course requires no knowledge of German.

We know of a similar course offered by Johannes Strohschänk and William Thiel at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. We'd like to hear if other such courses are being offered in other locations!