Can You Help Identify These Fine Fellows?

Michael Whaley, of The Free Congregation (formerly the Freie Gemeinde) of Sauk County (Wisconsin), recently wrote to us at MKI:

"We have at the Hall an ellipsoidal framed piece that has seven cameo photographs pasted to an old thin-wood mounting board. The photographs are of good quality, but appear to have been cut out from some other source -- a magazine, perhaps. 

I can identify the man in the center: Eduard Schroeter, Speaker of the Freie Gemeinde von Sauk County from 1853 until his retirement in 1886; and, earlier, Speaker of the Freie Gemeinden of New York and Milwaukee.  [See: Berenice Cooper's 1968 article, 'Die Freie Gemeinde: Freethinkers on the Frontier.']











I also have a suspicion [the photos] have to do with the Bund von Freie Gemeinden von Nord Amerika."

And just today, Michael Whaley wrote to announce, "The portrait on the top left is of Michael Biron, founder of Der Freidenker (1871), and the 4th Speaker of the Painsville Freie Gemeinde (from 1897-1902) in Franklin Township, WI. The Painesville congregation is often identified as the first Freie Gemeinde in Wisconsin. It was organized in 1851 under the name "The First Free Christian Congregation," but in practice it probably came to more closely resemble other Freie Gemeinden (e.g., Sauk County's) during Christian Schroeter's tenure as the congregation's 3rd Speaker (1857-1890), as in 1872 it wrote a new constitution and renamed itself the Free Congregation at Painseville.

See http://www.painesville.bravehost.com/history.htm and http://painesville.bravehost.com/speakers.htm." 

Looking at the Cooper article, the fellow on the lower right might be a younger Friedrich Schünemann-Pott, speaker of the Freie Gemeinde in Philadelphia from 1854 to 1871, when he accepted a call from San Francisco. Schünemann-Pott also edited the Blätter fiir freies religioses Leben, from 1856 to 1872, a journal that, according to Cooper, "contains much valuable information about the Free Congregations, [including] letters from readers, reports of local activities such as reading circles, dramatic programs, concerts, lectures, and libraries, and articles on science, history, philosophy, and literature." Perhaps this image comes from one of the Free Thought journals?

We put the call out to the Wide World (webbed), asking if anyone can identify (definitively or as an educated guess) the other men featured here. Please contact Kevin Kurdylo at kkurdylo(at)wisc.edu or Michael Whaley at spikeyboy(at)earthlink.net

Course on German Immigration to Wisconsin, 2013

Here is information on a course about the immigration experience of German-speaking peoples, offered by Prof. Johannes Strohschänk and Bill Thiel at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. Their honors course, titled "From the Feudal to the Federal State: 19th Century German Immigration to Wisconsin," will be offered Mondays and Wednesdays from 4:30 to 5:45 beginning January 23, 2013, and will be taught in English.

Prof. Strohschänk offers this detailed description of the intent of the course:

"Why in the course of a century would some 7 million people pick up and move to the other side of the world and begin a new life? And why Germans? And why so many of them to Wisconsin? In this course we will try to find answers to these and other questions by looking at German history, U.S. history, and at the history of our state from the common people’s point of view. We also will try to retrace the emigrants’ every step, from their painful departure to the arduous sea voyage to raising the first primitive cabin in the woods of Wisconsin. (And – where were the Native Americans?) In the end we should be able not only to have a more sophisticated assessment of the German element in Wisconsin beyond beer and bratwurst, but also to see today’s migrations with a more educated and critical eye, as well. Maybe even more important in our modern world of infinite restlessness will be an appreciation of what “home” really means."

If you live in the Eau Claire area and are interested in auditing the course (offered at a reduced cost), you may find information on this opportunity here:
http://www.uwec.edu/Registrar/student/Auditing-Classes.htm

Once again, we would very much like to hear about other courses offered on the topic of German immigration and/or the German American experience!

[Note: Strohschänk and Thiel are also the authors of
The Wisconsin Office of Emigration 1852–1855 and Its Impact on German Immigration to the State]

The Antigo Publishing Company

Here is the striking logo of The Antigo [Wisconsin] Publishing Company, founded in 1898 by the Lutheran minister Rev. Albert Friedrich Wilhelm Grimm. Grimm was born in Petershagen, Pomerania, in 1864 and immigrated with his parents to the United States in 1874. He graduated from Concordia Theological Seminary (Springfield, Illinois) in 1888, the same year he married Mathilda Moldenhauer. He served as a pastor in Antigo, Wisconsin, but after the death of his oldest son in 1919, he left the ministry to devote himself to the business of the Antigo Publishing Company. Grimm is best remembered as a prolific author of short stories, plays, recitations, choral works, and novels in German, which he wrote under the (known) pen names of Alfred Ira, E. J. Freund., and E. Stern. He died in 1922 at the age of 59. It is not known if he designed the logo himself, but we are confident this talented German American was quite capable of doing so!

For a partial listing of the Dialogues and Recitations published by the company, please click here.

A Picture Puzzle / Vexierbild Advertisement

Recently donated to the MKI's library is this advertisement for Dr. August König's Hamburger Tropfen, a patent medicine said to be effective against “all sicknesses of the stomach, liver, and abdomen." The picture on one side is an image puzzle [Vexierbild in German] titled "Das Picnic," with the words "Wo ist der Mann, welcher stets Dr. August König's Hamburger Tropfen gebraucht?" ["Where is the man who always needs Dr. August König's Hamburg Drops?"] in old German script below.
The images of the picnic-goers can be seen to form a much larger image of a man pouring a bottle of the nostrum (it may help to view the picture sideways).


The reverse side describes the product and provides directions and cautions for its use. The elixir was manufactured and sold by A. Vogeler & Co., of Baltimore Md. Online searching shows that August Vogeler was born in Minden, Germany, in 1819, and emigrated to the United States in his twenties. In the 1850s or early 1860s he established a drug business in Baltimore, Maryland, which came to sell a range of patent medicines under the name Dr. August König, including Hamburger Tropfen, Hamburger Brustthee [breast tea], and Hamburger Kräuterpflaster [herbal plaster], as well as St. Jacob's Oil and Dr. Bull's Cough Syrup. Like many such products of the time, their ability to influence one's health is questionable, and their contents may actually have contained harmful ingredients. August died in 1908.

At the bottom of this side of the card is printed: F. M. Findeisen, New Cassel (Fond du Lac County), Wis. Internet searches show that Frederick Maximilian Findeisen was born around 1836/1837 in Prussia and arrived in New York in 1862. That same year he married Ernestina in Fond du Lac. He naturalized as an American citizen in 1865. He owned a grocery store ("Dealer in Dry Goods, Boots & Shoes, Hardware & Groceries") in New Cassel, which may have been built in 1874, and he served as the New Cassel postmaster in 1868. F. M. Findeisen died in 1905, and is buried in Campbellsport, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin.

Pommerscher Verein Unveils Immigrant Memorial Marker

On July 15, 2012, a ceremony was held in the Town of Berlin, Marathon County, Wisconsin, to unveil a granite marker commemorating the Pomeranian immigrants who settled in the area. Organized by the Pommerscher Verein Central Wisconsin, a heritage group that studies the history, culture, and Low German (or Platt) language known to their ancestors, the celebration included singing, dancing, speeches, and even a release of pigeons as the monument was unveiled. The songs included a version of "On Wisconsin" and "You Are My Sunshine" in Platt, as well as "Das Pommernlied," which was written in 1850. The group is believed to be the first to translate the Wisconsin state song into a dialect language.

The six-foot-tall marker is made of locally quarried red granite; not only is red granite Wisconsin's state stone, but many Verein members and their families have found employment at such quarries. One side of the marker features a narrative about the Pomeranian settlement of central Wisconsin; the other shows a map of the Kingdom of Prussia, identifying the area where large groups of immigrants originated, as well as a map of Wisconsin, highlighting the counties of Marathon and Lincoln where so many Pomeranian immigrants settled—often in towns with names like Stettin, Hamburg, and Berlin. In addition, the ground surrounding the marker contains 149 tiles engraved with the names of original immigrant settlers and nearly 400 commemorative bricks established by descendant families.
There is a plan to compile a collection of stories about the immigrants whose names adorn the monument.

In Memorium: Kurt Schaldach

Kurt Schaldach passed away on April 14, 2008 in Napa, California, at the age of 95. In 1978 Kurt, a German painter living in Milwaukee, was commissioned by the Memorial Union of the University of Wisconsin in Madison both to design and paint the murals in the Stiftskeller and to perform the first ever restoration of the Rathskeller murals, which were painted in the 1920s. Living in one of the guest rooms, he spent most of two months painting and restoring the German murals. For more information on the Union's murals, see: "When Wine and Beer Fight" (the topic of one of Kurt's paintings).

"Luxies" and Germans

This anecdote comes to us from Kevin Wester, Director of Development, Luxembourg American Cultural Society, Inc. in Port Washington, Wisconsin (an area that's lousy with Luxies!).

It’s no secret that there is a certain ethnic rivalry between Luxembourgers and Germans. So often, we “Luxies” have been generically classified as Germans. And thus we continue to fight the good fight that we are uniquely ourselves and we are proud to hail from the little Grand Duchy. Though Luxembourg is so very small, we will not be pushed around by the “big guy.”

This pride in our heritage is evidenced in a humorous story appearing in Reminiscences and Anecdotes of Early Taylor County [Wisconsin], by Arthur J. Latton, 1920:

……The story is told of two former Medford [Wisconsin] men of different nationalities who found it easy to indulge in real arguments, in defending the merits of their respective fatherlands. One day the lame German, [Mr.] Lutz, was in the tavern of a Luxemburger, and as usual the argument became heated, and with each drink, a little more so. Finally, the German said he had tried to locate Luxemburg on a map of Europe, but found that a fly must have “lighted” on the map, and had obliterated Luxemburg entirely. This so angered the Luxemburg tavern man that he attempted to obliterate Lutz, and chased the limping man almost to his home on Whalen Avenue, before giving up the chase…….

When Wine and Beer Fight

It's fairly well-known that Wisconsin has a history of being the soil into which many German-speaking immigrants put roots, so it doesn’t seem surprising to find a European-style Rathskeller and Stiftskeller in the Memorial Union at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Complete with soaring arches, vaulted ceilings, dark wood, evocative murals with German slogans, displays of beer steins, and—of course—a bar serving beer, these spaces for the congregation of students are also used and appreciated by townsfolk and visitors alike.

However, the official history claims the German themes were accidental, or perhaps providential. In 1927 Leon Pescheret, the Union’s French-born interior designer, was inspired by the bare space to remark on its similarity to a Rathskeller, or the cellar of a German village hall, where city fathers gathered for relaxation and refreshment after work. Since the space was intended to allow for the fellowship and refreshment of students, Pescheret was given permission to transform it along the lines of a Rathskeller. The murals, with German mottoes, were created by Eugene Hausler, who had trained in Germany and was very familiar with Rathskeller décor.

The adjoining Stiftskeller, or “cellar of the founders,” was created in 1962 when more space was needed for the overly-crowded Rathskeller. While the German theme was continued, a lack of funds delayed the addition of murals until 1978 when Kurt Schaldach, a German painter living in Milwaukee, was commissioned for the job. Schaldach was born in 1913 in Danzig, and studied art there before coming to the United States in 1952. One of the most striking murals in the Stiftskeller is Schaldach’s version of the “Battle between Beer and Wine.” Based upon the mural in the Munich Rathskeller, it depicts an army of beer steins streaming out of a town to assault a contingent of gnomes employing wine and champagne bottles with cork cannonballs to defend their Rhine Valley castle.An interesting note: If one travels about 45 miles southwest from the Memorial Union to visit Baumgartner’s Cheese Store and Tavern in Monroe, one can view yet another version of this fantastical battle!

We wonder how many other of these alcohol-infused battle scenes have been inspired from the one in Munich? Let us know if you’ve seen one, and send a photo if you can!