German immigrants began arriving to Milwaukee in the 1830s. By 1859, over one-third of the city was German. They opened schools and churches, started businesses, ran for office, and introduced professional German theater, art, and music to the city. Milwaukee soon became known throughout the United States—and even abroad—as the “German Athens of North America.” There is a reason Milwaukee is known as the city of beer and brats, why it is here that the biggest Germanfest in the country takes place, and why still today the German language can be seen and heard throughout the city. As the well-known German newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine stated in 2008, “Deutscher als Milwaukee ist nirgendwo in Amerika” (There is nowhere in America more German than in Milwaukee).
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Title: Purchase German Milwaukee (Images of America)
Author: John L. Hoh, Jr.
Publisher: bookideas.com
Date: 7/23/2011
Arcadia Publishing has issued a plethora of books relating to local heritages. Wander on Arcadia's web site and you are greeted with a map. Click on any area and the web site brings up the Arcadia offerings related to that particular area. Some series deal with the local sports legends. Some deal with the historical or geological features of the local area.
This book is part of Arcadia's "Images of America" series and details the Germans in Milwaukee.
Every city has enclaves of ethnic groups. Milwaukee is no exception. French fur traders, Yankees, Poles, Irish, and others helped shape the new and growing city by Lake Michigan. But by far the Germans made the biggest splash in Milwaukee. The old industries (and ancient headstones in Forest Home) bear German names: Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz, Harnishfeger, Pfister.
The German influence is also seen in the brewing industry that "made Milwaukee famous." The work ethic led to an industrial boom where Milwaukee produced huge mining equipment, tractors, large scale gears, and other items not seen produced elsewhere in the world.
But beyond work is the leisure Germans brought to Milwaukee. Beer was just the "wetting of the whistle." The Germans brought their love of a fest to Milwaukee and that is carried on in the "City of Festivals" today.
Germans were also interested in education and physical fitness. Schools and the Turner Society were formed to give German youth an advantage in the New World. Milwaukee Germans hosted theater, formed musical groups, and did painting. After the Civil War many Germans painted dioramas and cycloramas, most depicting a Civil War scene.
This book is an enlightening look at perhaps the ethnic group with the most clout in perhaps the most German of cities in America.
Title: German Milwaukee: Book Review
Author: David Luhrssen
Publisher: Express Milwaukee
Date: 7/11/09
Milwaukee was once a German city-at least north of Wisconsin Avenue. Traces of the past are apparent even today in the older architecture and the long-noted preference of our citizens for beer and bratwurst.
Many books have already been written on Milwaukee's German heritage. The latest, German Milwaukee (from Arcadia Publishing) adds no new insights but is an accessible, profusely illustrated walk through the city's Teutonic past.
As part of Arcadia's Images of America series, whose catalog already includes several books on our area, German Milwaukee follows the format of a short intro at the start of each chapter followed by pages of carefully captioned photographs. German Milwaukee is unusual for its academic origins. UWM professor of German language, literature and culture, Jennifer Watson Schumacher, edited the book from the research of her students who wrote the text and hunted for photographs of landmarks, families and famous figures.
What's remarkable in paging through the old pictures is how much Milwaukee has retained. City Hall and Turner Hall, the Pabst Mansion and the Pabst Theater survived the worst efforts of the city's dimmest leaders in the '60s to tear down everything beautiful. The craft and pride of the old German builders continues to anchor our cityscape.
Jennifer Watson Schumacher will sign copies of German Milwaukee at Boswell Books
Author: John L. Hoh, Jr.
Publisher: bookideas.com
Date: 7/23/2011
Arcadia Publishing has issued a plethora of books relating to local heritages. Wander on Arcadia's web site and you are greeted with a map. Click on any area and the web site brings up the Arcadia offerings related to that particular area. Some series deal with the local sports legends. Some deal with the historical or geological features of the local area.
This book is part of Arcadia's "Images of America" series and details the Germans in Milwaukee.
Every city has enclaves of ethnic groups. Milwaukee is no exception. French fur traders, Yankees, Poles, Irish, and others helped shape the new and growing city by Lake Michigan. But by far the Germans made the biggest splash in Milwaukee. The old industries (and ancient headstones in Forest Home) bear German names: Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz, Harnishfeger, Pfister.
The German influence is also seen in the brewing industry that "made Milwaukee famous." The work ethic led to an industrial boom where Milwaukee produced huge mining equipment, tractors, large scale gears, and other items not seen produced elsewhere in the world.
But beyond work is the leisure Germans brought to Milwaukee. Beer was just the "wetting of the whistle." The Germans brought their love of a fest to Milwaukee and that is carried on in the "City of Festivals" today.
Germans were also interested in education and physical fitness. Schools and the Turner Society were formed to give German youth an advantage in the New World. Milwaukee Germans hosted theater, formed musical groups, and did painting. After the Civil War many Germans painted dioramas and cycloramas, most depicting a Civil War scene.
This book is an enlightening look at perhaps the ethnic group with the most clout in perhaps the most German of cities in America.
Title: German Milwaukee: Book Review
Author: David Luhrssen
Publisher: Express Milwaukee
Date: 7/11/09
Milwaukee was once a German city-at least north of Wisconsin Avenue. Traces of the past are apparent even today in the older architecture and the long-noted preference of our citizens for beer and bratwurst.
Many books have already been written on Milwaukee's German heritage. The latest, German Milwaukee (from Arcadia Publishing) adds no new insights but is an accessible, profusely illustrated walk through the city's Teutonic past.
As part of Arcadia's Images of America series, whose catalog already includes several books on our area, German Milwaukee follows the format of a short intro at the start of each chapter followed by pages of carefully captioned photographs. German Milwaukee is unusual for its academic origins. UWM professor of German language, literature and culture, Jennifer Watson Schumacher, edited the book from the research of her students who wrote the text and hunted for photographs of landmarks, families and famous figures.
What's remarkable in paging through the old pictures is how much Milwaukee has retained. City Hall and Turner Hall, the Pabst Mansion and the Pabst Theater survived the worst efforts of the city's dimmest leaders in the '60s to tear down everything beautiful. The craft and pride of the old German builders continues to anchor our cityscape.
Jennifer Watson Schumacher will sign copies of German Milwaukee at Boswell Books
About the Author
Jennifer Watson Schumacher is an associate professor of German and Scandinavian literature at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. This book grew out of a course she taught at the university called German Milwaukee and was inspired by her German students who so enthusiastically embrace their own German heritage and the city of Milwaukee. Nineteen students collected the material for this book and put their hearts and souls into its creation.
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This review is from: German Milwaukee (Images of America) (Images of America (Arcadia Publishing)) (Paperback)
This book is very good for beginners who are interested in our local German-American history, but for me it was just more of the same old information with old pictures from the Milwaukee County Historical Society that we have seen printed over and over again. What I would have liked to have learned more about in this book is a chapter on the subject of displaced Germans from former parts of Germany that were lost to Russia and Poland, as well as all of the ethnic Germans groups that were expelled from the many areas of Eastern Europe. Those people/refugees flooded the City of Milwaukee during the 1950's. For some reason no one goes into depth on this particular subject and it's too bad because their stories are absolutely fascinating. These displaced people actually pumped new life into the existing German Community and contributed in so many ways to the cultural and economic life of the city and yet their story continues to go untold in these books. Below I have included a list of the groups of people that settled in Milwaukee after the WW2 and arrived in large numbers during the mid 1950's. Their story would make an important book that could stand on it's own. I hope the next book about German Milwaukee that is published contains more on this topic. Also strangely enough, the Author didn't include any mention of certain extremely vibrant and really impactful German cultural organizations that still exist in the city today. I find it odd that who ever she interviewed or relied on for information during the course of her research for this book didn't direct her to some of these other and more dominant organizations that are loaded with historical photos and other important information. In my opinion the reader will have to purchase other books as well,such as Bert Lachner's Heimat North America, Milwaukee Wisconsin Heimat in the Heartland and German Milwaukee It's history, It's recipes by Paradis and Brumder to really gain a better understanding of the Germans in Milwaukee then and now. etc. etc. believe it or not, I still like the book and would recommend it as a good read.Forgotten German speaking groups of people who settled in Milwaukee after 1945. The Donauschwaben of Yugoslavia, Banat and Sathmar The People of Schlesien. The People of Oberschlesier The People of Weichsel-Warthe. The WestPreussen. The OstPreussen. The Litauendeutschen. The Bessarabiendeutsche. The Dobrudschadeutschen. The Volga Germans from Russia. The Germans from Ungarn. The Pommersche Germans. The Danziger Germans. The Buchenlanddeutschen. The Carpathian Germans. The Baltic Germans. The Transylvania Saxons. The Sudentendeutsche.
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