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Reviews
| Hopeful Journeys: German Immigration, Settlement, and Political Culture in Colonial America, 1717–1775, by Aaron Spencer Fogleman. Pennsylvania, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996. 257 pages. $24.95, paper.
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| This book examines the demographic, religious, political, and economic factors that compelled German immigrants to migrate to British North America in the eighteenth century. It also explores patterns of German settlement and the various strategies settlers employed to both survive and succeed during the turbulent years leading up to the American Revolution. Fogleman argues that German settlers utilized a "collective" strategy whereby immigrants remained together in ethnic enclaves to better cope with the challenges presented by living in a multi-ethnic society during a time of political upheaval in the colonies. |
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Part I of the book examines conditions in southwest Germany that promoted German emigration. Princely and aristocratic interference, lack of available land, and overpopulation all played roles in promoting emigration to other areas of central and eastern Europe, as well as to British North America. Fogleman discusses these developments within the context of the long period of reconstruction following the devastation of the Thirty Years' War (1618–48). Supplementing these "push" factors was a recruitment campaign by other European governments to entice potential German immigrants, as well as letters from relatives who already emigrated, extolling the advantages of living in the colonies, especially the abundance of land and lack of a religious establishment in areas such as Pennsylvania. Once the decision was made to leave, emigrants tended to make the journey to North America with other family members and those from the same village or town. Once arrived, they tended to settle together or at least within close proximity to each another. |
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In Part II, Fogleman points out that the maintenance of Old World family and community ties was crucial in adjusting to life in multi-ethnic Pennsylvania, where most Germans settled. Also, such a collective strategy helped the immigrants overcome the financial and physical hardships associated with the long journey to the colonies. For some, religion was the basis of this collective strategy, and Fogleman provides a helpful analysis of the role that radical Pietism played in German immigration to the colonies. Pietists sought to create ideal religious communities in the colonies, and in some cases, evangelize among Native Americans. Groups such as the Moravians, perhaps the most important advocates of missionary work of all of the Pietists, utilized an impressive organizational and support network, from the initial recruitment stage in Germany to ultimate settlement in greater Pennsylvania. The Moravians, Mennonites, Amish, and Dunkers all represented only a small part of the overall German immigrant population, but they were among the most successful because of such strategic planning. |
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In the final sections of the book, Fogleman explores the origins and contours of German political culture in the colonies. The collective strategy that the immigrants utilized in the Old World against overbearing German state governments threatening their economic well-being was transported to the colonies in the eighteenth century. Determined to keep whatever property and wealth they had acquired after such a harrowing journey to the colonies, German immigrants evolved into an important voting bloc in Pennsylvania electoral politics. Whether it was the issue of frontier defense against hostile Native Americans or exorbitant land prices, the German-speaking population supported those candidates best suited to protect their interests. Britain's imperial policies, especially the Stamp Act of 1765, also provided a forum for German involvement in colonial politics. Like many other, non-German colonists, they perceived such heavy-handed policies as a threat to their property rights, and thus actively took part in protests and elections to protect their interests. |
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This is a well-written and impressively researched monograph. Traditionally, most books on aspects of American immigration history tend to concentrate on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This book is a helpful corrective to that historiographical trend. Based on research in both German and American archives, it highlights the importance of the colonial period as a viable field of interest for students and scholars of American immigration history. It would be an ideal text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in colonial American history and general U.S. immigration history. |
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| Caldwell College, New Jersey |
William Barnhart |
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