Report35Rippley3745 .pdf

NOTES ABOUT THE GERMAN PRESS IN THE

MINNESOTA RIVER VALLEY

By LA VERN J. RIPPLEY

Saint Olaf College

Any comment on the German Press in Minnesota must take into account

that there are only three areas in the state where the German population

between 1850 and 1900 amounted to 15% or more of the total population.

These three areas have two things in common: they border rivers and they

were once at least partially covered with hardwood forests. The three areas

I am referring to are 1) the two counties of Winona and Wabasha adjacent

to the Mississippi in southeastern Minnesota, 2) the two counties of

Stearns and Benton, both of which are adjacent to the upper Mississippi,

west and east respectively, and 3) the counties of Ramsey, Dakota, Carver,

Scott, Sibley, Nicollet, Blue Earth and Brown, all of which edge the

Minnesota River. To the latter block which by all considerations comprises

the major lode of German settlers in Minnesota must be added several

counties situated one-county removed from the Minnesota River, which also

had a near 15% German population up to 1900, namely, McLeod, Le Sueur,

Waseca, and Martin.

Excluding the first two areas from consideration for this essay, we are

concerned with a territory extending basically from the mouth of the Minne-

sota River at St. Paul in the east central part of the state to just west of

the southernmost elbow of the Minnesota River in the south central part

of the state. Within this general region are many German place names

such as New Trier, New Ulm, Gotha, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Cologne, and

St. Bonafatius.¹ Viewed in terms of both cultural and numerical import-

ance, the German influence in the area stacks up as a barbell configuration

in which the two major concentrations were heavy at opposite ends, namely

in the City of St. Paul in the northeast, and in the City of New Ulm in

the southwest. Essentially, the Minnesota River served as the dorsal artery

of this trunk.

Germans do not, however, predominate in either the towns or on the

lands immediately adjacent to the river except in the major towns of St.

Paul, Shakopee, Chaska, Mankato, and New Ulm. The main reason for

this is that they arrived on the scene at a time when the easily accessible

lands had already been preempted by yankee "immigrants" who conse-

qently furnished most of the place names. This meant that Germans who

arrived en masse between 1860 and 1870 had to move inland. Also, they

acquired more farms west of the river than east making Carver and Sibley

Counties with Brown County the three most German, proportionate to

total population of all counties in the state as late as 1900.²

Several factors impelled Germans to gravitate to this area of Minnesota.

In the first place, this area of the state represented excellent soils which

attracted the German peasantry. Moreover, inasmuch as some yankee

farmers had already taken up homesteads, their experiences furnished raw

data from which records on crops and productivity could be established.

[ 37 ]

This was important because Minnesota was set on luring German immi-

grants to the state, and the more data immigrant agents had to work with,

the better they could fulfill their missions.

Minnesota enacted its first law calling for a territorial commissioner of

Emigration in 1855³

and subsequently developed an elaborate State Board

of Immigration with substantial funding and immigrant agents not only

in New York, Quebec and Montreal, but in Sweden, Denmark and, notably,

Germany.

Certainly one of the most fascinating commentaries ever

written on the recruitment of German immigrants within Germany is

contained in an official report made by Albert Wolff to Minnesota's Gover-

nor Horace Austin on September 7, 1850.

Earlier, Minnesota's State Com-

missioner of Emigration for Germany, Albert Wolff, had distinguished

himself in Minnesota by his role in German-language journalism in the

area under discussion. After leaving his duties with the Board of Immigra-

tion, he once again returned to German-language journalism in Minnesota.

There is some question as to where Albert Wolff started publishing a

German newspaper in the United States, but seemingly it was in the town

of Chaska, a flourishing German settlement on the Minnesota River in

territorial times. At any rate, an early history of the area reports that

"the Minnesota Tallboat [sic] printed in German, was the first newspaper

published in the county [Carver]. It is established in 1857 at Chaska by

Fred Ortwein and Albert Wolff. After one years' issue, it was removed to St.

Paul."

From a published collection of Wolff's creative writings in German, it

is evident in the editor's introduction that Wolff was for some time indeed

the editor of what is referred to as the Carver County Minnesota Thalbote,

as noted by Neill.

Before coming to Minnesota, Wolff was a theology

student at the University of Göttingen until in May, 1849 when he took

part in a revolution in the City of Dresden for which he was arrested and

sentenced to death, though the penalty was commuted to ten years in

prison, and eventually to pardon in 1852. In November of the same year

he came to the United States, arriving shortly thereafter in St. Paul.

Before he died on November 25, 1893, Albert Wolff had lent his services

generously to the State of Minnesota and the cause of German-language

publishing. Perhaps most significantly in 1865, he edited, translated, and

published the first official booklet on Minnesota in German, Minnesota

als eine Heimath fur Einwanderer. Actually this first of an annually up-

dated edition was the result of an 1864 Minnesota law offering prizes for

the two best essays describing Minnesota in a truthful but promotional

way.

After Minnesota officially established its State Board of Immigration

in 1867, it was a routine matter that the annual booklet was translated

and published in German by Wolff's presses of the St. Paul Staatszeitung.

As a rule the German versions are somewhat abbreviated from the English

publications, and it would make an interesting study to analyze exactly

what was considered superfluous and excisible by the German editors.

In addition to German-language publications, another factor influencing

the movement of German immigrants to the lower Minnesota River region

is a geographical one. That is, the counties under discussion were once

extensively covered by a tract of trees known as "The Big Woods" (from

the French le bois grand). A lecture given by N. H. Winchell in 1875

pinpoints this tree-covered region of Minnesota: "In general, the Big

Woods may be thus bounded: Beginning a few miles west of Minneapolis

the eastern edge of the Big woods crosses the Minnesota in a line toward

Lakeville in Dakota County. Continuing in a southerly direction, it

[ 38 ]

passes about a mile east of Canon City, and Owatana, when it takes a short

bend to the west and northwest, passing about four miles north of Waseca,

. . . About six miles south of South Bend, it turns north and crosses the

Minnesota . . . Running along the west side of the Minnesota ... it begins

to bear off toward the northwest at St. Peter, and passes five miles west of

Henderson."

In considering where Germans settled outside of the urban areas in

Minnesota, it is important to know that, for reasons not always explicable,

they showed preference for forested regions over prairie lands. One of their

considerations was that the woods provided fuel and could also be sold to

city dwellers to heat their homes, thus affording the immigrant farmer an

economic cushion until his crop production could be expanded. This

preference partially explains why there were heavy concentrations of

Germans in the counties east and west of the lower Minnesota River. It

does not account for the most singularly German settlement in the state,

New Ulm, being essentially a German city on the prairie, although even

in this case it is clear that in pioneer times a spur of the Big Woods did

run parallel to both sides of the Minnesota northwestward beyond the

present city of New Ulm. Early plat books of the region indicate that as

available land in the wooded regions became exhausted, Germans tended

to move onward slightly west of the wooded regions to the available

prairie soils.

A final factor in the immigration of Germans to the lower Minnesota

River region lies with another German journalist and distinguished Forty-

eighter, Eduard Pelz. This well-educated Saxon, born in 1800, acquired an

almost fanatical conviction that Minnesota was destined to become the

greatest state in the world and he expended bursts of energy to entice his

countrymen to share his dream.

Pelz came to Minnesota by the round

about route of an active literary career in Halle, Copenhagen, Breslau and

St. Petersburg, with many travels including that as official representative

of Silesia to the 1848/49 German Parliament in Frankfurt. For his publi-

cations supporting the cause of the weavers' uprisings in Silesia he was

imprisoned and subsequently released to take part in the liberal revolutions

going on in various cities, especially the one in Karlsruhe in March, 1848.

Seeking a better country for the future of German culture, Pelz arrived in

America in 1850 and eventually in Minnesota in 1858. His first significant

book fostering emigration to the United States was Kompass für Aus-

wanderer nach den Vereinigten Staaten Nordamerikas (Kassel: J. C. J.

Raabe, 1853) followed by his Nachrichten über Minnesota (Bamberg:

Buchnersche Buchhandlung, 1858) which went through three editions and

sold over 150,000 copies.

These items were followed by two others, Die Auswanderung mit

besonderer Beziehung auf Minnesota (Hamburg: Hoffman und Campe,

1866) which was a translation by Pelz of a book by Thomas Rawlings, and

Vier Hauptfragen in der Auswanderungsangelegenheit (Hamburg: Hoff-

man und Campe, 1869); these were followed in 1870 by Pelz's own monthly

journal Der Pfadfinder with the subtitle "A Monthly for the Evaluation

of German Emigration and Immigration". The explicit purpose of the

latter was to promote Minnesota and to advertise the lands available for

colonization from the Northern Pacific Railroad, whose agent at that time

was Pelz. The focus of publications in the journal is not specifically on the

lower Minnesota River region, but it is obvious that one of the side effects

of Pelz's efforts was to bring German immigrants to this area as well.

Although a personal friend of Albert Wolff, Pelz was never editorially

[ 39 ]

involved with the German language press in Minnesota. He did contribute,

however, to the Bremen-based Auswanderer Zeitung. Praising the advan-

tages of Minnesota, particularly its climate, Pelz made a strenuous effort

to correct the then popular myth, still believed, that Minnesota is

America's Siberia.

Other states and in particular the railroad agents from

states farther south distributed adverse information which many a writer

as well as Pelz found it necessary to counter.

Thus, it was frequently

mentioned that the growing season was longer in Minnesota than in the

middle tier of States, and, according to a certain Dr. Anderson of Minne-

apolis, it was even claimed that in Minnesota the temperature could fall

as low as 20° with the right conditions and there would be no severe

damage to crops. One writer put it more encompassingly, "The atmosphere

in Minnesota in winter is like a wine, so exhilarating is its effect on the

system."

In the final analysis, the best place to counter false information

continued to be advertisements in the emigrant newspapers in the country

of origin of which there were at least five in Germany and two in Switzer-

land in 1855.

Some effort was also made to advertise in the German-

language papers in America's eastern states, among them the Schnellpost

of New York, the Telegraph of Buffalo, and Der Ohio Correspondent of

Chillicothe.

Investigating the role of journalists in bringing Germans to Minnesota

reveals an occasional opinion that a few of them may have actually dis-

suaded certain groups from coming, particularly the Catholics and those

Protestants who were not sympathetic to freethinkers. Alexander Berghold,

for example, wrote that the New Ulm Pionier, through its "misconception

of the idea of freedom brought great discredit upon the city of New Ulm,

especially among religious people. The same feelings were entertained

toward all who were not Germans, especially toward those whom they called

'Americans'."

Similar qualms existed in regard to the Minnesota Staats-

zeitung whose editor was Samuel Ludvigh.

Picking up essentially where the Deutsche Zeitung by Wolff and Orth-

wein left off in 1858, Ludvigh began publishing the Minnesota Staatszeitung

on July 24, 1858 with an editorial reminding his readers that he was a

materialist of the extreme left, one who was very well known to the German

public of North America, and one who was simultaneously very loved and

very hated by everyone. He proclaimed that he had come to beautiful

Minnesota after twenty-eight years of travels (Lust- Irr- und Geschäfts-

fahrten) on three continents. Immediately he took up the torch of the

Republicans in Minnesota, declaring in 1859 and 1860 that very few

intellectual Germans any longer belonged to the Democratic Party.

After considering thus far the reasons why German immigrants came

to the Minnesota River Valley and what influence German-language

journalists had in their coming, it would be well now to make some general

remarks about the influence of the German-language press on the regions.

To do so it would be appropriate to have some idea of the composite

circulation of German-language papers in the area between the representa-

tive years of 1870 and 1910. In the compilation, the figures used are given

in the book German-American Newspapers.

A casual glance at this

volume shows that those Minnesota German-language newspapers with

large circulations in the specific time period were distributed much more

widely than to the German population of the Minnesota River Valley.

In particular, the Minnehaha which was a Sunday insert of the St.

Paul Tägliche Volkszeitung was credited as having a circulation of 28,403

in 1905 but there is grave doubt that the Tägliche Volkszeitung was indeed

[ 40 ]

published as a daily after the year 1871.

As a matter of fact, it is doubtful

whether a daily German-language newspaper was ever really successful.

The St. Paul Volksblatt tried it unsuccessfully in 1859 and again from

1867-1871.

The Minneapolis Herold achieved it for less than a year in

1884; Die Presse briefly in 1885; and the St. Paul based Minnesota Staats-

Zeitung managed a three-times weekly edition for a time after 1868. Thus,

there is reason to doubt whether the Minnehaha ever achieved such a high

circulation as is reported in Arndt/Olson. There is no evidence, for instance,

that it was distributed with any other German-language paper anywhere

in the Northwest. Yet the Minnehaha continued after World War I on

its own as a semi-weekly paper.

Another paper that enjoyed a wide circulation was Der Wanderer,

a Roman Catholic weekly that began in 1867 with a circulation of about

3,000 and passed the 10,000 mark shortly after 1900. Bearing a subtitle

of "Glaube, Hoffe, Liebe", the Wanderer stated editorially at its inception

that it was called into being in the interests of truth and uprightness,

primarily because there was no other like-minded German-language news-

paper published in the whole of the Northwest, and none along the

Mississippi with the exception of the Herold des Glaubens in St. Louis.

Claiming approval of Bishop Grace, the paper promised to be a weekly

visitor in Catholic homes in support of Catholic spirituality. Accepting

ads from various areas of Minnesota and even Iowa, the paper seemed

to have fulfilled its goals admirably, at least in the earlier years.

Finally, the National Farmer und Familien Journal, began in 1902,

had a circulation as early as 1910 of 31,589 which grew steadily until 1924,

but it is evident in its very title that this publication had a large audience.

In summary, then, it is unlikely that the Minnehaha enjoyed as large a

circulation as is credited to it. Regarding the latter two publications, it

appears that their circulations went far beyond the target region, if not to

the whole nation.

Excluding these three, therefore, a tally of the composite circulations

of German-language newspapers in 1870 would amount to a mere 8,750.

In 1880, the figure failed to remain constant, dropping to about 7,000.

If we carry forward the 1880 figures for the two Twin Cities papers whose

circulations in 1890 are not available, we find a nearly constant figure

again of about 7,500 for the 1890 distribution. Moving to the year 1900,

composite circulations bounded to nearly 25,000. However, this leap is

deceptive inasmuch as the two most prominent St. Paul papers, the

Minnesota Volksblatt and the Minnesota Staats-Zeitung had by this time

merged with the Tägliche Omaha Tribüne, thus greatly swelling the

potential subscriptions. The Minneapolis Freie Presse-Herold, however,

enjoyed a circulation of 5,000 on its own in 1900. Begun in 1869 by the

distinguished German journalist, Lambert Nägele, founder of the New

Ulm Pionier,

the Presse-Herold continued to thrive until 1924, enjoying

in 1920 a circulation over 10,000 although by that time many of its facilities

had been merged with the Westlicher Herold Publishing Company of

Winona, Minnesota.

In other words, it cannot be assumed that the

circulation of 10,000 refers to the Minneapolis edition alone. The possible

audience for 1910 German-language newspapers in the Minnesota River

Valley, therefore, is not necessarily above the 8-10,000 figure that prevails

for earlier decades.

The conclusions that result from these data are that the Minnesota

River Valley territory supported between eight and ten thousand families

where a German newspaper was read regularly over the entire spread of

[ 41 ]

1870 to 1910, after which date the Germans were no longer the most popu-

lous foreign-born nationality in Minnesota, being then superceded by the

Swedish.

Looking forward from 1910, the conclusions that can be drawn

are: First, that the demise of the German press in Minnesota did not

result on a massive scale as a result of America's involvement against Ger-

many in World War I, as tends to be the pattern elsewhere.

Secondly,

German-language newspapers were founded and faded from the Minnesota

scene with seeming regularity from November 19, 1855 on, with a few still

publishing. Thirdly, the period between 1880 and 1910 witnessed a kind

of heyday in the number of independent German-language papers,

while

the years after 1920 saw the most substantial decline of publications and

circulations. Finally, as for the three mainstays of the Minnesota Valley,

the Minneapolis Freie Presse-Herold capitulated in 1924, having earlier

moved operations to Winona; the New Ulm Post continued almost a decade

longer, discontinuing finally in 1933 after nearly seventy years of service;

and back at the opposite end of the German-settled barbell, the St. Paul

Tägliche Volkszeitung, having merged with the Omaha Tribüne in 1937,

provided an overall circulation in 1935 of over 16,000 and continues today

as the St. Paul Volkszeitung-Tribüne.

Evaluating the political or cultural impact made by the German press

on the life of the Minnesota Valley is more difficult. However, a general

survey of all the available papers permits a few generalizations. One is that

the everyday life of the area formed a kind of cultural unit. Secondly,

that the two German cultural centers at opposite ends of the barbell

were some eightly miles apart did not seem to be a negative factor. The

advertisements, for example, indicate that local merchants in towns within

the area valued the patronage of customers throughout the region. One is

struck by the heavy advertising of the German-American Bank of St.

Paul, placed continuously for decades in most of the German papers of

the target area.

Thirdly, it is clear that Minnesota also had its share of

Männerchöre and many a Sängerfest. Ample attention was given in the

press to the Club life of the Germans and, in fact, the St. Paul Volksfreund

proclaimed that one of its primary functions would be to cover news of

the German organizations in the area.

Theater performances in German were also common, drawing praise and

criticism in the Twin City and New Ulm papers. Like German stages

throughout America in the nineteenth century, however, a great many

authors unknown today were played to rather undiscriminating audiences.

To Minnesota's credit, perhaps, August von Kotzebue was staged less in

the region than in many other German-American cities

while Friedrich

Schiller was by far the most-often staged classical German writer. Goethe's

Faust enjoyed some prominence and surprisingly Shakespeare's Hamlet,

Othello, and Merchant of Venice did run in German with considerable

interest shown by the major German papers.

Over the years, of course, German plays appeared on many city stages

in the target region, among them Mankato, Chaska, Osseo, New Rome,

Young America, Waconia, Carver, Faribault, Jordan, St. Peter, Shakopee,

and Waseca.

Surely the best playwrights as well as the finest German

theatrical performances in the region were those offered in the City of

St. Paul. Building on a long tradition from the first Thalia group which

existed already in 1858 to a kind of climax in the years after 1920, the

St. Paul German Theater was usually good and often distinguished. It

resulted eventually in the construction of Das deutsche Haus which was

completed in 1921 and thereafter served all the German organizations of

[ 42 ]

St. Paul, offering along with its other facilities a large hall with a fine

stage.

An item of national scope that interested the Valley German editors was

of course the temperance movement. As elsewhere, the Germans dealt

with the issue partly through the ballot box and partly through ridicule.

John P. Mueller, editor of Shakopee's Minnesota Post wrote, for instance,

that the Catholic University in Washington, D. C. planned to establish a

Chair on Temperance. But, he said, the professor would have as many

students in attendance as the Sanskrit professor who at that particular time

was on leave at the University of Göttingen. But if attendance were made

mandatory, "then the students will flee as if from a medieval torture chair,

and the temperance professor will become the University's student-scare-

crow."

To many Minnesota editors of German papers, the "English

water-preachers" were a kind of public enemy number one. A feeling

permeating editorials of the time is that the anti-alcohol advocates were

the enemy because in condeming liquor, they were really attacking the

German language and thus the very German identity in the United States.

Opposition to temperance and by association to the Republican Party

was widespread among the German papers. On the issue of public v. private

schools, there were attacks, for example, by the Minnesota Post on the

New Ulm Post, though usually such opinions depended on whether a paper

represented a Catholic, Protestant, or Freethinking clientele.

More often

than not, internecine conflicts hinged on whether one editor had strong

political feelings as opposed to another. In Minnesota, as elsewhere in the

United States, the German-American hero, Carl Schurz, enjoyed legendary

acclaim.

Minnesota Germans also were, for years, aware of the Indians. Ever

since the Sioux uprisings at New Ulm which wiped out the New Ulm

Pionier in August 1862, German papers in the target area were concerned

about Indian affairs. Mostly, it appears, the Germans wanted to render

the Indians into an agriculturally, self-sufficient people. As the problem

evolved from the level of physical threat into innocuous curiosity, editors

became less opinionated. In 1891, for example, stories were serialized on

how Sitting Bull actually died. On the broader subject of ethnic minorities,

a few editors feared that ill effects might accrue to the German element

on the coat tails of anti-Chinese laws which they believed to be the

products of "nativists" and "puritans".

In the final analysis, it must be maintained that no matter how strong

the German-language press was in the Minnesota River Valley, it was

never by itself an influential cultural force. This coagulant force must be

ascribed to the churches, either Lutheran or Catholic, and in the case of

New Ulm, Freethinkers.

Political boundaries, German state of origin,

shopping areas, and the German-language press all seem secondary in the

face of the overriding cohesive cultural forces of the churches. Important

as the press was, its influence was never a paramount force in Minnesota's

German element.

See Warren Upham, Minnesota Geographic Names: Their Origin and Historic Significance (St.

Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1920). For a description of the Undine region around Mankato

and its German significance, see p. 65. There are many more German place names outside the target

area: Hanover, Friesland, Potsdam, Danube, Flensburg, New Munich, Nassau, Humboldt, Elba, and

even "Prosit". Some township names include Germantown, Germania, Posen, Augsburg, Berlin,

Bismarck, Fanconia, Sigel, Frankfort, New Germany, North Germany, etc.

U. S. Censuses, 1860-1910. See also the maps and graphs showing percentages of German stock

in Minnesota in Hildegard Binder Johnson, "The Distribution of German Pioneer Population in Minne-

sota," Rural Sociology, 6 (March, 1941), 30-31. Additional information is available in official state

descriptions of Minnesota such as Minnesota As It is in 1870, Its General Resources and Attractions

[ 43 ]

for Immigrants, Invalids, Tourists, Capitalists and Business Men [partial title] ed. J. W. McClung

(St. Paul: Press Printing, 1870).

Livia Appel and Theodore C. Blegen, Official Encouragement of Immigration to Minnesota

During the Territorial Period," Minnesota History, 5 (1923), 177.

Theodore C. Blegen, "The Competition of the Northwestern States for Immigrants," Wisconsin

Magazine of History, 3 (1919-1920), 3-29, and Theodore C. Blegen, "Minnesota's Campaign for Immi-

grants," Yearbook of the Swedish Historical Society, 11 (1926), 3-28.

Preserved in the Governor's files # 608, the document is reprinted in the Yearbook of the

Swedish Historical Society (1926), 55-64.

Rev. Edward D. Neill, History of the Minnesota Valley (Minneapolis: North Star Publishing

Co.,1882), p. 355, John Massmann, "Friedrich Orthwein: Minnesota's First German Editor,

American-German Review, 26 (April-May, 1960), 16-17, and Karl J. R. Arndt and May E. Olson,

German-American Newspapers and Periodicals 1732-1955 (Heidelberg: Quelle and Meyer, 1961), 220,

who refer to the Thalbote as originating in 1856 in the town of Carver (whereas in fact it began in

Chaska in 1857) but do not associate Wolff's name with it.

Further evidence linking the name of Albert Wolff with the paper is available in Samuel G.

Ludvigh, " Nach dem Westen ; von St. Louis nach New Ulm in Minnesota," Die Fackel, 11 (1858), 217.

Ludvigh tells of stopping in Chaska where he spoke to a small gathering of Republicans and of

debating with the Democrat Wolff, editor of the local Thalbote. It should be pointed out at this

point that Arndt/Olson include in their bibliography, p. 790 the following reference: Herman [sic]

E. Rothfuss, "Copies of German Language Newspapers printed in Minnesota preserved in the Archives

of the Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota." The Society's archivists are unable to

identify such a collection. Furthermore, in a personal letter to me, dated November 17, 1971, Hermann

Rothfuss wrote: "I cannot give you any information concerning the item on page 790, Arndt/Olson.

In fact this is the first time I heard of it, but I can say that I do not possess any copies of old

German language newspapers."

See Poesie und Prosa aus dem literarischen Nachlass von Albert Wolff (St. Paul: Volkszeitung

Druck, 1894), 216 pages, available in the Minnesota Historical Society. For a brief description of

the Nachlass, see Lynwood Downs, "Albert Wolff," Minnesota History, 27 (December, 1946), 327-329.

For additional particulars about Orthwein and Wolff and other early German journalists in Minnesota,

see Daniel S. B. Johnston, "Minnesota Journalism in the Territorial Period," Collections of the

Minnesota Historical Society, 10, Pt. 1 (St. Paul: Minn. Hist. Society, 1905), 286-289 and 317-318. See

also John C. Massmann, "Friedrich Orthwein: A Case Study in Historical Investigation" (unpubl.

M. A. Thesis, Univ. of Minn., 1959).

The first essay was written by Mary J. Colburn, the second by William R. Smith. Copies of

the German pamphlets are available in the Minnesota Historical Library. See also Carlton C. Qualey,

"A New El Dorado: Guides to Minnesota, 1850's-1880's," Minnesota History, 52 (Summer, 1971),

215-224.

See "Notes on the Big Woods," Transactions of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society

(1875), 47-48. See also Rexford Daubenmire, "The 'Big Woods' of Minnesota: Its Structure, and

Relation to Climate, Fire and Soils," Ecological Monographs, 6 (April, 1936), 235-268.

For biographical data, see Der deutsche Pionier, 8 (Cincinnati, 1876), 213-227 and 282. See

also Hildegard Binder Johnson, "Edward Pelz and German Emigration," Minnesota History, 31

(December 1950), 222-230.

See, for example, Pelz, Über Auswanderung, with subtitle "Besonderer Abdruck aus der deutschen

Auswanderer Zeitung" No. 47-49 in the Minnesota Historical Society.

See the many official State of Minnesota publications on "Minnesota as a Home for Immigrants,"

as well as Philip D. Jordan, The People's Health: A History of Public Health in Minnesota to 1948,

especially Chapter I, "Salubrious Minnesota" (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1953). Also

Blegen in "Minnesota's Campaign," op. cit., 6 quotes from Hans Mattson, Minnesota's Immigrant

Agent who reports that "a prominent newspaper writer in Kansas accused me of selling my countrymen

to a life not much better than slavery in a land of ice, snow, and perpetual winter, where if the poor

emigrant did not soon starve to death, he would surely perish with the cold."

Ledyard Bill, Minnesota; its Character and Climate (New York: Wood and Holbrook, 1871), 71.

See Appel and Blegen, " Official Encouragement . . . During the Territorial Period," op. cit., 186.

See Cardinal Leonidas Goodwin, "The Movement of American Settlers into Wisconsin and

Minnesota," Iowa Journal of History and Politics, 17 (July, 1919), 420. See also La Vern J. Rippley,

"The Chillicothe Germans," Ohio History (Autumn, 1966), 217 ff..

A prolific writer on many subjects, Berghold was the Catholic pastor at New Ulm and is quoted

in Louis A. Fritsche, ed., History of Brown County, Minnesota, Its People, Industries, and Institutions,

Vol. I (Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen, 1916), 452.

Samuel Ludvigh was born in Grünz, Austria-Hungary in 1801 and traveled widely in Turkey,

Greece, and the Balkan countries until 1833 when his writings about the "Metternich System" brought

censorship and embitterment followed by departure for the United States. After working on German

papers in Philadelphia and Baltimore, he initiated Die Fackel in 1849, a Baltimore-based quarterly

which for the most part vented Ludvigh's own radical opinions. See Alexander Schem, Deutsch-

Amerikanisches Konversationslexikon, 6 (New York: Steiger, 1872), 657. For an overview of the

German Press in Minnesota in 1872, see Schem. VII, 369-370.

As regards Die Fackel, see Der Deutsche Pionier, ed., Heinrich Rattermann, 1 (1869), 358. See

also Dieter Cunz, The Maryland Germans (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948), 261-262. The

Minnesota Historical Society has volume 7 (1853) and volume 11 (1858) of Die Fackel.

See Arndt and Olson, 220-237.

Ibid., 228-229.

For information about the Volksblatt's founder, Philip Rohr, see Lynwood G. Downs, "Music

Moves West," Minnesota History, 20 (December, 1951), 239-242. Rohr was also linked with the

German edition of the Emigrant Aid Journal, the official paper of the now famous Minnesota ghost

town of Nininger. See Dudley S. Brainard, "Nininger, A Boom Town of the Fifties," Minnesota

History, 13 (June, 1932), 131.

Der Wanderer, November 16, 1867 and ff..

For details on the career of Lambert Nägele see Hermann E. Rothfuss, "Westward with the

News," The American-German Review, 20 (February-March, 1954), 22-25.

See also Isaac Atwater, ed., History of the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota (New York: Munsell,

1893), 377. "The freie Presse Herald is a weekly newspaper published in the German-language, and

is the only German newspaper in the city. The Freie Presse was founded in the year 1869 by some

German-American citizens of Minneapolis, mostly belonging to the Harmonia Society, the West

Minneapolis, St. Anthony-Turnverein and Lodges." In its early years the paper was edited by Dr.

A. Ortman and Anthony Grethen, lawyers who gave their services without pay. The first salaried

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editor was Theodore Hielcher. In December, 1890 the paper merged with the Minneapolis Herold,

a German weekly which was established in 1882. In 1892 the officers of the new Minneapolis Freie

Presse Herold are listed as: Otto E. Naegle, president, Arthur W. Schlichting, secretary and manager,

Adolph Duevel and Charles Baehr, directors, and Charles Baehr, editor. The paper was said to be

democratic in politics, and enjoying a circulation of nearly 10,000, a good reputation and offices in

the Evening Journal building. Some of this information augments and varies from what is furnished

in Arndt/Olson, 223. See also a file of clippings and manuscripts entitled "Lambert Naegle and Family

Papers" in the Minnesota Historical Society, and a feature story in the Minneapolis Tribune, August

17, 1952.

The story of the Westlicher Herold Company at Winona has not yet been told. This company

was involved in the production of countless German publications throughout the upper Midwest,

including Minneapolis papers, many from Wisconsin North Dakota and even Ohio.

See U. S. Census, 1910 and Johnson, "The Distribution of the German Pioneer Population," 19.

See Carl Wittke, The German Language Press in America (Lexington: University of Kentucky

Press, 1957).

Most of these had short lives, were bland with opinion, skimpy on news of local interest and

ill-equipped to receive major news stones. For the most part they are detailed in Arndt/Olson to

whose compilation little new information can be added. Regarding the Minnesota Staats-Anzeiger,

however, it could be included in Arndt/Oson, 228, that Julius Stackemann was editor from April 26-

July 26, 1889.

Headed for years by the brothers F. and G. Willius, the bank offered every possible financial

service for the German American. Currency transactions as well as business and financial dealings in

either country were available, even the services of a Prussian Consul, who for a time was F. Willius.

In later years, the ads announced that the bank existed for the general public, but for the German

public especially. See e. g. Minnesota Staats-Zeitung, January 4, 1877. Later in the century the bank

is proclaimed as the "Germania Bank" with officers Wm. Bickel, President, and P. M. Kerst, Cashier.

See St. Paul Volksfreund, September 22, 1894.

See, for example, La Vern J. Rippley, "German Theater in Columbus, Ohio," German-American

Studies, 1 (1970), 78-101.

Hermann E. Rothfuss, "Criticism of the German-American Theater in Minnesota," The Germanic

Review, 27 (April, 1952), 124-130, and "Early German Theater in Minnesota," 32 (Summer and

Autumn, 1951), 100-105 and 164-173.

Ibid., "Plays for Pioneers: German Drama in Rural Minnesota," Minnesota History, 35

(Summer, 1955), 239-242, and "Theodore Seidle, German Theater Pioneer," American-German Review,

17 (February, 1951), 17-19.

Oscar H. Rudnick, Das Deutschtum St. Pauls in Wort und Bild (St. Paul: n. p., 1924).

Pp. 69-107 cover the history of German Theater. Other chapters deal with the Vereine, etc.

Minnesota Post, April 13, 1893.

During this time Archbishop Ireland of St. Paul had become controversial in Minnesota and

beyond state borders for his Faribault Plan, which was an accommodation by which state monies were

funneled to Catholic Schools through an arrangement for the leasing of Catholic facilities by local

school districts.

The evidence derives from many papers. See also Hildegard Binder Johnson, " The Election of

1860 and the Germans in Minnesota," Minnesota History, 28 (March, 1947), 28 ff.

Minnesota Post, August 3, 1893.

See Esther A. Selke, " Pioneers of German Lutheranism in Minnesota," Minnesota History,

14 (March, 1933), 45-58, and Sister Grace McDonald, "Father Francis Pierz, Missionary," Minnesota

History, 10 (June, 1929), 106-125. See also Hildegard Binder Johnson, "Intermarriages Between

German Pioneers and Other Nationalities in Minnesota in 1860 and 1870," The American Journal of

Sociology, 51 (January, 1946), 229-304.

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