of Kreischerville, Staten Island, N. Y., born March 13, 1813, at
Hornbach, Bavaria. In December, 1835, occurred the great fire which
destroyed more than 600 buildings in the business part of New York
City. Young Kreischer, who had learned brick manufacture, was struck
with the opportunity that the disaster afforded to one of his trade.
He arrived in New York June 4, 1836, and helped to rebuild the burned
district. Discovered in New Jersey suitable species of clay for the
making of fire brick, which, up to this time had been imported from
England. Kreischer began to fight against the British monopoly, and
after discovering further valuable clay beds in Staten Island, drove
the English fire brick from the American market. He soon established
large works in New Jersey, Staten Island, Philadelphia and New York,
and by a constant study of new improvements built up the industry on
a lasting foundation. He was not only the discoverer of the valuable
deposits of clay, but became the founder of the fire brick industry
in the United States.
Seligman, Joseph, founder and head of the banking house of J. W.
Seligman & Co., New York, New Orleans and San Francisco, was born in
Bayersdorf, Bavaria, September 22, 1819. At the age of nineteen he
came to America. In 1862 he and his brothers founded their banking
house, which soon acquired a high reputation. During the darkest
hours of the rebellion, Mr. Seligman never swerved in his allegiance
to the National Government. In 1863, when the National credit was in
its most precarious condition, and when many even of the stoutest
hearts, began to fear for the ability of the Federal authorities to
successfully maintain the National integrity, Mr. Seligman introduced
the United States bonds to the people of Germany. His attempt was
crowned with the most gratifying success, and resulted in securing
for the Federal cause not merely money, but also foreign sympathy,
of which, it will be remembered, the nation had till then received
but little. The Government gratefully recognized the Seligmans as
government bankers.
Steinway, Henry Engelhard, of New York City, who, with his sons,
became founder of America’s greatest piano manufacturing industry
and inventor of the “grand piano,” was born February 15, 1797,
in Wolfshagen, Duchy of Brunswick, North Germany. The original
spelling of the name was Steinweg. He came to this country on June
5, 1850, with his family. “Steinway & Sons” were destined to become
the leading piano manufacturers in this country, whose fame became
world-wide, whose house was the rendezvous of the leading musicians
and whose activities are felt to this day. (Encyclopaedia of
Contemporary Biography of New York, Vol. II, 1882.)
Starin, Hon. John Henry, ex-member of Congress, whose name for many
decades was so prominently identified with New York’s railroad
and steamboat transportation, was born in Sammonsville, N. Y. His
paternal ancestor, Nicholas Starin (or Sterne, as the name was then
spelled), was a native of Germany, and came to America about the year
1720, and settled in the Mohawk Valley, upon the German Flats. John
Starin, his seventh son, fought in the Revolutionary War, being one
of ten members of the Starin family who served in the American army
under Washington.
William Havemeyer, founder of America’s great sugar refining
industry, came here from Germany in 1799, and settled in New York.
He brought with him a knowledge of his business from Bückenburg,
Germany, and started what was one of the earliest refineries in New
York, and has later developed into the Sugar Trust with which his
descendants have been identified as leaders. (Makers of New York,
Hamersly & Co., Philadelphia, 1895.)
Bergh, Henry, founder of the first society in America for the
prevention of cruelty to animals, was born in New York, 1823. He was
of German descent, the family having come to America about 1740.
Christian Bergh, father of the philanthropist, was a ship builder.
(Makers of New York, Hamersly & Co., Philadelphia, 1895.)
Gunther, Charles Godfred, mayor of New York in 1864, was born in that
city in 1822. His father, Christian G. Gunther, a German by birth,
was for more than half a century the leading fur merchant in the
metropolis. (Makers of New York, Hamersly & Co., Philadelphia, 1895.)
Mayer, Charles Frederick, former president of the Baltimore & Ohio
Railroad Co., was a son of Lewis Mayer, one of the first men to
develop the anthracite coal regions of Pennsylvania. The father of
Lewis Mayer was Christian Mayer, who emigrated from Germany and
settled in Baltimore, where he became one of the leading merchants.
(Makers of New York, Hamersly & Co., Philadelphia, 1895.)
Ottendorfer, Oswald, was born at Zwittau and educated at Vienna. He
came to New York in 1850, having been involved in the revolutionary
outbreak in Vienna. He became eminent as the editor and proprietor of
the “New Yorker Staats-Zeitung.” (Makers of New York, Hamersly & Co.,
Philadelphia, 1895.)
Ziegler, William, born of German parents, in Beaver County, Pa., in
1843, was the founder of the baking powder industry in this country,
in which he accumulated a fortune. (Makers of New York, Hamersly &
Co., Philadelphia, 1895.)
Windmueller, Louis, a prominent merchant and reformer of New York,
was born in Westphalia, emigrating to this country in 1853. He was
one of the founders of the Reform Club and of many of the leading
banking institutions in the city.
Eberhard Faber, founder of the American lead pencil industry, born
near Nuremberg in 1820; Friedrich Meyerhaeuser, the American lumber
king, born 1834 in Hessia; Klaus Spreckels, founder of the American
beet sugar industry, in Hanover in 1828; G. Martin Brill, largest car
manufacturer, born February, in Cassel.
John Valentin Steger, for whom a well-known piano is named, came
to the United States from Germany at the age of 17 in the steerage
and died in Chicago, June 14, 1916, aged 62, founder of the town of
Steger and president of the J. V. Steger & Sons Mfg. Co., and of
the Singer Piano Mfg. Co., the Reed & Sons Mfg. Co., the Thompson
Piano Mfg. Co., and of the Bank of Steger; also vice-president of
the Flanner Land & Lumber Co. In his will he left a large sum for a
hospital and library for his employees.
From the earliest period of New York’s financial district, Germans
and men of German blood have occupied a predominant part in the
financial life of this country, firstly because fundamental banking
principles are taught in Germany as nowhere else, and secondly for
the reason that subjects, such as foreign exchange, necessitate such
deep technical knowledge that it would appear only German minds can
thoroughly grasp them. It is an actual fact that even today, the
foreign exchange business of Wall Street, even that part of the
business handled and controlled by Morgan & Company and the National
City Bank, is in the hands of Germans.
Among the greatest of Wall Street operators of the end of the last
century, the days of Jay Gould, Russell Sage, Addison Cammack, etc.,
Germans predominated and were triumphant victors in most of the
great Wall Street speculative battles. Henry Villard, who came to
this country from Germany, was the chief center of American railroad
finance in the historic period from 1879 to 1884. He it was who
captured the Northern Pacific Railroad from the Wall Street banking
groups.
Another figure of this time was the great bear operator, probably the
most powerful and successful bear operator that Wall Street has ever
seen, Charles Frederick Woerishoffer, who died in 1886. He was born
in Gelnshausen, Germany, and coming to this country, founded the firm
of Woerishoffer & Company. He was connected with the famous campaigns
in Wall Street conducted by James R. Keene, Jay Gould, Russell Sage,
Addison Cammack, etc., for the control of the Kansas Pacific Railroad
in 1879. Henry Clews, the English stockbroker, says of him in his
reminiscences of Wall Street: “Woerishoffer had the German idea of
fighting in the open, as against the secret operations of Commodore
Vanderbilt and the others. He lost some battles but won most of those
in which he engaged and made millions out of the conflicts.”
Joseph Drexel came to this country from Germany in 1787. He is the
real founder of the house of Morgan & Company. Drexel founded the
banking house of Drexel and Company in Philadelphia and Drexel,
Morgan & Company, New York. He built up a successful banking
business, in which his sons became interested, and at his death they
inherited his fortune.
August Belmont, the elder, was born in Alzey, Prussia, in 1816,
and died in 1890, leaving his son to manage the banking house he
founded. He had been a clerk in the Rothschild banking house in
Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany, and when he came to this country, he
was the American representative of that world historic firm, which
position his son of the same name occupies today. The elder Belmont
was the founder of the Manhattan Club in New York.
Henry Bischoff, founder of the banking house of Bischoff & Company,
was born in Baden, Germany. Lazarus Hallgarten, of Mayence, Germany,
was the founder of the banking house of Hallgarten & Company. Isaac
Ickelheimer, a native of Frankfort, Germany, was the founder of the
banking firm of Heidelbach, Ickelheimer & Company. Frederick Kuehne,
who was born in Magdeburg, Germany, established the banking house of
Knauth, Nachod & Kuehne. Jacob Schiff, one of the foremost bankers
of Wall Street at the present time, was also born in Frankfort. He
is the head of Kuhn, Loeb and Company. Ernst Thalmann, who died
recently, was one of the founders of Ladenburg, Thalmann & Company.
He was also of German birth. James Speyer, head of Speyer & Company,
is a member of the old Frankfort family of that name, and obtained
his financial education in Germany. In fact, the majority of banking
houses in Wall Street as they exist today were founded by Germans.
Adolphus Busch, the great brewer and philanthropist, was born at
Mayence-on-the-Rhine, July 10, 1839; education at gymnasium, Mayence,
and academy, Darmstadt, and high school, Brussels. Came to United
States, 1857. Served in the Union army under Gen. Lyon and became
associated with his father-in-law, E. Anheuser, in the Anheuser
Brewing Co., and later became president of the famous Anheuser-Busch
Brewing Assn. of St. Louis, largest brewing concern in the world. At
the time of his death was president of five large concerns, including
a local bank and Diesel Engine Co., and director St. Louis Union
Trust Co., Third National Bank, Kinloch Telephone Co., Equitable
Surety Co., and several other strong organizations. Mr. Busch was
a high type of the self-made German-American. He gave a large sum
(twice) to the Harvard German Museum, the Germanistic Society of
Columbia University, and to other public institutions of science and
learning, and his death, Oct. 10, 1913, was universally regretted.
John D. Rockefeller and John Wanamaker are both descendants of German
immigrants. The forefather of the Standard Oil King, Johann Peter
Roggenfelder, came over in 1735 from Bonnefeld, Rhenish Prussia,
and is buried at Larrison Corners, N. J., while Mr. Wannamaker,
former Postmaster General and the father of the department store, is
descended from a Pennsylvania German family named Wannenmacher.
=The German American Vote.=--The following table shows the vote of
the Germans, Austrians and Hungarians (according to the census of
1910) in ten states where their vote is above 40,000, the figures
being compounded of those naturalized and those having applied for
their first papers:
Germans Austrians Hungarians Total
New York 163,881 41,466 16,123 221,470
Illinois 124,430 30,461 5,374 160,265
Wisconsin 92,655 11,385 1,620 105,660
Ohio 68,576 12,342 8,757 89,675
Michigan 52,510 4,113 1,011 57,634
Minnesota 46,281 9,515 1,022 56,718
New Jersey 44,899 7,403 4,448 56,750
Iowa 39,348 4,802 249 44,399
Missouri 35,267 4,115 1,835 41,217
California 34,911 5,135 1,065 41,111
These figures are but remotely representative of what is called “the
German vote” or the vote of the Austro-Hungarians, as no account is
here taken of the first generation born in the United States, the
sons of these naturalized Americans, nor of their grandsons.
With the first generation of German Americans, the total vote in 1916
of this element in New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri,
Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Indiana, New Jersey, California, Nebraska,
Kansas and the two Dakotas amount to 1,860,500.
New England, which was the center of anti-German sentiment as it is
the center of puritanism and Anglo-American hyphenation, contains the
smallest number of Germans and the largest number of aliens of any
section in the United States; in other words, the lowest percentage
of naturalized citizens among the foreign-born white men of the age
of 21 and over--40.7 per cent. The highest proportion of naturalized
foreign-born above 21 years was in the West North Central division,
that is Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota,
Nebraska and Kansas, where the Teutonic element is largely settled.
Table 25 of the U. S. Census Bulletin on Population (1910) “Voting
Age, Military Age, and Naturalization,” shows that the German aliens
21 years and over, all told, number only 127,103, and the Germans
stand at the foot of the list of twenty-nine (alien immigrants) or
9.9 per cent., the highest being 83 per cent. The French aliens in
the United States numbered 27.8 per cent., the Scotch 21.8, and the
English 19.6. In other words, only 9.9 in every hundred of Germans
could not be forced to go to war, but nearly 28 out of every hundred
Frenchmen, 21.5 out of every hundred Scotchmen, and more than 19 out
of every hundred Englishmen were immune from military duty in the
United States, also from the payment of taxes.
There are more German-born persons in the United States of the age of
21 and over than there are persons of any other foreign nationality.
Of the total number of foreign-born (6,646,817), Germany is
represented by 1,278,667, of whom 69.5 per cent. had been naturalized
in 1910. Russia comes next, with 737,120, of whom only 26.1 per cent.
were naturalized. There were 437,152 Englishmen of voting age, 59.4
of whom were naturalized, while only 49.6 per cent. out of a total of
59,661 Frenchmen of voting age were entitled to vote.
The following table shows the States containing the largest number of
Germans of voting age of all foreign-born citizens:
By Sections:--
Germans Austrians Hungarians
East North Central 461,038 166,037 90,577
West ” ” 228,262 63,686 ----
South Atlantic 32,143 10,961 6,007
East South Central 15,154 1,719 ----
Pacific 73,302 23,500 ----
By States:--
Germans Austrians Hungarians
New Jersey 60,380 26,082 22,773
Ohio 87,013 38,400 47,852
Indiana 32,123 7,356 9,383
Illinois 159,112 81,883 20,391
Wisconsin 117,661 20,700 6,014
Iowa 52,393 8,580 ----
Missouri 47,038 8,819 5,834
South Dakota 11,964 3,099 ----
Nebraska 31,008 12,184 ----
Kansas 18,910 6,178 ----
Maryland 17,370 3,397 967
Colorado 9,558 8,221 ----
Oregon 10,786 3,622 ----
California 44,712 11,125 ----
In the following States the German-born citizens of voting age
constitute the second largest number of foreign-born citizens:
Germans Austrians Hungarians
Michigan 65,129 17,698 6,937
Minnesota 57,789 22,261 ----
Texas 24,039 9,767 ----
In Michigan the Germans and Austrians together outnumbered the
Canadians 3,588. In Minnesota the Swedes came first, with a total of
67,003, and in Texas the Germans were outnumbered only by Mexicans.
The German-born of voting age in New York State are outnumbered by
Russians and Italians, but as 68.2 per cent. of the 215,310 are
citizens, only 17.5 per cent. of the Italians and only 24.4 of the
Russians had acquired the franchise in 1910, the Germans outclass
them numerically as voters. They are third also in Washington with a
total of 17,804, next after the Canadians with 20,395 and the Swedes
with 19,727. Of the Germans, however, 66.9 per cent. were naturalized
while only 55.1 per cent. of the Canadians had their franchise,
giving the Germans the advantage when the votes are counted.
Germans Austrians Hungarians
New York 215,310 105,889 39,577
Washington 19,727 9,675 ----
In Pennsylvania Germans of voting age are outnumbered by Austrians,
Russians and Italians in the order named; but only 12.4 per cent.
of the Austrians, 21.9 per cent. of the Russians and 13.7 per cent.
of the Italians had the franchise, whereas 66.5 of the Germans were
citizens.
In North Dakota the Norwegians, Russians and Canadians outnumbered
the Germans in the order named, and here all had become citizens in
fairly relative proportion, as also in Montana, where the Germans of
voting age were outnumbered by the Canadians, Irish and Austrians.
Germans Austrians Hungarians
Pennsylvania 95,539 145,528 68,522
North Dakota 9,160 2,565 1,096
Montana 5,419 6,067 ----
In New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut the
total number of German-born voters was only 33,011, Austrians 29,686
and Hungarians 6,377, and these were principally in Massachusetts and
Connecticut. Maine had none.
The following table shows the number of Germans, Austrians and
Hungarians who were citizens in 1910, including those who had taken
out their first papers:
Germans 1,017,037
Austrians 208,550
Hungarians 62,366
---------
Total 1,287,953
In addition, the citizenship of a total of 240,953 Germans, Austrians
and Hungarians had not been reported. The following shows the number
of Irish, Swedes, Swiss and Hollanders of voting age in 1910,
including those who had applied for their first citizenship papers:
Irish 439,973
Swedes 259,305
Hollanders 40,332
Swiss 49,364
--------
Total 788,974
Other States in which German-born naturalized males of 21 or over
lead all other foreign-born are:
Kentucky 7,380
Tennessee 1,509
Alabama 1,255
Mississippi 647
Arkansas 2,203
Louisiana 2,739
Oklahoma 4,071
Idaho 2,133
Wyoming 1,091
New Mexico 804
Arizona 852
Nevada 922
Delaware 903
District of Columbia 1,952
Virginia 1,547
North Carolina 365
South Carolina 570
Georgia 1,174
West Virginia 2,137
Florida 925
In West Virginia the total number of Italians was 11,561 against only
3,392 Germans, but only 748 Italians had become citizens against
2,137 Germans; and in Arizona there were 2,196 English as compared
with 1,324 Germans, but 825 Germans had become citizens as compared
with 832 English-born.
Of the 234,285 Russians in New York only 92,269 had become
naturalized and taken out their first papers. In Minnesota were
52,133 Swedish voters, in Illinois 43,618, in Iowa 10,636, in
Wisconsin 11,532, in Nebraska 10,000, in Washington 13,393, and in
California 11,076.
=The German Element in American Life.=--The following commentary of
Carl Schurz on the influence of the Germans in America is worthy of
note:
“Friedrich Kapp, in his ‘History of the Germans in the State of New
York,’ says: ‘In the battle waged to subdue the new world, the Latins
supplied officers without an army, the English an army with officers,
and the Germans an army without officers.’ This is signally true as
regards the Germans. They emigrated to America and settled here as
squatters without eminent official leadership. They became parts of
already existing communities, in which a majority population of other
nationality played a dominant role. Unlike ‘the army with officers,’
they possessed no official writers of history to record their deeds
and sayings in regular reports. They had lost their political
connection with their native land, and whatever interest they
inspired at home was of a personal or family nature. Besides this,
they were strongly isolated from communion with the predominating
nationality by the difference in language and frequently were
forced into the unfavorable position of an alien element. These
various circumstances combined to accord them a rather superficial,
stepmotherly treatment in the history of the American people, as
written by the dominant nationality.”--From the introduction to
Kapp’s “Die Deutschen im Staate New York.”
While Prof. Nearing, Douglas Campbell, Dr. Griffis and others
have shown that the Americans are not an English people, the
latter--including Scotch and Welsh--constituting only 30 per cent.
of the American people, the advantage as historians, which the
English-speaking element enjoyed from the beginning of our life as a
nation, prompted them to assume the name of “Americans” and to regard
the people of all other races and their descendants as usurping an
unwarranted right in calling themselves Americans, so that today an
American with a German name, as the war has shown, is somehow in a
tolerated class distinct from his Anglo-American neighbors.
“Yet the first distinctive American frontier was not created alone
by the movement of population westward from the older settlements;
like every successive frontier in our history it became the Mecca
of emigrants from British and Continental lands. Before 1700 exiled
Huguenots and refugees from the (German) Palatinate began to seek the
new world, and during the eighteenth century men of non-English stock
poured by thousands into the up-country of Pennsylvania and of the
South. In 1700 the foreign population of the colonies was slight; in
1775 it is estimated that 225,000 Germans and 385,000 Scotch-Irish,
together nearly one-fifth of the entire population, lived within the
provinces that won independence.”--“The Beginning of the American
People,” by Prof. Carl L. Becker, University of Kansas; Houghton
Mifflin & Co., 1915; p. 177.
Elson, in his “History of the United States,” p. 198, says that in
New England and the South the people were almost wholly of English
stock, though New England was of more purely English stock than was
the South, with a sprinkling of Scotch-Irish and other nationalities,
and especially in the South, of French Huguenots and Germans. “In the
middle colonies less than half the population was English; the Dutch
of New York, the Germans of Pennsylvania, the Swedes of Delaware and
the Irish of all these colonies, together with small numbers of other
nationalities, made up more than half the population.” He gives the
total population of the colonies in 1760 at approximately 1,600,000.
Pennsylvania is sometimes called “The American German’s Holy Land.”
Let us see why. Today, as the tourist visits Heidelberg on the
Neckar, sails down the Rhine from Spires or Mannheim to Cologne,
he sees many ivy-mantled ruins, which show how terribly Louis XIV
of France desolated this region during his ferocious wars. Angry
at the Germans and Dutch for sheltering his hunted Huguenots, he
invaded the Rhine Palatinate, which became for a whole generation the
scene of French fire, pillage, rapine and slaughter. Added to these
troubles of war and politics, were those of religious persecutions;
for, according as the prince electors were Protestants or Catholics,
so the people were expected to change as suited their rulers, who
compelled their subjects to be of the same faith. Tired of their
long-endured miseries, the Palatine Germans, early in the eighteenth
century, fled to England. Under the protection and kindly care of the
British government, they were aided to come to America. About 5,000
settled in the Hudson, Mohawk and Schoharie valleys in New York, and
over 25,000 in Pennsylvania, chiefly in the Schuylkill and Swatara
region between Bethlehem and Harrisburg. Later came Germans from
other parts of the Fatherland, making Colonists rich in the sturdy
virtues of the Teutonic race.