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Papers by Walter Kamphoefner

Yearbook of German-American Studies, Jul 20, 2022

Texas stands apart in the degree to which the German language has persisted across the generation... more Texas stands apart in the degree to which the German language has persisted across the generations, more strongly than in any other state, except with groups such as the Pennsylvania "Dutch," where it was reinforced and sheltered by separatist religion. 1 In the 1940 U.S. Census, the first to tally mother tongue of the whole population and not just the immigrant generation, Texas was the only state where German speakers of the third generation (with no immigrants closer than their grandparents) outnumbered German speakers of the second generation (American-born children of immigrants). 2 In order to identify the factors that promoted this heritage language preservation, Texas Germans will be compared with Germans of my native Missouri, taking advantage of my familiarity with various communities in the two states. 3 This is primarily an essay in the social history of ethnicity and language, but linguists have made significant contributions on the subject of heritage language persistence and factors influencing the transition to the majority language. 4 However, the phonological or morphosyntactic developments taking place on the threshold to "language death" are of no concern here. 5 Rather, the prime concern is the degree of heritage language persistence relative to the size of the ethnic population of potential speakers, and whether or where the three-generation model of linguistic assimilation is confirmed or contradicted. 6 One question regarding the transition to English by Texans or Missourians of German heritage is "were they pushed or did they jump (voluntarily)?" Or to put it another way, was Henry Ford's Model T or Kaiser Wilhelm (i.e., the repercussions of World War I) more responsible for the decline of German. 7 Although evidence of wartime repression is not hard to find, its role can be easily exaggerated, especially in communities with a large German

Yearbook of German-American Studies

In his 1917 Independence Day address shortly after the United States entered World War I, former ... more In his 1917 Independence Day address shortly after the United States entered World War I, former president Theodore Roosevelt fulminated against what he called hyphenated Americans, conflating language and loyalty: "We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language. .. and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." 1 Ever since then, nativists have echoed this statement and sentiment, conflating heritage language preservation with political disloyalty. 2 But they have missed something important. There are refutations of this claim written in stone in cemeteries across the nation: commemorations of Americans who died in service to their country during World War I on gravestones in a half-dozen languages other than English. The first to catch my attention was a chance discovery at New Ulm, Texas: an American soldier who paid the ultimate sacrifice in France, commemorated with a bilingual tombstone in Czech and English, and this for someone of the third generation. Further investigation on Find-a-Grave.com revealed tombstones of other men who died in American service in World War I commemorated in Polish, Spanish, Hebrew, Italian, and even in German, the latter from Wisconsin to Missouri to Texas, sometimes with no English whatsoever on the monument. Like the Czech-American soldier, many of these doughboys were of the third generation. 3 Recent investigations have turned up something even more surprising: despite the widespread crusades against all things German, some U.S. soldiers in the field were writing home in the German language. On the basis of digitized German American newspapers alone, evidence of such German letters was located in five different states. Unlike the tombstone inscriptions probably selected by the parental generation, these men themselves, some of them in the third generation, chose to write home in German. This discov

The American Historical Review, 1989

Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook, 1992

Dieser Pionier der amerikanischen Wirtschaftsund Sozialstatistik hatte zweifellos recht mit seine... more Dieser Pionier der amerikanischen Wirtschaftsund Sozialstatistik hatte zweifellos recht mit seiner Beobachtung, auch wenn er versäumte zu sagen, woran man zu erkennen vermochte, ob der Beruf den Wohnort bestimmte oder umgekehrt. Trotzdem erscheint uns Walkers Einsicht hilfreich, um eine Paradoxie der deutschamerikanischen Auswanderung zu erklären: den hohen Urbanisierungsgrad dieser Gruppe in der Neuen Welt.' Während des ganzen 19. Jahrhunderts waren die Deutschen in den USA viel stärker urbanisiert als ihre Landsleute zu Hause oder die amerikanische Bevölkerung insgesamt, und das, obwohl die Landbevölkerung am stärksten an der Auswanderung beteiligt war. Die erste Volkszählung des neugegründeten Deutschen Reichs erfaßte in Städten mit mehr als 20.000 Einwohnern lediglich 12,6 Prozent der Reichsbevölkerung. Dagegen wohnten gut 39 Prozent aller Deutschamerikaner sowohl 1870 als auch 1880 in den fönfzig größten Städten Amerikas mit Einwohnerzahlen von 25.000 bzw. 35.000 an aufwärts. Der Anteil der

The American Historical Review, 1993

A telling incident took place in a small Texas town in 1916: not the greatest year for German-Sla... more A telling incident took place in a small Texas town in 1916: not the greatest year for German-Slavic relations on either side of the Atlantic, one might think. But even at this late date, the German language was still being taught in the public schools of Needville, Texas, about 60 km southwest of Houston, using a book originally published for the St. Louis public elementary schools. In the wartime anti-German hysteria, school authorities in Needville ordered all these textbooks to be gathered and burned, but one copy was rescued and preserved–ironically not by a German-American pupil, but by a Czech girl in the second grade, whose parents spoke German as well as Czech, and wanted her to learn the language. As my essay will demonstrate, this was only the tip of the iceberg. In Texas and much of the Midwest, especially in rural areas, relations between German immigrants and their Czech, Polish, and Sorbian neighbors was for the most part quite friendly. Much of this was based on thei...

Urbanisierung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, 1983

International Migration Review, 1986

Social Science History, 2017

This article examines the demographic and occupational selectivity of German immigration to South... more This article examines the demographic and occupational selectivity of German immigration to South America (primarily Argentina and Brazil) and Australia, compared to Germans bound for the United States, and the geographic and occupational niches they occupied at various destinations. It draws upon both individual-level and aggregate data from censuses and migration records on three continents to examine occupational profiles, urbanization rates, sex ratios, age structure, and age heaping as a rough measure of “quality,” among German immigrants to these destinations, concluding that immigration to the United States tended to be the least selective.

Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos, 1999