The Great Disappearing Act : Germans in New York City, 1880-1930 / Christina A. Ziegler-McPherson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ziegler-McPherson, Christina A., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

German Americans--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century.

German Americans.

German Americans--New York (State)--New York--Social conditions--20th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (239 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press, [2022]

Summary:

Where did all the Germans go? How does a community of several hundred thousand people become invisible within a generation? This study examines these questions in relation to the German immigrant community in New York City between 1880-1930, and seeks to understand how German-American New Yorkers assimilated into the larger American society in the early twentieth century. By the turn of the twentieth century, New York City was one of the largest German-speaking cities in the world and was home to the largest German community in the United States. This community was socio-economically diverse and increasingly geographically dispersed, as upwardly mobile second and third generation German Americans began moving out of the Lower East Side, the location of America’s first Kleindeutschland (Little Germany), uptown to Yorkville and other neighborhoods. New York’s German American community was already in transition, geographically, socio-economically, and culturally, when the anti-German/One Hundred Percent Americanism of World War I erupted in 1917. This book examines the structure of New York City’s German community in terms of its maturity, geographic dispersal from the Lower East Side to other neighborhoods, and its ultimate assimilation to the point of invisibility in the 1920s. It argues that when confronted with the anti-German feelings of World War I, German immigrants and German Americans hid their culture – especially their language and their institutions – behind closed doors and sought to make themselves invisible while still existing as a German community. But becoming invisible did not mean being absorbed into an Anglo-American English-speaking culture and society. Instead, German Americans adopted visible behaviors of a new, more pluralistic American culture that they themselves had helped to create, although by no means dominated. Just as the meaning of “German” changed in this period, so did the meaning of “American” change as well, due to nearly 100 years of German immigration.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Illustrations

Introduction

1. A Snapshot of Kleindeutschland in 1880

2. Climbing the Economic Ladder in Kleindeutschland in 1880

3. Decades of Change, 1880–1900

4. Disappearing and Remembering: The June 15, 1904, General Slocum Disaster

5. A False Sense of Security, 1904–1914

6. Becoming Invisible: German New Yorkers during World War I

7. The Great Disappearing Act, 1919–1930

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Ziegler-McPherson, Christina A. The Great Disappearing Act

ISBN:

9781978823228

1978823223

OCLC:

1287136578