Forty-Eighters

For the prospectors known as forty-eighters, see California Gold Rush.

The Forty-Eighters were Europeans who participated in or supported the revolutions of 1848 that swept Europe. In Germany, the Forty-Eighters favored unification of the German people, a more democratic government, and guarantees of human rights.[1] Disappointed at the failure of the revolution to bring about the reform of the system of government in Germany or the Austrian Empire and sometimes on the government's wanted list because of their involvement in the revolution, they gave up their old lives to try again abroad. Many emigrated to the United States, England, and Australia after the revolutions failed. They included Germans, Czechs, Hungarians, and others. Many were respected, wealthy, and well-educated; as such, they were not typical migrants. A large number went on to be very successful in their new countries.

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Forty-Eighters in the USA

In the United States, many Forty-Eighters opposed nativism and slavery, in keeping with the liberal ideals that had led them to flee Germany. Several thousand enlisted in the Union Army, where they became prominent in the Civil War. In the Camp Jackson Affair, a large force of German volunteers helped prevent Confederate forces from seizing the government arsenal in St. Louis just prior to the beginning of the war.[2]

Many Forty-Eighters settled in the Texas Hill Country in the vicinity of Fredericksburg, and voted heavily against Texas's secession. In the Bellville area of Austin County, another destination for Forty-Eighters, the German precincts voted decisively against the secession ordinance.[3]

More than 30,000 Forty-Eighters settled in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. There they helped define the distinct German culture of the neighborhood, but in some cases also brought a rebellious nature with them from Germany. During violent protests in 1853 and 1854, Forty-Eighters were held responsible for the killing of two law enforcement officers.[4] In the Cincinnati Riot of 1853, in which one demonstrator was killed, Forty-Eighters violently protested the visit of the papal emissary Cardinal Gaetano Bedini, who had repressed revolutionaries in the Papal States in 1849.[5]

Many German Forty-Eighters settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, helping solidify that city's progressive political bent and cultural Deutschtum. The Acht-und-vierzigers and their descendants contributed to the development of that city's long Socialist political tradition.[6]

After the Civil War, Forty-Eighters supported improved labor laws and working conditions. They also advanced the country's cultural and intellectual development in such fields as education, the arts, medicine, journalism, and business.

Notable German Forty-Eighters in the US

Notable Czech Forty-Eighters in the US

Notable Hungarian Forty-Eighters in the US

Notable Irish Forty-Eighters in the US

Forty-Eighters in England

Giuseppe Mazzini used London as a place of refuge before and after the revolutions of 1848. In the early years after the failure of the revolutions of 1848, a group of German Forty-Eighters and others met in a salon organized by Baroness Méry von Bruiningk in St. John's Wood, England.[21] The baroness was a Russian of German descent who was sympathetic with the goals of the revolutionaries. Among the people who attended her salon, hosted by herself and her husband Ludolf August von Bruiningk, were Carl Schurz, Gottfried and Johanna Kinkel, Ferdinand Freiligrath, Alexander Herzen, Louis Blanc, Malwida von Meysenbug, Adolf Strodtmann, Johannes and Bertha Ronge, Alexander Schimmelfennig, Wilhelm Loewe-Kalbe and Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim.[22]

Carl Schurz reports “A large number of refugees from almost all parts of the European continent had gathered in London since the year 1848, but the intercourse between the different national groups — Germans, Frenchmen, Italians, Hungarians, Poles, Russians — was confined more or less to the prominent personages. All, however, in common nourished the confident hope of a revolutionary upturning on the continent soon to come. Among the Germans there were only a few who shared this hope in a less degree. Perhaps the ablest and most important person among these was Lothar Bucher, a quiet, retiring man of great capacity and acquirements, who occupied himself with serious political studies.”[23]

Other Germans who fled to England for a time were Ludwig Bamberger,[24] Arnold Ruge, Alexandre Ledru-Rollin and Franz Sigel. Along with several of the above, Sabine Freitag also lists Gustav Adolf Techow, Eduard Meyen, Graf Oskar von Reichenbach, Josef Fickler and Amand Goegg.[25] Karl Blind became a writer in England.

Hungarian refugee Gustav Zerffi became an English citizen and worked as a historian in London. Lajos Kossuth, a Hungarian revolutionary, toured England and then the United States, and then formed a government in exile in England.

Heligoland

In addition, the British possession of Heligoland was a destination for refugees, for example Rudolf Dulon.

Forty-Eighters in Holland

Ludwig Bamberger was in Holland for a time,[24] as was Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim.[26]

Forty-Eighters in France

Ludwig Bamberger settled in Paris and worked in a bank from 1852 until the amnesty of 1866 allowed him to return to Germany.[24] Carl Schurz was in France for a time before moving on to England.[27] He stayed there with Adolf Strodtmann.

Forty-Eighters in Switzerland

The following were all refugees from Germany:

Forty-Eighters in Australia

In 1848, the first non-British ship carrying immigrants to arrive in Victoria was from Germany; the Goddefroy, on February 13. Many of those on board were political refugees. Some Germans also travelled to Australia via London.

Many Germans became vintners or worked in the wine industry; others founded Lutheran churches. By 1860, for example, about 70 German families lived in Germantown, Victoria. (When World War I broke out, the town was renamed Grovedale.) In Adelaide, a German Club was founded in 1854 which played a major role in society.

Notable Australian Forty-Eighters

Peripatetic Forty-Eighters

See also

References

  1. ^ "Forty-Eighters," Handbook of Texas Online.http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/FF/pnf1.html
  2. ^ Scott Williams. "THE ROLE OF GERMAN IMMIGRANTS IN CIVIL WAR - MISSOURI". The Missouri Civil War Museum. http://www.mcwm.org/history_germans.html. Retrieved January 10, 2011. 
  3. ^ Charles Christopher Jackson: Austin County from the Handbook of Texas Online. Retrieved December 23, 2008.
  4. ^ Officer Down Memorial Page: Deputy Sheriff Thomas Higdon
  5. ^ James F. Connelly (1960). The visit of Archbishop Gaetano Bedini to the United States of America: June 1853-February 1854. Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana. p. 96ff. ISBN 8876520821. http://books.google.ca/books?id=tMujE27nNvcC&pg=PA96. Retrieved 2010-10-25. 
  6. ^ Holzman, Hani M. The German forty-eighters and the socialists in Milwaukee: a social psychological study of assimilation 1948 University of Wisconsin thesis
  7. ^  "Burger, Louis". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1900. 
  8. ^ "Girsch, Frederick". Dictionary of American Biography. IV, Part 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1959. pp. 322–3. 
  9. ^ "Solger, Reinhold". Dictionary of American Biography. IX, Part 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1963. pp. 392–3. 
  10. ^ H. A. Marmer (1960). "Hassaurek, Friedrich". Dictionary of American Biography. IV, Part 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 383–384. 
  11. ^ "Rapp, Wilhelm". American National Biography. New York: Oxford University Press. 1999. 
  12. ^ Adolf Edward Zucker (1963). "Schnauffer, Carl Heinrich". Dictionary of American Biography. VIII, Part 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 444–445. 
  13. ^ In The German Element in the United States (Boston: Houghton and Mifflin, 1909, Vol. II, Chapter VII, p. 369), Albert Bernhardt Faust gives the following list of 48er journalists: Carl Schurz, F. R. Hassaurek, Carl Heinzen, Friedrich Hecker, Christopher Esselen, Lorenz Brentano, Theodor Olshausen, Hermann Raster, Friedrich Kapp, Franz Sigel, Oswald Ottendorfer, Wilhelm Rapp, Kaspar Beetz, Friedrich Lexow, Carl Dilthey, Emil Praetorius, F. Raine, H. Börnstein, C. L. Bernays, Karl D. A. Douai, Emil Rothe and Eduard Leyh. He also notes: “There were strong men among the political refugees between 1818 and 1848 prominent in journalistic work, as Friedrich Münch (Missouri), J. A. Wagener (Charleston, South Carolina), H. A. Rattermann (Cincinnati). It must be conceded, however, that the great progress in German journalism in the United States came with the advent of the political refugees of 1848, and immediately thereafter. A large number of new journals were founded by these ‘forty-eighters,’ and as a rule they commanded a better German style and furnished a greater amount of desirable information in politics and literature. The presumption of the ‘forty-eighters’ in many cases offended the older class (of 1818-1848), and a journalistic warfare arose between the two parties (‘die Grauen’ and ‘die Grünen’). The result, however, was favorable to the cause of journalism, and the Grays and the Greens, as explained before, soon united in the great struggle against secession and slavery.”
  14. ^  "Sigel, Franz". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1900. 
  15. ^  "Krackowizer, Ernest". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1892. 
  16. ^  "Weber, Gustav C. E.". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1889. ; "Weber, Gustav Carl Erich". Dictionary of American Biography. X, Part 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1964. pp. 581–2. 
  17. ^ "Krez, Konrad". Dictionary of American Biography. V, Part 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1961. pp. 505–6. 
  18. ^ Anarchy and Anarchist: A history of the red terror and the social revolution in America and Europe by Michael J Schaack, 1889
  19. ^  "Koszta Affair". New International Encyclopedia. 1905. 
  20. ^ Wittke (1952), pp. 89-90.
  21. ^ Carl Schurz. Reminiscences. Vol. 1, Chap. 13.
  22. ^ Hermann Baron Bruiningk, Das Geschlecht von Bruiningk in Livland, Riga: N. Kymmels, 1913, table of contents.
  23. ^ Carl Schurz. Reminiscences. Vol. 1, Chap. 13, p. 371.
  24. ^ a b c  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Bamberger, Ludwig". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
  25. ^ Sabine Freitag, German Historical Institute in London, Exiles from European revolutions: refugees in mid-Victorian England, Berghahn Books, 2003.
  26. ^ Karl Wipperman (1887) “Oppenheim, Heinrich Bernhard.” In Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. 24. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. pp. 396–399. (German)
  27. ^ See Chapter XII of Volume One of his Reminiscences.
  28. ^ recruited by Wilhelm Kirchner, who published Australien und seine Vortheile fur Auswanderer in Frankfurt in 1848
  29. ^ http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/2299/parland1849.html:departure date given as May
  30. ^ The Board's List, reel 2459, GRK; fiche 851, Germans on Bounty Ships, GRK.

Bibliography