| dc.description.abstract | In the Spring of 1848, revolutions broke out in the German states calling for the liberalization of the monarchies, and for the unification of Germany. When the news of these revolutions came to the United States, the German language press immediately reacted with enthusiasm, and ample displays of support for the liberalization of the “old fatherland.” German America was the largest German speaking population outside of the German states in 1848, but their reaction to the revolutions has been relatively understudied. Historians have emphasized the role of the Forty-Eighters, the revolutionaries who fled the German states after the revolutions, in the formation of German identity in the United States, and deemphasized the German identity that already existed.
However, this thesis questions this narrative, and instead analyzes how German Americans saw themselves as German during the revolutions. This thesis treats the revolutions as a political event that prompted the articulation of identity. They served as a focal point around which German Americans could articulate their own relationship to Germany and their own place in the “German nation.” It also inspired community action in the name of the shared goal of aiding the “old fatherland.” The possibility of a unified German state also brought political questions about the structure of a possible nation state to the fore. Though German Americans agreed on the necessity of aiding the revolutionary cause, they were divided on the form a unified Germany should take.
This thesis uses a case study of four German language newspapers in the Spring of 1848 to explore the themes of identity, action, and political differences. Through these themes this thesis seeks to provide insight on both the specific case of German America in this period, and on the larger transnational experience of immigrants maintaining a connection to the politics of their country of origin. | |
