Conference Agenda

This paper explores the relationship between ethnic minority laborers and broken families from the perspective of late nineteenth century orphanages in Chicago. Focusing on the interrelations between the urban milieu and the intersections of ethnicity, class, and gender, the paper examines why ethnic minority laborers were especially prone to submit their children to urban orphanages. It hypothesizes that the combination of immigration stress (e.g., ethnic and gender discrimination at the labor market) and high divorce rates among urban laborer, inextricably linking poverty and single parenting, was a main factor, making the children of this social group disproportionally well-represented as orphan inmates.

A handful of individuals delegated by local groups founded the first nationally organized socialist party in the United States in 1874. From almost the beginning, the Social Democratic Workers Party was described as an émigré reflection of the organizational development of the German Social Democracy, particularly the Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands. However, the issues of slavery, civil war, and Reconstruction demarcated clearly self-defined socialist circles by creating a great schism among the veteran of 1848 and their successors. In every American city with significant German populations, the nature of mass politics opened the way for some of those old radicals to become spokesmen for the Republican or Democratic Party. Nationally prominent figures such as Carl Schurz and local leaders like A. C. Hessing in Chicago ultimately embraced the U.S. as the ideal republic to which they had aspired. Advocates of “the social republic” found this process pushing them towards an increasingly distinctive class politics. From the onset, too, the SDWP represented more than a transatlantic component of German socialism. The party had diverse roots, including diverse immigrant roots. The relative importance of the French, Italian, Spanish or English language groups varied with events such as the Paris Commune or the Kansas conflict. Most importantly, organized language groups in America had a history of active cooperation among over the previous twenty years. Looking beyond and inside of the German associations reveals their involvement in a broad multi-national network functioning under the rubric of the Universal Democratic Republicans, the International Association, and the postwar International Working men's Association. The SDWP aspired to represent the culmination of those efforts, and achieved some noteworthy successes, including émigré efforts to reach English-speaking Americans of all sorts.

I was born in Fayette County [Texas], from German parents, and who fled from the reaction of the 1848 revolution. I think that I inherited some of my revolutionary qualifications. I am not responsible for them. I can not help it.” So testified E.O. Meitzen before the Congressional Commission on Industrial Relations in 1915 as to why he involved himself in the political struggles of working farmers. At the time Meitzen was a veteran leader of the Texas Socialist Party. Before this Meitzen was a statewide leader of the People’s Party during the Populist Revolt of the 1890s, a member of the Knights of Labor and Greenback Labor Party. Meitzen’s parents were far from alone as many German 48ers immigrated to Texas in the wake of the failed revolution. Specifically the Meitzens and many others were Silesia where during the revolution the Rustic Alliance represented the interests of workers and agricultural laborers. Similar formation would appear in Texas upon the arrival of German migrants. FortyEighters quickly organized themselves politically in their new home. In 1854, German Texans held a convention in San Antonio. This convention adopted a wide ranging platform that included denouncing slavery, calling for free public education, the rights of labor, and land rights for working farmers. This was the first time such demands emanated from a political gathering in Texas. These demands and the organizational activism of German 48ers drew liked-minded Anglo and black Texans and would influence working-class political culture in the decades to come as Texas became the heart of anti-fusion Populism and had one of the largest state sections of the Socialist Party. This presentation analyzes the influence of German 48er migrants on working-class political culture in Texas from 1850-1910.