German American Immigration Research Paper

German Americans: 4 Centuries of Immigration
The first vikings that crossed the North American waters brought a few German ancestors to the continent before the first towns were established by settlers. They have been migrating to what is now the United States for well over 4 centuries. German immigrants even had a hand in finding and building those first settlements, both Jamestown and New Amsterdam - later to be renamed New York. Immigration never seem to be slowed for the German people, spreading quite consistently in the United States of time. The first recorded German-American immigrants in Colonial America was in 1607 in Jamestown. Rippley points out "...the first significant group of German settlers were thirteen families of Quakers and

Adam Taylor accounts some of the effects of the anti-German sentiment as he explains “German-language newspapers were either run out of business or chose to quietly close their doors. German-language books were burned, and Americans who spoke German were threatened with violence or boycotts. German-language classes, until then a common part of the public-school curriculum, were discontinued and, in many areas, outlawed entirely.” (Adam Taylor) None of the affected institutions were able to recover and the “centuries-old tradition” of German language and literature in the United States was pushed to the brink of being completely lost in the United States from further fear of persecution. LaVern Rippley, an author as well as a PhD German Historian, emphasizes how, "...burdensome war reparations, inflation, foreign military occupation... and heavy losses of territory doomed the republic." (Rippley) At this point in history the German people had no support and their moral somewhat would seem depleted. Not until their country's fall in World War II would the world try and help them re-establish