[ed. one of two posts from glen olson, here his is opening statement(via email)]

The Salt Lake City paper is a draft of my first attempt at historical research. The other piece is a summary I had to type up tonight of my thesis proposal.             

 My project focuses on the German ethnic press of Chicago during the 1860’s. This was a time when German-American political culture was in flux. Although German-Americans usually aligned themselves with the Democratic Party along with other immigrant groups, like the Irish, during the 1850’s and 60’s national conflicts over slavery brought most of the Germans into the Republican camp.  I will argue that immigrant newspapers were a vital part of a struggle within the German-American community to shape a political identity. Papers like the Illinois Staats-Zeitung, the dominant Chicago German newspaper of the time, articulated different conceptions of what this ethnic identity should be, an identity which both tried to maintain strong ties to Germany while being full participants in Chicago’s public life. An ethnic group as large as the Germans in Chicago will have a huge range of diversity of opinion, so I will focus on the Illinois Staats-Zeitung and its major competitors. The competitors will help me spot the contours of the poltical debates, and show me competing visions of ethnic identity. I hope that studying these newspapers will lead to better understanding of ethnic politics in 19^th century city life.

              I will be working within several historiographies, the most important being that of the German-American experience. Over the last three or so decades scholars have disputed previously held claims that German immigrants were quickly and seamlessly assimilated into mainstream American society. Scholars now see ethnic identity as something constantly being constructed and revised, with the Germans of the 19^th century shaping new identities in America while drawing on their experiences in Europe to understand their new circumstances. My paper will focus on ethnic newspapers as a key part of this constant reinvention.

              My main sources for this project will be a mix of newspapers and personal papers. I will make extensive use of the newspapers from the time period. A good amount of Chicago’s ethnic press archives were translated as part of a WPA project in the 1930’s. The translators picked articles from papers like the Illinois Staats-Zeitung that they thought were historically relevant, making for a helpful yet incomplete source base. I don’t want to depend on the skills of the translators, so I am using the WPA project as a jumping off point, to help become familiar with the German papers of the time. The rest of the newspaper records will come from microfilm, most of it available at the Regenstein. I know enough German to read through these articles. Using newspapers as a source has its problems. Papers during the 19^th century were explicitly partisan and flamboyant, and should never be viewed as direct window to some sort of historical truth. Still, by examining how newspapers framed national and local news, as well as political debates, we can understand these newspapers agendas and political visions.

              I will make extensive use of at least two major sets of archives here in Chicago: the Newberry Library and the Chicago Historical Society. The Newberry Library has the papers of two editors of the Illinois Staat-Zeitung: Wilhelm Rapp and Hermann Raster. Rapp was editor throughout much of the war, and an influential voice in the state republican party. Raster was an editor for various German papers during the 1850s and 60’s, and is credited for helping create an ideological shift in German immigrants to the Republican Party during the period. Rapp was made editor of the Illinois in 1867, and maintained the post for decades.  Both men were active in Chicago politics and were influential in moving their readerships’ political loyalties and values. Using the papers of public men as a source has its limitations. First, as my paper will emphasize, both of these men are representative of a small percentage of German immigrants Less than 5% of German immigrants were political refugees from the 1848 revolution. However, this group provided much of the leadership within immigrant communities, and by understanding them we can understand an influential faction of a German Chicago.