The history of Germans in Louisville began in 1817. In that year, a man named August David Ehrich, a master shoe maker born in Königsberg, arrived in Louisville. Ehrich was the first native-born German in Louisville, but as early as 1787, Pennsylvania Dutch (Deutsch) settlers arrived in Jefferson County from Pennsylvania. While they maintained German customs from their ancestors who came to Pennsylvania several generations before, they were not native Germans. The Blankenbaker, Bruner, and Funk families came to the Louisville region following the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
, and in 1797 they founded the town Brunerstown, which would later become
Jeffersontown, Kentucky. Further early immigration of Germans took place as they slowly followed the
Ohio River
The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...
after arriving in the United States at
, and settled in the various river towns, which included not only Louisville, but
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
, and
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...
, as well.
19th century
By the 1850s 35% of Louisville's population would be German, totaling 18,000. Many of this number included a few Swiss and Austrians for whom German was their native language, and would often live amongst the Germans. This large population would introduce to Louisville two different concepts:
bilingual
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...
education, and
kindergarten
Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cent ...
s. By 1854, Louisville public schools taught German. By 1900, 48,000 Louisvillians were at least half-German
[Kleber pg.338,339]
The Germans would found many of the city's churches. The first was
St. Paul's German Evangelical Church in 1836. Others included
St. Peter's German Evangelical Church and
St. John's Evangelical Church. Even the first
synagogue
A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...
was created by Germans, as Jewish immigrants from Germany created
Temple Adath Israel in 1838. In total, thirteen churches in Louisville specifically catered to Germans.
Germans would also be instrumental in food.
Butchertown got its name for the various meat-packing companies operated there by Germans, with some in
Germantown Germantown or German Town may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Germantown, Queensland, a locality in the Cassowary Coast Region
United States
* Germantown, California, the former name of Artois, a census-designated place in Glenn County
* Ger ...
as well. The most prominent of these meat-packers would be Henry Fischer's, whose
Fischer Packing Company
Fischer is a German occupational surname, meaning fisherman. The name Fischer is the fourth most common German surname. The English version is Fisher.
People with the surname A
* Abraham Fischer (1850–1913) South African public official
* Ad ...
still exists today as a popular local brand of meat. Throughout the city there were bakeries and confectioners of German heritage. The German-speaking Swiss ran the nearby dairy operations.
[Kleber pg.339]
It was not entirely peaceful for the Germans in Louisville, particularly politically. The "Forty-Eighters", who had come to the United States due to the
Revolution of 1848
The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europea ...
, and these immigrants were big believers in
Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
and
atheism
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...
. Their views being so foreign to most Louisvillians caused the
Bloody Monday riots of 1855, as members of the
Know-Nothing Party
The Know Nothing party was a nativist political party and movement in the United States in the mid-1850s. The party was officially known as the "Native American Party" prior to 1855 and thereafter, it was simply known as the "American Party". ...
blocked their ability to vote, creating the worst riot in Louisville history, much of it centered in Butchertown. Also, they opposed Kentucky seceding to the
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...
, and their strong support of Northern causes led to the first German-born mayor of Louisville in 1865,
Phillip Tomppert. Even through they were pro-Union, most Germans remained with the Democratic Party as the Republican Party had too many former Know-Nothings as its membership.
/ref>
Modern era
After 1900, German culture began to die out in Louisville, as many of the German churches switched to preaching in English rather than German. The advent of World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
increased this, forcing German names to either dropped the word "German" from their names (Germany Security Bank became Security Bank, for example), or were completely altered. Even the Louisville libraries got in the act by removing books written in German from their shelves. On March 4, 1938, the long-lasting German newspaper, ''Louisville Anzeiger
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border.
...
'', printed its final issue.Mainz
Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main (river), Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-we ...
, Germany, with the two cities officially town twinning
A sister city or a twin town relationship is a form of legal or social agreement between two geographically and politically distinct localities for the purpose of promoting cultural and commercial ties.
While there are early examples of inter ...
in 1994. Every October a two-day Oktoberfest is celebrated.
See also
*History of Louisville, Kentucky
The geology of the Ohio River, with but a single series of rapids halfway in its length from the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers to its union with the Mississippi, made it inevitable that a town would grow on the site. Louisvi ...
* History of the Irish in Louisville
References
External links
German-American Club Gesangverein, Inc.
{{Louisville ancestry
Louisville
German communities in the United States
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...