''New Yorker Volkszeitung'' was the longest-running

German language German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is als ...

daily labor newspaper in the

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, established in 1878 and suspending publication in October 1932. At the time of its demise during the Great Depression the ''Volkszeitung'' was the only German-language daily in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and one of the oldest radical left newspapers in the nation.

History

Background

During the 19th century

Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...

were the second-largest immigrant group to the United States, behind only the ethnic

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

.Anne Spier, "German-Speaking Peoples," in Dirk Hoerder with Christiane Harzig, ''The Immigrant Labor Press in North America, 1840s-1970s: Volume 3: Migrants from Southern and Western Europe.'' Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987; pg. 315. The wave of German immigration began slowly, averaging about 20,000 people per year during the decades of the 1830s and early 1840s, before exploding after the economic crisis of 1847 and the failure of 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 Europe ...

in the German states. When the first wave of mass emigration peaked in 1854, some 220,000 Germans left their fatherland for a new home in America. Immigration centered in a number of major American cities of the

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and Midwest, including

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Cincinnati 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 ...

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...

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, and

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— urban areas which retained this Germanic influence for many decades, or in some cases, for generations. A second mass wave of emigration from Germany to America began in 1866, following the conclusion of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

and running until the economic collapse associated with the

Panic of 1873 The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation known as the ...

. During this second flurry of departures more than a million more Germans were added to the population of the United States.

Establishment

Development

Split with the Socialist Labor Party

World War I

Split with the Socialist Party of America

Later years

Termination and legacy

---- The ''New Yorker Volkszeitung'' began as a daily in 1878. It was edited by

Sergei Shevitch Sergei Egorovich Shevitch (spelled variously, c. 1847-1911) (Russian: Сергей Егорович Шевич) was a Russian newspaper editor and socialism, socialist political activist who achieved his greatest fame in the United States of Ameri ...

from 1879 to 1890. It was later reorganized by Dr. Siegfried Lipschitz, an American correspondent of the ''Sozialistischer Pressedienst'' of Berlin, Germany. He succeeded Ludwig Lore as the newspaper's editor. Afterwards the publication was endorsed by the Socialist Party of the United States and the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Its publisher was the Socialist Cooperative Publishing Association which had offices at 47 Walker Street in

. The financial crisis of the 1930s prevented members of the Socialist Cooperative Publishing Association from meeting regularly, which made it necessary to shut down printing. Its thirty employees were not released. Two months after the closure of ''New Yorker Volkszeitung'', a new publication, '' Neue Volkszeitung'', was launched as its successor.

Footnotes

* Karl J.R. Arndt and May E Olson, ''German-American Newspapers and Periodicals, 1732-1955 / Deutsch-amerikanische Zeitungen und Zeitschriften, 1732-1955.'' Revised Second Edition. Heidelberg, Germany: Quelle and Meyer, 1961. * Karl J.R. Arndt and May E Olson, ''The German Language Press of the Americas, 1732-1968: History and Bibliography.'' Munich, Germany: Verlag Dokumentation, 1973. * Paul Buhle, "Ludwig Lore and the ''New Yorker Volkszeitung,"'' in Elliott Shoe, Ken Fones-Wolf, and James P. Danky, ''The German-American Radical Press: The Shaping of a Left Political Culture, 1850-1940.'' Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1992. * Robert E. Cazden, "Bibliography of German-American Communist Newspapers in the U.S., 1933-1945," ''Internationale wissenschaftliche Korresondenz zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung,'' vol. 5 (Dec. 1967), pp. 39-41. * Robert E. Cazden, ''German Exile Literature in America.'' Chicago: American Library Association, 1970. * Dirk Hoerder with Christiane Harzig, ''The Immigrant Labor Press in North America, 1840s-1970s: Volume 3: Migrants from Southern and Western Europe.'' Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987. * Dirk Hoerder and Thomas Weber (eds.), ''Glimpses of the German-American Radical Press.'' Bremen, Germany: Labor Newspaper Preservation Project, 1985. * Carl Wittke, ''The German Language Press in America.'' Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1957. {{Authority control Publications established in 1878 Publications disestablished in 1932 Defunct newspapers published in New York City German-American culture in New York City German-language newspapers published in New York (state) Daily newspapers published in New York City Socialist Labor Party publications