Heartland Germans: Cultural maintenance in mid-nineteenth century America

Midwestern Germans who populated Indianapolis, St. Louis, Chicago and St. Paul represented a kind of cultural identity that revealed an ethnic pride. Through the church, the press, their language, social organizations and political involvement, these Germans demonstrated the tenacity of a people willing to risk the security of their homeland for a better life in America and in the process established a set of cultural norms that reflected a significant attempt to maintain their ethnic identity. During the years 1830-1870, the pull of cheap and available land fueled the chain migration that led to the largest influx of German immigrants in American history. German insistence on the maintenance of their cultural distinction, while achieving full acceptance as Americans, reveals the tenacity of one ethnic group not to be lost in the "melting pot" of American folklore, but rather to fully, identifiably contribute to their new homeland.