Deutsche Einwanderer im lándlichen Süd-Indiana (USA): Eine historisch-geographische Analyse (German immigration in rural southern Indiana [USA]: A historical-geographical analysis). By Klaus Dehne. (Passau: University of Passau, 2003. 108 pp. 19.90, ISBN 3-9807866- 1-7.) In German.

Abstract

Joining the extensive literature on German migration, this published geography dissertation by Klaus Dehne examines two rural townships in southwestern Indiana. Widner Township in Knox County was largely settled by emigrants from the principality of Lippe, near Hannover, in what is now the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The Lippe migrants were Protestant, tended to move as families, and represent the familiar chain migration pattern in which early settlers attracted friends and relatives to follow. For comparison, Dr. Dehne chose Ferdinand Township in Dubois County, settled by recruits organized by Father Joseph Kundek and advertised as a Catholic homeland. In describing the origins of this German rural community, Dehne found the standard migration typology to be inadequate. German migrants to Ferdinand Township were often single men and women who were already living elsewhere in the United States and were attracted by Kundek's advertising and promotional activities or, later, by inland letters from settlers to Catholic friends and acquaintances. Kundek placed ads in German-language periodicals in Cincinnati, particularly in Der Wahrheits-freund, as well as in Pittsburgh, Louisville, and elsewhere. He gave numerous lectures in North America and in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to further his mission project and used funds from the Leopold Foundation in Vienna to purchase land for resale to individual farmers. The town of Ferdinand was laid out in 1840 with 276 lots, 109 of which were sold within a few months. Kundek carried 540 copies of the Ferdinand City Plan during his European trip of 1851–1853.