Lessons in Whiteness: German Immigrants and Racial Ideology in Nineteenth-Century America

Abstract

Immigrants arriving in the United States have had to adapt to a large number of cultural norms, including American ideas about race. This was no less true for the German immigrants who came to St. Louis during the mid-nineteenth century, and in the process of developing an identity as American citizens also adopted American patterns of racial thought and behavior. These changes took place not only through interactions with African Americans, but also through interactions with the native-born white population, who in essence “taught” the German newcomers what it meant to be white in an American slave state. A few German immigrants proved to be apt pupils of American racism, mobilizing the same racial language used by native-born whites to defend slavery and their own status as white Americans. Even the vast majority of Germans who did not support slavery showed signs of being influenced by American thought on race, however, attacking slavery for similar reasons and expressing similar racial stereotypes as the native born. Ultimately, whatever their position on slavery, coming to understand American racial ideas was an important part of the transition from being “Germans” to being “German Americans.”KeywordsSlave LaborFree LaborFree SoilFree BlackAmerican IdeaThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.