IMPORTANT DATES IN GERMAN-AMERICAN HISTORY
German immigrants were among the followers of Captain John Smith
at the colony of Jamestown. They were the first to manufacture tar, glass,
pitch, and soap in America.
The first prominent German-American was Peter Minuit, director of
the Dutch colony of New Netherland, who purchased Manhattan for $24.
Thirteen families from the Rhineland, led by a Frankfurt lawyer,
Franz Daniel Pastorius, founded Germantown in Pennsylvania, the first German-American
settlement in the New World.
German-American schools established at Germantown.
The first protest against slavery issued at Germantown, not in English
but in German.
William Rittinghausen established the paper mill in America at Germantown.
Jacob Leisler, born in Frankfurt, was elected the first people's governor
of New York, and called the first Congress of American colonies. It was
one of the earliest protests against British rule.
The first book on teaching was published, not in English but in
German, by Christopher Dock, a German-American teacher. He introduced the
blackboard into the American classroom.
John Peter Zenger established freedom of the press by protesting
British rule in his New York newspaper, the New York Weekly Journal.
Caspar Wistar built a glassmaking plant at Salem, New Jersey.
The first bible printed in America was not in English, but in German.
Christopher Sauer of Philadelphia published it.
An early publication of the Declaration of Independence appeared
in German in the Philadelphia Staatsbote on July 9th.
Congress established a German-American regiment consisting of four
Gottlieb Graupner arrived in Boston and became known later as the
father of orchestral music in the U.S.
The richest man in the U.S. was John Jacob Astor, a German immigrant
who had organized the American Fur Company.
The Pennsylvania legislature began publishing its laws and governor's
message in German translation.
Theodore Bernhard organized and introduced the first system of free
textbooks at Watertown, Wisconsin.
Eberhard Faber established in New York the pencil business which
still perpetuates his name.
Dr. Abraham Jacobi opened the first free clinic for children in the
The famous painting, "Washington Crossing the Delaware,"
painted by Emmanuel Leutze.
The Studebaker Company became the world's largest producer of wagons.
It later produced automobiles.
Carl Schurz won the German-American vote for Lincoln by going on
a 21,000 mile speaking tour which took him from the middle west to the
516,000 German-Americans fight for the Union. 500 officers in the
Union army were born in Germany; of the 2,213,363 soldiers in the Union
army, over 23% were German-Americans.
Thomas Nast, the first great American Caricaturist, was instrumental
in the destruction of the Boss Tweed ring of New York City.
Carl Schurz named Secretary of the Interior by President Hayes;
first German-born German-American to belong to the Cabinet. Also, the "original
conservationist" because of efforts to prevent destruction of forests.
The Brooklyn Bridge, designed by Johann A. Roebling, was built.
Admiral Winfield Schley destroyed the Spanish fleet at Santiago,
Cuba, during the Spanish-American war.
General John Pershing, a German-American, commanded the American
Expeditionary Forces in World War I.
Charles P. Steinmetz became one of the greatest electrical wizards.
General Electric Corporation provided him with everything he asked for
in his work.
Some of the greatest stars of baseball history were German-Americans:
Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Honus Wagner, and Frank Frisch, to mention a few.
One-third of the eleven million soldiers in the U.S. armed forces in
World War II were of German descent. Eisenhower was of Pennsylvanian-German
descent. Other German-Americans were General Carl Spaatz and Admiral Chester
Nimitz, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. 700 admirals and
generals were German-Americans.
Wernher von Braun became head of the U.S. Army Ordinance Guided Missile
Center and paved the way for the U.S. space program.
Society for German-American Studies established in Youngstown, Ohio.
52 million Americans are of German descent, according to the 1980 U.S.
The German-American Tricentenniel celebrates the 300th anniversary of
the founding of Germantown, the first German-American settlement.
The German-American Quadricentenniel will celebrate the 400th anniversary
of the arrival of the first Germans in America at Jamestown, Virginia.
America's German Heritage, German American National Congress, Cleveland,
OH, 1976, adapted by Don Tolzmann
Return to Lesson 3
Learning About Our World: Germany
Ohio Department of Education
Last Updated: 15 June 1999, JAW