Goodbye Bayern/Emigration after 1848

German emigrants on their ship "Samuel Hop" on the way to the USA via Rotterdam and Le Havre, April 1849

German emigrants board their ship

Preparations

Emigration took place via French, Dutch ports or ports on the North Sea coast, Bremen and Hamburg. In order to emigrate at all, those wishing to emigrate had to get, for example, for the Netherlands:

• a permit for emigration (from the Kingdom of Bavaria),
• a declaration of the emigrants' data to finance the stay in the Netherlands and the passage
• a notarized confirmed declaration of the Dutch shipowner with data about the ship with which the emigrants will be transported

Then there were the costs. The travelers had to pay 50 fl (Gulden^(English)) alone for the first port in the New World, and the crossing cost 40 - 60 fl (without food). The Königlich Bayerische Intelligenzblatt für Mittelfranken warns of difficulties with the shipping companies or their captains in 1846. In 1862, the Stahelsche Buchhandlung published a handbook for emigrants on the subject of emigration. "Die Lehre von der Aus- und Einwanderung im Königreiche Bayern"

Task

1. Look at the two charts.
   1. Describe where the emigrants came from.
   2. Describe when the number of emigrants peaked.
   3. Can you find a reason why there were so many from Pfalz and Franken?

Emigrants 1845/46 - 1856/57 -Origin in Bavaria

German Emigration to America (1820-1920)

Listings

In the Kingdom of Bavaria, for the years up to 1870, every person willing to emigrate is published in the Königlich Bayerisches Intelligenzblatt für Mittelfranken (Bavarica Collection) in order to give creditors the opportunity to collect their claims beforehand.

Some emigrants to America from the Frankenhöhe shall be mentioned here:

year	residence	name	state/ profession	Co-migrating family members
1837	Leutershausen	Johann Georg Heindel	Taglöhner	3
1837	Mittelramstadt	Konrad Prechtel	Taglöhner	4
1837	Weissenkirchberg	Georg Michael Unger	Schuhmacher	1
1837	Leutershausen	Moritz Heß	Metzgermeister	2
1837	Sachsbach/Herrieden	Eva Maria Krug		1
1837	Reichenau/Herrieden	Simon Eberlein	Hausbesitzer	2
1837	Winkel/Herrieden	Anna Barbara Reiter	led. Hirtentochter
1837	Kaudorf/Herrieden	Georg Michael Knörr
1837	Lettenmühle/Reichenau	Helena Berbara Rohringer
1837	Zumberg/Feuchtwangen	Maria Marg. Kunder	Bauernwitwe	3
1837	Wildenholz/Feuchtwangen	Joh. Georg Illig	Drechslermeister	1
1837	Dentlein/Feuchtwangen	Marg. Glasbrenner	ledige Taglöhnerin	1
1837	Aichenzell/Feuchtwangen	Wilh. Grüb	lediger Dienstknecht
1837	Kleinohrenbronn/Feuchtwangen	Mich. Georg Windsheimer	Gutsbesitzer	6
1837	Feuchtwangen	Maria Barb. Baier	ledigen Standes
1837	Erlmühle	Joh. Georg Kunder	Taglöhner	2
1837	Feuchtw.	Peter Eichner	Witwer u. Drechslermeister	2
1837	Sommerau/Feuchtw.	Carl Zur	Bäckermeister u. Brandweinbr.	6
1837	Erlmühle	Joh. Gg. Windsheimer	Leinwandhdlr.
1837	Feuchtwangen	Eva Marg. Brunner	ledigen Standes
1837	Kaudorf/Herrieden	Mar. Barb. Mack	ledige Gütlerstochter	1
1839	Rothenburg	Johann Adam Schuh	ehem. Besitzer der Limbachsmühle	2
1840	Leutershausen	Georg Simon Reutelshöfer	Braumeister	6
1840	Leutershausen	Georf Adam Stumpf	Schneidermeister	3
1840	Leutershausen	Gg. Barhelmäs Gehring	Taglöhner	5
1840	Leutershausen	Eva Barbara Hornung	Dienstmagd
1840	Oberdachstetten	Johann Leonhard Mosmeyer	Schreinermeister	6
1840	Unterbreitenau	Joh. Leonh. Ilgenfritz	lediger Bauernsohn
1846	Sachsen (Leutershausen)	Maria Barbara Sperr	Schuhmacherswitwe	2
1846	Leutershausen	Maria Marg. Mainzinger	ledige Hafnerstochter
1846	Lauterbach	Joh. Jakob Schwarz	Dienstknecht
1846	Lauterbach	Jakob Schwarz	Dienstknecht
1847	Leutershausen	Joh. Christ. Mainzinger	Hafnermeister	6
1847	Leutershausen	Joh. Leonh. Wägmann	Bäckermeister	3
1847	Jochsberg	Joh. Mich. Fluhrer	Schmiedmeister	3
1847	Klonsbach	Joh. Georg Thürauf	Wirth	6
1847	Klonsbach	Joh. Bernhard Billenstein	Bauer	3
1847	Cadolzhofen	Georg Marr Carl	Köbler	4
1847	Gastenfelden	Friedrich Stibor	Schreinermeister	2
1847	Frommetsfelden	Johann Georg Krug	Taglöhner	1
1847	Wassertrüdingen	Moses Levi Hecht	Landkramhändler	3
1847	Leutershausen	Georg Peter Friedlein	vormaliger Wirth	3
1847	Oberdachstetten	Anna Maria Weiß	ledig	3
1847	Steinach/Rothenburg	Anna Margaretha Baumgärtner	ledige Chirurgentochter
1847	Bettenfeld	Magdalena Barbara Kurz	Tochter des Bauern Joh. Leonhard Kurz
1847	Lehrberg	Joseph Oettinger	Seifensieder	3
1847	Schillingsfürst	Willibald Hämmerlein	Maurergeselle	1

Für Auswanderer nach Amerika

Durch Unterzeichneten von der Regierung angestellten und beeidigten Schiffsexpedienten werden Auswanderer nach Amerika zu dem billigen Preise von 80 fl einschließlich vollständiger Bekoestigung befoerdert. H. August Heineken in Bremen

Herr Kaufmann C. Pullich in Nördlingen wird die Güte haben, auf gefällige Anfragen nähere Auskunft zu ertheilen.

The emigrants belonged to very different social classes. From some data, as for example the single with child or the servants one may deduce a reason for emigration.

In the 1830s - 1840s, shipping companies and agents from North America, who were accredited in Bavaria, advertised for emigrants. On the right, only one example from the "Wochenblatt der Stadt Nördlingen" of 1848.

Death and Failure

Not all emigrants reached their destination. Thus, for the community of Geslau, Castlegarden in the USA noted under the date of arrival at the emigrant file:

Date of Arrival	Last Name, First Name	Age	Place of last residence	Profession	Port of Departure	Ship	Destination
11. Aug. 1845	Gesch, Magdalena	46	Geslau	Farmer	Bremen	Cumberland	Died on Board
11. Aug. 1845	Gesch, Simon	55	Geslau	Farmer	Bremen	Cumberlamd	Died on Board

The Journey

Steerage

The Steerage by Alfred Stieglitz. Taken in 1907 on the Kaiser Wilhelm II The middle-class passengers on the upper deck are looking down, literally and metaphorically, on steerage passengers below.

Steerage is a term for the lowest category of passenger accommodation in a ship. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century considerable numbers of persons travelled from their homeland to seek a new life elsewhere, in many cases North America and Australia. Many of those people were destitute in their homeland and had the minimum of resources to pay for transportation.

A commentator described conditions in steerage aboard the SS Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1906:

900 steerage passengers [are] crowded into the hold of ... the Kaiser Wilhelm II, of the North German Lloyd line[. They] are positively packed like cattle, making a walk on deck when the weather is good, absolutely impossible, while to breathe clean air below in rough weather, when the hatches are down is an equal impossibility. The stenches become unbearable... [and the] division between the sexes is not carefully looked after, and the young women who are quartered among the married passengers have neither the privacy to which they are entitled nor are they much more protected than if they were living promiscuously.

The food, which is miserable, is dealt out of huge kettles into the dinner pails provided by the steamship company.
Steiner, Edward A. (1906). "The Fellowship of the Steerage"

Goodbye Bayern - Grüß Gott, America!

1. The Year without Summer
2. Emigration after 1848
3. The American Dream
4. Levi Strauss
5. Go West!

Sources

Die vorliegende Seite wurde von Bernhard Heim, Rothenburg 2004 verfasst und in der ZUM-Classic veröffentlicht. 2022 wurde sie mit seiner Genehmigung ins ZUM-Unterrichten-Wiki übernommen und überarbeitet.