Honors Theses
Date of Award
5-2026
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Degree Name
BS
Faculty Mentor
Harry Roddy, Ph.D.
Advisor(s)
Eleanor ter Horst, Ph.D., John Halbrooks, Ph.D., and Christine Rinne, Ph.D.
Abstract
In the nineteenth century alone, approximately five million German-speaking immigrants arrived in America. However, the motivations of these individuals for moving to America, far from identical, were nearly as numerous as the individuals themselves. The German ethnic identity in America was not uniform, but the expression of many factors having to do with both the Vaterland and the new land. These factors ranged from the timing of emigration, which was largely influence by religious, political, and economic upheaval in Europe, to each German’s system of values, which dictated the kind of future he saw for himself and therefore where he sought to settle in the new land. Evidence supports that the foundational element underlying all these factors was physical geography: the physical characteristics of towns in America were responsible for making one town distinct from another, influencing every aspect of the town’s culture from religion and education to occupation and social climate. Drawing from secondary research as well as primary documents such as newspapers and family accounts, this paper explores how physical geography specifically shaped the German ethnic identity, contrasting rural Fredericksburg, Texas and urban Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Four primary differences between the two cities served to foster traditional conservatism in Fredericksburg and liberal progressivism in Milwaukee: the primary motivation for immigrants to choose one city over the other; the evolution of neighborhoods in each city; educational trends as influenced by the women of each city; and the development of religious expression in each city. The research reveals that identity is not merely abstract, theoretical, historical, or imagined, but it is quite intensely grounded in physical space. In a modern world plagued by incessant mobility, the nineteenth-century German immigrant provides a picture of what it looks like to be deeply rooted in a physical place, allowing it to color culture and identity to the fullest.
Recommended Citation
Ward, Abigail, "The Personality of Place: Physical Geography and the Shaping of the Nineteenth-Century German Immigrant Ethnic Identity" (2026). Honors Theses. 133.
https://jagworks.southalabama.edu/honors_college_theses/133
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