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| Format | Dissertation |
|---|---|
| Creator | Fleming, Ann Kathryn |
| Title | Galvanizing Germantown: The Politicization of Louisville's German Community, 1848-1855 |
| Dissertation Note (type -- academic institution) | Thesis (M. A. in History) -- West Virginia University |
| Date | 2020 |
| Extent of Work | vi, 168 pages |
| URL | |
| Notes | Includes bibliographical references |
| Abstract | Fleming interprets the Revolutions of 1848 and their ideological legacy through a transnational and transcultural context, highlighting the role of radical Forty-eighters who imparted their republican messages to “Little Germanies” within the United States. Karl Heinzen serves as the primary example of the transient group that shared their radical visions with local German communities populated with political and cultural organizations, an active press, and a commitment to civic engagement demonstrated through their involvement anti-slavery groups, labor reform, and improved rights for the immigrant population. The thesis traces the politicization of Karl Heinzen in the German Confederation and his involvement in the failed Revolutions of 1848 in Baden. Once in the United States, Heinzen took employment as an editor of the Herold des Westens in Louisville, Kentucky. Heinzen—like most revolutionary “Forty-eighters”—was inflamed by the issue of slavery, leading to the composition of the Louisville Platform, a document that advocated reform based on a republican world view related to the goals of the 1848 Revolution in contrast to the individualist liberal republicanism evident in the United States. The Platform pointed out the weaknesses and corruption in the American political system and called broadly for expanded and equal human rights to immigrants, women, slaves, and free African Americans. This Platform and Heinzen’s work empowering the German community challenged the popular anti-immigrant Know-Nothing leaders of the city, generating growing hostility and accusations of conspiracy and danger to the American Republic through the unreserved cultural and linguistic expression of their flourishing and self-sustaining community. As in Baden in 1848, the politicized German population of Louisville asserted their right to vote on August 6, 1855. Local Know-Nothing gangs retaliated by murdering and assaulting immigrants, as well as burning entire sections of their communities to the ground. The tragic events of this day represent fundamentally different views on the nature of the American Republic, one that highlighted human rights and another that advocated rights solely for the native born. This thesis reveals, in the person of Karl Heinzen, the transmission of a radical republican world view that stemmed from popular opposition to a corrupt and inept monarchy and that made its way to the United States with 1848 émigrés. In the United States, such reform goals become expressed in German communities in their press, organizational life and political agendas to reveal the republican legacy that Fortyeighters brought with them to the United States. |
| MKI Terms | Heinzen, Karl, 1809-1880/ Revolution, 1848-1849 -- Refugees/ Politics/ 19th century/ Newspapers, German American/ Louisville (Ky.) |