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FormatBook Chapter
Author, AnalyticWagner, Maria
Title, AnalyticThe Forty-Eighters in Their Struggle against American Puritanism: The Case Study of Newark, New Jersey
Author, MonographicBrancaforte, Charlotte L.
Title, MonographicThe German Forty-Eighters in the United States
Place of PublicationNew York
PublisherPeter Lang
Date of Publication1989
Location in Work219-229
Series EditorHermand, Jost
Series TitleGerman Life and Civilization
Series Vol. ID1
AbstractThis paper focuses on the interrelated issues of Sabbath laws and temperance, "which the Germans regarded as an infringement on their personal rights and liberties. In Newark, New Jersey, they took unprecedented action (for a minority ethnic group) to attain the right of public expression of their customs and beliefs. . . . That the Germans, particularly the Forty-Eighters, were part of a liberalization process during the second half of the nineteenth century is well documented. Through their active involvement in the democratic process, the Forty-Eighters sought the right to follow their own way of life within the mantle of the American life-style, and thereby unwittingly altered that life-style. Perhaps President Kennedy summarized it best: 'To the German immigrants. . . we owe the mellowing of the austere Puritan imprint on our daily life.' The 1853 report of the Newark Common Council indicates that the majority at that time was not prepared to grant minorities special rights, but instead insisted that different customs and beliefs 'be moulded into a proper American element.' The struggle against temperance and Sabbath laws thus involved much more fundamental issues of liberty than the consumption of a glass of beer on Sunday."
NotesL:Eng
Call NumberMKI E 184 .G3 G354 1989
MKI TermsForty-eighters/ History/ 19th century/ Germany/ Revolution, 1848-1849 -- Refugees/ Refugees, political (US)/ Newark (N.J.)/ German Americans -- New Jersey/ Temperance