German Immigrants, Race, and Citizenship in the Civil War Era

This study reframes Civil War-era history, arguing that the Franco-Prussian War contributed to a dramatic pivot in Northern commitment to African-American rights.

Alison Clark Efford (Author)

9781107031937, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 May 2013

278 pages
23.1 x 16 x 2.3 cm, 0.54 kg

'Efford does an excellent job of thinking about ethnicity in connection with race and gender and shows how Old World ideology was used as a prism for New World politics. Moreover, Efford convincingly demonstrates that the Forty-Eighters and influential newspaper editors helped shape German immigrant communities' political sensibilities and, by extension, exerted some influence on the Republican Party. Where many scholars of Civil War era ethnicity historically have taken a hagiographic and monolithic view of specific ethnic groups, Efford's analysis is refreshingly nuanced and thus highly recommended.' Anders Bo Rasmussen, The Journal of the Civil War Era

This study of Civil War-era politics explores how German immigrants influenced the rise and fall of white commitment to African-American rights. Intertwining developments in Europe and North America, Alison Clark Efford describes how the presence of naturalized citizens affected the status of former slaves and identifies 1870 as a crucial turning point. That year, the Franco-Prussian War prompted German immigrants to re-evaluate the liberal nationalism underpinning African-American suffrage. Throughout the period, the newcomers' approach to race, ethnicity, gender and political economy shaped American citizenship law.

Introduction: naturalized citizens, transnational perspectives, and the arc of reconstruction
1. The German language of American citizenship
2. The 'freedom-loving German', 1854–60
3. Black suffrage as a German cause in Missouri, 1865
4. Principal rising, 1865–9
5. Wendepunkt: the Franco-Prussian War, 1870–1
6. The Liberal Republican transition, 1870–2
7. Class, culture, and the decline of reconstruction, 1870–6
Epilogue: the Great Strike of 1877
Appendix: voting tables
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], History of the Americas [HBJK], European history [HBJD]