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American-German Return Migration in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Günter Moltmann
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Extract

Every historian studying the emigration of Europeans to the United States discovers during such research that there was not only a crossing of the Atlantic westward, but a return movement from the United States to Europe as well. In 1842 Charles Dickens in his American Notes wrote about his experiences on a ship traveling from America to England: “We carried in the steerage nearly a hundred passengers: a little world of poverty. … Some of them had been in America but three days, some but three months, and some had gone out in the last voyage of that very ship in which they were now returning home. Others had sold their clothes to raise the passage-money, and had hardly rags to cover them; others had no food, and lived upon the charity of the rest. … They were coming back, even poorer than they went.”

Type
Symposium: International Migration: Germany, Europe, And The United States
Information
Central European History , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , December 1980 , pp. 378 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1980

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References

1. Dickens, Charles, American Notes and Pictures from Italy (London, 1957), pp. 223, 224.Google Scholar

2. Ravenstein, Ernest G., “The Laws of Migration,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 48 (1885): 33Google Scholar; Bovenkerk, Frank, The Sociology of Return Migration: A Bibliographic Essay, Publications of the Research Group for European Migration Problems, 20 (The Hague, 1974), pp. 7–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Jahresbericht der Deutschen Gesellschaft der Stadt New-York, 1854, p. 8.

4. Kürnberger, Ferdinand, Der Amerika-Müde: Amerikanisches Kulturbild (Frankfurt a.M., 1855)Google Scholar; Willkomm, Ernst A., Die Europamüden: Modernes Lebensbild (Leipzig, 1838).Google Scholar

5. Gerstäcker, Friedrich, Nach Amerika! Ein Volksbuch, 6 vols. (Leipzig, 1855).Google Scholar

6. Saloutos, Theodore, They Remember America: The Story of the Repatriated Greek-Americans (Berkeley, 1950)Google Scholar; Cerase, F. P., “A Study of Italian Migrants Returning from the USA,” International Migration Review 7 (1967): 67–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “A Case Study of Return Migration from the United States to Southern Italy,” ibid. 8 (1974): 245–60; Gilkey, G. R., “The United States and Italy: Migration and Repatriaton,” in World Migration in Modern Times, ed. Scott, Franklin P. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968).Google Scholar

7. Richmond, H. A., “Return Migration from Canada to Britain,” Population Studies 22 (1969): 263–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Semmingsen, Ingrid, Vein mot Vest: Utvandringen fra Norge til Amerika 1865–1915 (Oslo, 1950), pp. 460–70Google Scholar; Tedebrand, Lars-Göran, “Remigration from America to Sweden,” in Runblom, Harald and Norman, Hans, From Sweden to America: A History of the Migration (Minneapolis, 1976), pp. 201–27.Google Scholar For Poland see Materialy do bibliografü dziejów emigracji oraz skupisk Polonijnych w Ameryce Pólnocnej i Poludniowej w XIX i XX wieku, ed. Paczyńskiej, Ireny and Pilcha, Andrzeja (Warsaw and Cracow, 1979), p. 150.Google Scholar

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9. Cf. Konig's, René review, Kolner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 14 (1962): 364–67.Google Scholar

10. A short article by Hell, Wolfgang, “Amerikanisch-deutsche Ruckwanderung,” in “…nach Amerika!”: Auswanderung in die Vereinigten Staaten, Aus den Schausammlungen des Museums für Hamburgische Geschichte, 5 (Hamburg: Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte, 1976), pp. 55–59Google Scholar, can be regarded as a first attempt to analyze return migration of average people to Germany.

11. This is a very rough definition, not completely satisfying. A visitor may stay forever; a remigrant may emigrate again. However, there seems to be no better solution to the problem of definition than the one given.

12. See Hofe, A. Schulte im, Auswanderung und Auswanderungspolitik (Berlin, 1918), pp. 55–58.Google Scholar

13. Willcox, Walter F., ed., International Migrations, 2 vols. (New York, 1929–1931), 2: 87–90Google Scholar; Isaac, Julius, Economics of Migration (New York, 1947), p. 63.Google Scholar

14. Geschäftsberichte des Norddeutschen Lloyd (Bremen, 1858ff)Google Scholar; Jahresberichte und Bilanzen der Hamburg-Amerika Linie (Hamburg, 1847ff.).Google Scholar

15. Statistik des Hamburgischen Staates 4 (1872): 111; 8 (1876): 62; 9 (1878): 68; 10 (1880): 80Google Scholar; Vierteljahreshefte zur Statistik des Deutschen Reiches 1 (1873): 139, 143; 2 (1874): 119; 3 (1875): 111Google Scholar; Hirth, Georg and Seydel, Max, eds., Annalen des Deutschen Reiches (Leipzig, 1880–1892).Google Scholar For the Bremen figures see Jahrbuch für die amtliche Statistik des Bremischen Staats, pt. 2, 1867–73; Jahrbuch für Bremische Statistik, pt. 2, 1878–98.

16. See Willcox, , ed., International Migrations, 1: 703.Google Scholar

17. Beginning in 1882, emigration from Russia and Poland grew steadily. People leaving the Tsarist empire could not return without great difficulties. Therefore their share in eastbound passages was probably smaller than in westbound passages.

18. Cf. Mönckmeier, Wilhelm, Die deutsche überseeische Auswanderung: Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Wanderungsgeschichte (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1912), pp. 161–73Google Scholar; Burgdörfer, Friedrich, “Migration across the Frontiers of Germany,” in Willcox, , ed., International Migrations, 2: 344.Google ScholarBade's, Klaus J.Habilitationsschrift “Land oder Arbeit: Massenwanderung und Arbeitsmarkt in Deutschland vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg,” to be published in 1982, throws new light on the development of temporary migration.Google Scholar

19. Published in Moltmann, Günter, ed., Aufbruch nach Amerika: Friedrich List und die Auswanderung aus Baden und Wurttemberg 1816/17 (Tübingen: Wunderlich, 1979), pp. 373–75.Google Scholar

20. Allgemeine Auswanderungs-Zeitung, Feb. 3, 1860, p. 19.

21. The controversy can be studied in detail by perusing many contradictory reports in the two papers. The editors of the Bremen Deutsche Auswanderer-Zeitung accused the editors of the Rudolstadt paper of attempting to divert German emigration from the United States to Brazil as a result of bribery from that country. See Deutsche Auswanderer-Zeitung, Mar. 26, June 25, Nov 12, 1860; June 10, Sept. 30, 1861.

22. “Die Auswanderung aus dem Deutschen Reich nach transatlantischen Ländern im Jahre 1874,” Vierteljahreshefte zur Statistik des Deutschen Reiches 3 (1875): 105.Google Scholar

23. Bericht des evangelisch-lutherischen Comités fur Auswanderer-Mission, 1875 (Hamburg, 1876), p. 4.Google Scholar

24. Ibid.

25. Jahresbericht der Deutschen Gesellschaft der Stadt New York, 1885, p. 14.

26. See U.S. Immigration Commission, 1907–1910 [Dillingham Commission], Reports of the Immigration Commission, 42 vols. (Washington, 1911), 39: 28–33, 96–98.Google Scholar Immigration Act of 1882, sec. 3: “… if on such examination [into the condition of passengers arriving at the ports] there shall be found among such passengers any convict, lunatic, idiot, or any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge, they [commissioners or officer or such other person as they shall appoint] shall report the same in writing to the collector of such port, and such person shall not be permitted to land.”

27. Published in Niles' Weekly Register, Apr. 29, 1820; cf. Kohler, Max J., “An Important Mission to Investigate American Immigration Conditions and John Quincy Adams' Relations thereto (1817–1818),” Deutsch-Amerikanische Geschichtsblätter 17 (1917): 393–421Google Scholar; Moltmann, ed., Aufbruch nach Amerika, pp. 241–49; Friesen, Gerhard, “H. C. E. von Gagern and German Emigration to America: Some Preliminaries,” Amerikastudien 26 (1981): 8.Google Scholar

28. “Jahresüberblick,” Allgemeine Auswanderungs-Zeitung, Dec. 21, 1871, p. 201.