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Historically, Chicago has had an ethnic German population. As of the 2000 U.S. Census, 15.8% of people in the Chicago area had German ancestry, and those of German ancestry were the largest ethnic group in 80% of Chicago's suburbs. As of the year 1930, those of German ancestry were the largest European ethnic group in Chicago. However, as of today that number has decreased to 6%. [1]
The first Germans arrived in Chicago in the 1830s. [1] Germans arrived in the United States as Chicago began to develop in the mid-19th century. [2] 1,000 Germans were in Chicago in 1845. [1]
In 1848, the first large group of Germans immigrated due to failed revolts in German states. The Germans arriving on or soon after that year became known as the "Forty-Eighters". Irving Cutler, the author of Chicago, wrote that their true underlying motive to come to the U.S. was economic even though they had to immediately leave Germany due to political issues. [1] According to Cutler, these Germans did not place importance on religious reasons, and they "arrived much less destitute" compared to Irish immigrants. [1] The German population increased to 5,073 in 1850, [1] and that year Germans made up 1/6th of Chicago's population. [2]
In 1855, Mayor of Chicago Levi Boone declared that on Sundays all beer gardens and saloons will be closed, leading to the Lager Beer Riots. [1]
There were 22,230 ethnic Germans in Chicago, or 20% of the city's population, in 1860. [1]
One of the leading newspapers of the region in the late 19th century was the German language Illinois Staats-Zeitung, owned by former Cook County Sheriff A.C. Hesing, who was also the first German-born elected official in Chicago. The paper's chief editors included U.S. Representative Lorenzo Brentano and Collector of Internal Revenue Hermann Raster. The Staats-Zeitung was in publication until its support for Germany in World War I and a subsequent scandal involving the American Legion caused its failure in 1921. [3] [4]
The Haymarket Riot occurred in 1886. [1]
The peak of German immigration was 1890. [5]
In 1900, there were 470,000 Chicago residents who had at least one parent born in Germany and/or who were born in Germany themselves. Those of German descent were the largest ethnic group of Chicago from 1850 until the turn of the century. [2]
German-born citizens occupied many of Chicago's highest political offices of the 19th century, including County Clerk, Sheriff, Coroner, City Clerk, City Treasurer, City Marshall and General Superintendent of Police, and County Treasurer.
German immigration decreased in the 20th century due to increases in the German economy and new restrictions on immigration. [5]
In 1914, there were 191,168 people born in Germany living in Chicago; this was the peak number of German-born people in Chicago. [1]
In 1920, 22% of Chicagoans self-reported as being of German ancestry. The lower numbers were because of a reluctance to report German ancestry due to anti-German sentiment from World War I and because of reduced immigration from Germany. [2]
In the World War II era anti-Hitler dissidents and German Jews immigrated to Chicago. In the post-World War II era ethnic Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia arrived in Chicago. [5]
In 1980, 6% of Chicago's population born outside of the United States was from Germany. After 1980, this percentage decreased. [1]
Historically, the bulk of Chicago's Germans lived in the North Side with the center of the German population being Lakeview. In German the North Side was called the "Nord Seite". [5]
There were smaller numbers in the South Side that worked mainly in meatpacking. Joseph C. Heinen and Susan Barton Heinen, authors of Lost German Chicago, stated that in the 1970s, some "vestiges" of the South Side German community remained but otherwise it had "quickly dispersed" in the 20th century. [5]
By the end of the 19th century, about 35% of the Germans originated from northeast Germany. In the 1880s and 1890s, most of Chicago's German immigration originated from the estates in rural northeast Germany in places such as Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and Prussia. By the end of the 19th century, 25% were from southwest Germany. 17% were from northwest Germany. 12% were from southeast; in the 1830s, most immigration came from southwestern Germany. By the end of the 19th century, 11% were from western Germany. Most German immigration in the 1850s and 1860s came from the middle part of the country. [2]
By the end of the 19th century, about 55% of Chicago's Germans were Roman Catholic. The Protestant population was smaller. According to Christiane Harzig of the Encyclopedia of Chicago , they "were more outspoken on political and community issues." [2] There were about 20,000 German Jews in Chicago by 1900. [2]
The DANK Haus German American Cultural Center is located in Lincoln Square, Chicago. The Goethe-Institut Chicago is located in downtown Chicago and offers cultural programs, German language courses and exams. [6]
In the 19th century, many Chicago Germans became involved in antislavery abolition movements. [1] Notable German American abolitionists in Chicago included Wilhelm Rapp and Hermann Raster.
In the late 19th century, many Germans in Chicago were involved in anarchist-radical politics. At that time German Americans were the primary leaders of the Socialist Labor Party and by 1890 it was essentially a German-speaking group. German was one of the organization's two official languages used in its meetings. German Americans disproportionately made up those who participated in the 1886 Haymarket Riot. [7]
Several factors caused German American involvement in radical politics to cease by the 20th century. In the 1880s and 1890s, the living standards of German Americans had improved, making them better than those in Germany. In addition, agitators and radical emigrant editors stopped coming to Chicago because Bismarck repealed Germany's anti-socialist laws. [7]
There have been Jewish communities in the United States since colonial times, with individuals living in various cities before the American Revolution. Early Jewish communities were primarily composed of Sephardi immigrants from Brazil, Amsterdam, or England, many of them fleeing the Inquisition.
German Americans are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry.
Chicago has played a central role in American economic, cultural and political history. Since the 1850s Chicago has been one of the dominant metropolises in the Midwestern United States, and has been the largest city in the Midwest since the 1880 census. The area's recorded history begins with the arrival of French explorers, missionaries and fur traders in the late 17th century and their interaction with the local Potawatomi Native Americans. Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a black freeman, was the first permanent non-indigenous settler in the area, having a house at the mouth of the Chicago River by at least 1790, though possibly as early as 1784. The small settlement was defended by Fort Dearborn after its completion in 1804, but was abandoned as part of the War of 1812 in expectation of an attack by the Potawatomi, who caught up with the retreating soldiers and civilians not two miles south of the fort. The modern city was incorporated in 1837 by Northern businessmen and grew rapidly from real estate speculation and the realization that it had a commanding position in the emerging inland transportation network, based on lake traffic and railroads, controlling access from the Great Lakes into the Mississippi River basin.
The history of the Jews in Latin America began with conversos who joined the Spanish and Portuguese expeditions to the continents. The Alhambra Decree of 1492 led to the mass conversion of Spain's Jews to Catholicism and the expulsion of those who refused to do so. However, the vast majority of conversos never made it to the New World and remained in Spain slowly assimilating to the dominant Catholic culture. This was due to the requirement by Spain's Blood Statutes to provide written documentation of Old Christian lineage to travel to the New World. However, the first Jews came with the first expedition of Christopher Columbus, including Rodrigo de Triana and Luis De Torres.
The demographics of Chicago show that it is a large, and ethnically and culturally diverse metropolis. It is the third largest city and metropolitan area in the United States by population. Chicago was home to over 2.7 million people in 2020, accounting for over 25% of the population in the Chicago metropolitan area, home to approximately 9.6 million.
Little Italy, sometimes combined with University Village into one neighborhood, is on the Near West Side of Chicago, Illinois. The current boundaries of Little Italy are Ashland Avenue on the west and Interstate 90/94 on the east, the Eisenhower Expressway on the north and Roosevelt to the south. It lies between the east side of the University of Illinois at Chicago campus in the Illinois Medical District and the west side of the University of Illinois at Chicago campus. The community was once predominantly Italian immigrants but now is made up of diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds as a result of immigration, urban renewal, gentrification and the growth of the resident student and faculty population of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Its Italian-American heritage is primarily evident in the Italian-American restaurants that once lined Taylor Street. The neighborhood is home to the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame as well as the historic Roman Catholic churches Our Lady of Pompeii, Notre Dame de Chicago, and Holy Family.
Russian Americans are Americans of full or partial Russian ancestry. The term can apply to recent Russian immigrants to the United States, as well as to those who settled in the 19th-century Russian possessions in northwestern America. Russian Americans comprise the largest Eastern European and East Slavic population in the US, the second-largest Slavic population generally, the nineteenth-largest ancestry group overall, and the eleventh-largest from Europe.
Assyrian Americans refers to individuals of ethnic Assyrian ancestry born or residing within the United States. Assyrians are an indigenous Middle Eastern ethnic group native to Mesopotamia in West Asia who descend from their ancient counterparts, directly originating from the ancient indigenous Mesopotamians of Akkad and Sumer who first developed the independent civilization in northern Mesopotamia that would become Assyria in 2600 BC. Modern Assyrians often culturally self-identify as Syriacs, Chaldeans, or Arameans for religious and tribal identification. The first significant wave of Assyrian immigration to the United States was due to the Sayfo genocide in the Assyrian homeland in 1914–1924.
Belarusian Americans, also known as White Russian Americans and White Ruthenian Americans, are Americans who are of total or partial Belarusian ancestry.
The history of immigration to the United States details the movement of people to the United States from the colonial era to the present day. Throughout U.S. history, the country experienced successive waves of immigration, particularly from Europe and later on from Asia and Latin America. Colonial-era immigrants often repaid the cost of transoceanic transportation by becoming indentured servants in which the new employer paid the ship's captain. In the late 19th century, immigration from China and Japan was restricted. In the 1920s, restrictive immigration quotas were imposed but political refugees had special status. Numerical restrictions ended in 1965. In recent years, the largest numbers of immigrants to the United States have come from Asia and Central America.
Various ethnic groups in Omaha, Nebraska have lived in the city since its organization by Anglo-Americans in 1854. Native Americans of various nations lived in the Omaha territory for centuries before European arrival, and some stayed in the area. The city was founded by white Anglo-Saxon Protestants from neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa. However, since the first settlement, substantial immigration from all of Europe, migration by African Americans from the Deep South and various ethnic groups from the Eastern United States, and new waves of more recent immigrants from Mexico and Africa have added layers of complexity to the workforce, culture, religious and social fabric of the city.
Nativism is the political policy of promoting or protecting the interests of native-born or indigenous people over those of immigrants, including the support of anti-immigration and immigration-restriction measures. In the United States, nativism does not refer to a movement led by Native Americans, also referred to as American Indians.
New Yorker Volkszeitung was the longest-running German language daily labor newspaper in the United States of America, established in 1878 and suspending publication in October 1932. At the time of its demise during the Great Depression the Volkszeitung was the only German-language daily in the United States and one of the oldest radical left newspapers in the nation.
In the demography of the United States, some people self-identify their ancestral origin or descent as "American", rather than the more common officially recognized racial and ethnic groups that make up the bulk of the American people. The majority of these respondents are visibly white and do not identify with their ancestral European ethnic origins. The latter response is attributed to a multitude of generational distance from ancestral lineages, and these tend be Anglo-Americans of English, Scotch-Irish, Welsh, Scottish or other British ancestries, as demographers have observed that those ancestries tend to be recently undercounted in U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey ancestry self-reporting estimates.
Hermann Raster was an American editor, abolitionist, writer, and anti-temperance political boss who served as chief editor and part-owner of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung, a widely circulated newspaper in the German language in the United States, between 1867 and 1891. Together with publisher A.C. Hesing, Raster exerted considerable control over the German vote in the Midwest and forced the Republican Party to formally adopt an anti-prohibition platform in 1872, known as the Raster Resolution. He was appointed as Collector of Internal Revenue for the First District of Illinois by President Ulysses S. Grant but resigned from this post shortly thereafter. Raster returned to Europe in 1890 when his health began to fail him and died filling a minor diplomatic role in Berlin. Today he is best remembered for his extensive correspondence with Western intellectual and political figures of the time, such as Joseph Pulitzer, Elihu Washburne, and Francis Wayland Parker, much of which is preserved at the Newberry Library in Chicago.
The mix of ethnic groups in Chicago has varied over the history of the city, resulting in a diverse community in the twenty-first century. The changes in the ethnicity of the population have reflected the history and mass America, as well as internal demographic changes. The groups have been important in the development of the city as well as players in occasional conflicts.
As of the 2020 there were approximately 70,814 Korean-origin people in Illinois, with the vast majority in the Chicago metropolitan area. This makes Illinois the state with the eighth-largest Korean American population and the Chicago metropolitan area the fifth-largest, after Los Angeles, New York, Washington, and Seattle. As of 2006 the largest groups of Koreans are in Albany Park, North Park, West Ridge, and other communities near Albany Park. Many Koreans have since moved to northern and northwestern Chicago suburbs, including Glenview, Morton Grove, Mount Prospect, Niles, Northbrook, Schaumburg, and Skokie. A Koreatown, labeled "Seoul Drive", exists along Lawrence Avenue between Kedzie Avenue and Pulaski Road, albeit in diminished form. There were a number of Korean businesses on Clark Street in the 1970s, in Lakeview and Lincoln Park.
The 2020 estimate of the Jewish population in metropolitan Chicago is around 319,600, according to Brandeis University's Chicago Report. The population of Jewish people within the City of Chicago's limits is estimated to be around 120,000, with another 200,000 residing in the suburbs surrounding the major city. At the end of the 20th century there were a total of 270,000 Jews in the Chicago area, with 30% in the city limits. In 1995, over 80% of the suburban Jewish population lived in the northern and northwestern suburbs of Chicago. At this time, West Rogers Park was - and continues to be - the largest Jewish community within the city of Chicago. However, the Jewish population within the city had been declining and tended to be older and more well-educated than the Chicago average. The Jewish immigrants to Chicago came from many different countries, with the most common being Eastern Europe and Germany.
German New Zealanders are New Zealand residents of ethnic German ancestry. They comprise a very large amount of New Zealanders in terms of heritage, with some 200,000 people from the country having at least partial German ancestry. New Zealand's community of ethnic German immigrants constitute one of the largest recent European migrant groups in New Zealand, numbering 12,810 in the 2013 census. 36,642 New Zealanders spoke the German language at the 2013 census, making German the seventh-most-spoken language in New Zealand.
White Paraguayans or European Paraguayans are Paraguayan people whose ancestry lies within the continent of Europe, most notably Spain, Italy and Germany, and to a lesser extent, Ukraine and Poland.
