German Americans(I)

choi

German-Americans | The Silent Minority; America’s largest ethnic group has assimilated so well that people barely notice it. Economist, Jan 31, 2015.
www.economist.com/news/united-st ... le-barely-notice-it

Note:
(1) surnames (arranged in alphabetic order; from Dictionary of American Family Names, by Oxford University Press):
* The origin or meaning of surname is not known, for Boeing, Nimitz or Pfizer,
* The German surname Best: “from a short form of Sebastian”
* Boehner: "someone who lived in a loft, a variant of Boehne + the suffix -er denoting an inhabitant"
* Eisenhower is "Americanized spelling of German Eisenhauer."
^ Eisenhauer: “a worker in iron, from Middle High German isen ‘iron’ (see Eisen) + houwære, a derivative of houwen ‘to cut, chop, or hew.’ As a vocabulary word, this is found in west central (Palatine) Germany only; elsewhere the standard term is Schmidt”
* Erhart is a variant spelling of Ehrhardt.
^ Ehrhardt: "from a Germanic personal name composed of Old High German era ‘honor’ (compare Ehrlich [meaning ‘respected,’ ‘honorable’']) + hard ‘brave’, ‘hardy’, ‘strong’
* The German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) surname Heinz is "from a pet form of the personal name Heinrich [German form of Henry]."
* The German surname Kohler: "from Middle High German kol ‘(char)coal’ + the agent suffix -er"
* The German surname Lentz is a variant of another German surname Lenz. The latter is "from a personal name * * * a pet form of the personal name Lorenz."
* The German surname Pabst: "from Middle High German babes(t)--modern German [noun masculine; from Latin (noun masculine) papa father] Papst--‘pope,’ a nickname for a self-important person"
* The English, French, German, and Dutch surname Paul: "from the personal name Paul (Latin Paulus ‘small’)"
^ Paul (name)
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_(name)
^ Latin English dictionary
    paulus (adjective masculine): "little, small"
    en.wiktionary.org/wiki/paulus
* The German surname Schuermann (German: Schürmann): "someone from a place called Schüre(n), or * * * someone who lived by a barn, from Middle Low German schüre barn"
* Steinway: "Americanized form of German Steinweg * * * name for someone living at [sic; should be 'by'] a stone (not dirt) road, from Middle High German stein ‘stone’ + weg ‘path’"

choi

(2) German English dictionary
* Apfelkuchen (noun masculine; [noun masculine] Apfel apple + [noun masculine]‎ Kuchen cake, pie)
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Apfelkuchen
* Land (noun neuter): “land”
dict.tu-chemnitz.de/dings.cgi?lang=en&service=deen&opterrors=0&optpro=0&query=land&iservice=&comment=&email=
* Kindergarten (noun masculine; German Kinder children + [noun masculine] Garten garden): “kindergarten”
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Kindergarten
^ Kind (noun neuter; plural: Kinder): "child"
    en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Kind
^ Compare Wunderkind (noun neuter; [noun neuter] Wunder wonder + Kind child): “child prodigy”
    en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wunderkind
* The Garman surname Schlitz: "someone living by the Schlitz river or * * * from the town of Schlitz, near Fulda”
* Strauss (noun masculine; alternative spelling of Strauß): "ostrich"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Strauss
* Turner (noun masculine: feminine: Turnerin): "a male gymnast"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Turner
* Wald (noun Masculine; plural: Wälder): “forest, woods"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wald
* Weg (noun masculine): "way, path"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Weg

choi

(3) “ON A snow-covered bluff overlooking the Sheboygan river stands the Waelderhaus, a faithful reproduction of an Austrian chalet. It was built by the Kohler family of Wisconsin in the 1920s as a tribute to the homeland of their father, John Michael Kohler, who had immigrated to America in 1854 at the age of ten. John Michael moved to Sheboygan, married the daughter of another German immigrant, who owned the local foundry, and took over his father-in-law’s business. He transformed it from a maker of ploughshares into a plumbing business. Today Kohler is the biggest maker of loos and baths in America. Herbert Kohler, the boss (and grandson of the founder), has done so well selling tubs that he has been able to pursue his other passion—golf—on a grand scale. The Kohler Company owns Whistling Straits, the course that will host the Ryder Cup in 2020.”
(a) Sheboygan River
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheboygan_River
(b)
(i) Waelderhaus
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waelderhaus
(in Kohler [a village, founded in 1900 as a company town of Kohler Co where the company built a plant that same year; near City of Sheboygan, where Sheboygan River empties into Lake Michigan], Wisconsin)
(ii) Marie Christine Kohler
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Christine_Kohler
("The name Waelderhaus (ger. [Sic; should be 'Ger.' (upper case), for German] wälderhaus) means forest house. The building was dedicated to the use of the girl scouts upon comlpetion [sic] in 1931")
(c) Whistling Straits
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistling_Straits

* strait (n): “archaic :  a narrow space or passage”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/strait
(d) Ryder Cup
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryder_Cup
(a biennial men's golf competition between teams from Europe and the United States; named after the English businessman Samuel Ryder who donated the trophy)

choi

(4) "Companies founded by German-Americans tend to play down their roots, too: think of Pfizer, Boeing, Steinway, Levi Strauss or Heinz. Buried somewhere on their websites may be a brief note that 'Steinway & Sons was founded in 1853 by German immigrant Henry Engelhard Steinway'"
(a) Pfizer
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer
(named after German-American cousins Charles Pfizer and Charles F Erhart (originally from Ludwigsburg ['12 kilometres north of Stuttgart city centre': Wikipedia], Germany) who launched a chemicals business, Charles Pfizer and Company in Brooklyn in 1849; presently headquartered in Manhattan)
(b) "Boeing was incorporated in Seattle by William Boeing [in] 1916, as 'Pacific Aero Products Co * * * later incorporated in Delaware" in 1934.  Wikipedia
(c) Levi Strauss
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Strauss
(1929-1902; His firm, Levi Strauss & Co, began in 1853 in San Francisco; born in Bavaria to an Ashkenazi Jewish family)

(5) “German immigrants have flavoured American culture like cinnamon in an Apfelkuchen. They imported Christmas trees and Easter bunnies and gave America a taste for pretzels, hot dogs, bratwursts and sauerkraut. * * * Germans in Wisconsin launched America’s first kindergarten and set up Turnvereine, or gymnastics clubs, in Milwaukee, Cincinnati and other cities.”
(a) “Apfelkuchen” starts with an upper case (even in the middle of a sentence), because the first letter of all German noun is capitalized.
(b) Christmas tree
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree
(section 1.2.4 North America)
(c) Easter Bunny
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Bunny
(d) hotdog
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_dog
(e) bratwurst
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bratwurst
(f) kindergarten
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindergarten
(In 1779, Johann Friedrich Oberlin [1740-1826; French pastor; Oberlin College in Ohio was named after him] and Louise Scheppler founded in Strasbourg an early establishment; "The first kindergarten in the United States was founded in Watertown, Wisconsin in 1856 and was conducted in German. Elizabeth Peabody founded America's first English-language kindergarten in 1860")

Louise Scheppler was a servant in the household of Pastor Oberlin.
books.google.com/books?id=8BMEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA463&lpg=PA463&dq=Louise+Scheppler+oberlin&source=bl&ots=Q2v1q565PF&sig=zsxsl7hdsijW_bpRwDGOXQyBSOs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NtjXVNycJceqNuO6hKAH&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Louise%20Scheppler%20oberlin&f=false
(g)
(i) For Turnvereine, see Turners
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turners
(Turnvereine gymnastic unions)
(ii) See (2) above for Turner in German-English dictionary. (Again the T is capitalized like all other German nouns.)

choi

(6) “After a failed revolution in Germany in 1848, disillusioned revolutionaries decamped to America and spread progressive ideas. ‘Germanism, socialism and beer makes Milwaukee different,’ says John Gurda, a historian. * * * As in so many other countries where Germans have settled, they have dominated the brewing trade. Beer barons such as Jacob Best, Joseph Schlitz, Frederick Pabst and Frederick Miller made Milwaukee the kind of city that more or less had to call its baseball team the Brewers.”
(a) Revolutions of 1848
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1848
(b) Germanism (n): "partiality for Germany or German customs"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/germanism
(c) Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schlitz_Brewing_Company
(Schlitz first became the largest beer producer in the US in 1902 and enjoyed that status at several points during the first half of the twentieth century, exchanging the title with Anheuser-Busch multiple times during the 1950s)

was renamed--not founded--by Joseph Schlitz
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schlitz
(1831-1875; German American; Many of Chicago's breweries that had burnt were never to reopen)
(d) Pabst Brewery. Pabst Mansion, undated
www.pabstmansion.com/history/pabst-brewery.aspx
(“The history of the Pabst Brewing Company can be traced to 1842 when Jacob Best, Jr and his brother Charles Best immigrated to America from Mettenheim, Germany.  Once they arrived in Milwaukee, they began a small vinegar works and seeing the possibilities in the fledgling frontier town, in 1844, Jacob Best, Sr [1786–1861; The senior immigrat[ed] to Milwaukee in 1844 to join his sons': Wikipedia] created the brewery of Best and Company with his four sons, Jacob, Jr, Charles, Phillip and Lorenz being partners in the new enterprise. Production in these early days consisted only of 300 barrels per annum.  In 1850, Charles and Lorenz Best left the family business to start their own brewery, which they named the Plank Road Brewery, which eventually became known as the Miller Brewing Company [Frederick Miller (1824-1888; born Friedrich Müller; German-American; immigrated to US with wife and son to Milwaukee in 1954 and bought Plank Road Brewery in 1955, which had been closed a year before]. Jacob Best, Sr retired in 1853, and by 1859, Phillip was the sole proprietor, thus changing the name to the Phillip Best Brewing Company. Best’s daughter, Maria met Frederick Pabst [1836 – 1904; German-American] in 1860 and married him two years later”)
(i) “Best’s daughter, Maria met Frederick Pabst”  

It is unclear who this Best is. But another page in the website clears things up. See Pabst Family. Pabst Mansion, undated
www.pabstmansion.com/history/pabst-family.aspx
(“At the age of 14, young Frederick signed on as a cabin boy on a Great Lake steamer and by the age of 21, he became a Captain.  Henceforth, until the day he died, he always retained the title of Captain.  Captain Pabst’s vessels plied the waters between Chicago, Milwaukee and Manitowoc.  As Captain of a side-wheeler christened Comet, he found his future wife, Miss Maria Best.  Maria, born on May 16, 1842, was the eldest daughter of Phillip Best, a brewer from Milwaukee.  Frederick and Maria courted for two years and were married in Milwaukee on March 25, 1862.  Two years later Captain Pabst took his father-in-law’s offer to buy a half-interest in the Phillip Best Brewing Company”)
(ii) paddle steamer
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddle_steamer
(section 2 Types of paddle steamer: "either a single wheel on the rear * * * or a paddle wheel on each side")

choi

(7) “‘Germans were not part of the colonial aristocracy,’ says Rüdiger Lentz, director of the Aspen Institute Germany. Many Italian and Polish immigrants were middle-class, and they quickly became politically active. German immigrants tended to be poor farmers, which is why they headed for the vast fertile spaces of the Midwest. ‘The Italians stormed the city halls; the Germans stormed the beer halls,’ went the saying.”
(a) Rüdiger
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rüdiger
(“a German given name” for males)
(b) Ruediger Lentz
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruediger_Lentz

(8) “During the first world war, parts of America grew hysterically anti-German. Some Germans were spat at in the street. The teaching of their language was banned in schools. Sauerkraut was renamed ‘liberty cabbage.’ German books were burned, dachshunds kicked and German-Americans forced to buy war bonds to prove their patriotism. When New Ulm, a predominantly German town in Minnesota, refused to let its young men join the draft, the National Guard was sent in. After the war, German-Americans hunkered down. Many stopped speaking German and anglicised their names. The second world war saw less anti-German hysteria, although some 10,000 German-Americans were interned as enemy aliens. President Franklin Roosevelt conspicuously appointed military commanders with names like Eisenhower and Nimitz to fight the Axis powers.”
(a) Dennis Baron, America’s War on Language. Sept 3, 2014 (blog).
illinois.edu/blog/view/25/116243

He is a professor in Department of English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
(b) New Ulm, Minnesota
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Ulm,_Minnesota
(founded in 1853; named after the city of Neu-Ulm in the state of Bavaria)

(9) “Today German-Americans are quietly successful. Their median household income, at $61,500, is 18% above the national norm. They are more likely to have college degrees than other Americans, and less likely to be unemployed. A whopping 97% of them speak only English at home.