GERMAN 1848/49er Revolutionaries,
their impact in 19th Century USA
In the year 1776, as Thomas Paine exhorted his fellow Americans to wrest their own liberty from the British empire, he reminded them of the international significance of their cause: “Freedom hat been hunted around the globe…“. Since then, many immigrants have accepted Paine‘s implicit ‘invitation’.
However, few have attracted more attention or left a deeper imprint than a levy of Germans who arrived in the United States during the era when their homeland was convulsed by the social and political crises that culminated in the failed revolutions of 1848/49. Of course, by no means all of the more than one and half million who emigrated in that period considered themselves political ‘refugees’. But a great many, from all walks of life, were touched and influenced by the era’s widespread spirit of dissent.
As Friedrich Kapp put it, addressing a large immigrant audience in New York City in the 1850s, “We are all either social or political refugees. Dissatisfaction with the political or social relations of Europe led us hither…,we came here with a firm determination to hold on to our principles“.
This broad layer of immigrants provided the primary audience for the refugee intellectuals commonly thought of as the ‘real’ forty-eighters. But what were their principles?
Broadly defined, they were people of the political ‘left wing‘. These self-consciously ‘political refugees’ and their numerous supporters, in turn, had a still broader impact on the United States because the kind of issues that concerned them and the various solutions they championed had a trans-Atlantic resonance. It was their discovery that the United States had not solved the problems attendant upon these powerful developments that convinced many German emigres that the causes with which they had identified in Europe retained their relevance and urgency in their adoptive homeland.
Thus, within a few years of their arrival, many forty-eighters found themselves involved in a host of controversies and movements in their adoptive homeland. And for some of them, the US. Civil War offered the chance to achieve victory in a freedom struggle that had failed in Europe.
In these ways and others, the immigrant generation of 1848/1849 became important players in the drama of 19th-Century American life. Carl Schurz became ‘Secretary for Domestic Affairs’ under President Lincoln and in this position Carl Schurz became an influential politician.
Several thousand freedom fighters fled to the USA, where they had a remarkable influence on its development. Take Heckel, for example: upon his arrival in the port of New York, approximately 20,000 people were waiting for his arrival and greet him. However, Heckel did not achieve influence in the USA in the sense of the present titles, nor do we have any work by him in this set. Nevertheless, other German freedom fighters created a variety of social associations, ranging from the Freethinkers to the Turners. Some immigrants played an equally significant role in the abolition of slavery as well as in the early women’s movement in the USA. Many left behind extensive literary works or created the influential German-language press in the USA; others served in the Civil War and became famous military leaders of the ultimately victorious Unionists. And others established famous beer breweries (Miller, Antheuser).
Friedrich Kapp’s work “Geschichte der Sklaverei in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika” is included in this set.
This collection is an invaluable aid to those wishing to study first-hand a turbulent, fascinating, and seminal chapter in USA 19th Century history.
Upon request, we can compile author / title lists for you., further information can be found in our SHOP.
Electronic Bibliographic records are available.
53 ebooks as follows:
Content: 16 eBooks, fiction / 37 eBooks, non-fiction; Language: 41 eBooks in German / 12 eBooks in English; originally printed: 10 eBooks in German speaking countries, 43 eBooks in the USA;
total: about 14.000 pages
Last update: 28 August 2025′