Title: German influence helped shape America | ShareAmerica
Headings: German influence helped shape America
German influence helped shape America
Content: German influence helped shape America | ShareAmerica
German influence helped shape America
By
Mary Jane Maxwell
-
Dec 14, 2017
Three generations of a German family arrive at Ellis Island, a New York immigrant-inspection station, in the early 1900s. ( National Park Service)
Christmas in the United States would be unrecognizable without the traditions that German immigrants brought to America. The decorated Christmas tree and the gift-giving figure of Santa Claus — hallmarks of Christmas in America — arrived with German families and soon spread to other American homes. A few Germans were among the first European immigrants to arrive in the New World, joining the English at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1608. In search of land and religious freedom in the 1700s, they settled primarily in Pennsylvania and New York. Children in traditional clothing at Milwaukee’s annual German Fest, one of the largest German festivals in North America. It features German folk dancing, music and food. ( © Sherry L. Brukbacher)
Nearly 8 million Germans migrated to the U.S. between 1820 and 1870, mostly settling in the upper Midwest states of North and South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. After the British, Germans are the largest ancestry group in the U.S., representing nearly 15 percent of the entire population with more than 40 million descendants. German-Americans contributed to the development of the United States in numerous and profound ways.