The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 73, July 1969 - April, 1970 Page: 211
605 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The German Settlement of Texas After 1865
established by settlers from Malone, a town at the northern tip of the
German Belt in Hill County, not far from Waco.'"
The urban German element also developed rapidly in the period
after 1865. Many of the immigrants had been engaged in nonagricul-
tural employment in Germany, and it is not surprising that they
sought to settle in the towns and cities and establish themselves as
craftsmen, hotel keepers, brewers, and the like. The basic contrast
between the Bauer (farmer) and Burgher immigrants has never been
fully recognized by scholars dealing with the German element in
Texas. If the census of 1870 is to be trusted, fully 57 percent of the
German-born labor force in Texas was engaged in nonagricultural
occupations, as opposed to only 26 percent of the native Americans,
and this helps explain how the Germans, who composed only 5 or 6
percent of the state population, could be numerically so important in
the towns."'
In general, the cities and towns which boasted large German popu-
lations in the postbellum period were the same ones which had at-
tracted immigrants before the war-Galveston, Houston, San Antonio,
and other towns of the German Belt. San Antonio, for example, was
dominated both culturally and economically by the German element
in the 187o's, and, according to the city assessor, persons of German
birth or descent comprised one-third of the population there in that
decade."' Between 186o and 189o, the number of German-born in San
Antonio more than doubled, indicating the importance of postbellum
immigration."0
The twentieth century, and particularly the period since about 192o,
has witnessed an even more rapid growth of the urban German ele-
ment in Texas. The cities have drawn on two principal sources in in-
creasing their German populations--new immigration directly from
Europe and an influx of German-Americans from surrounding rural
areas. The numbers of Germans arriving from Europe in recent
decades have never approached those of the pre-189o period, but there
has been significant immigration, particularly in the years following
"Bewie, Missouri in Texas, 128-129.
"'U.S. Census Office, Ninth Census. Population, 758.
'Charles Ramsdell, San Antonio: A Historical and Pictoral Guide (Austin, 1959), 154.
The author devotes all of Chapter VII (pages 147-161) to German San Antonio. See
also Frederick C. Chabot, With the Makers of San Antonio (San Antonio, 1937), 363-412.
"Ralph Wooster, "Foreigners in the Principal Towns of Ante-Bellum Texas," South-
western Historical Quarterly, LXVI (October, 1962), 2og-21o; U.S. Census Office, Eleventh
Census. Population, pt. 1, p. 671.211
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 73, July 1969 - April, 1970, periodical, 1970; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117147/m1/233/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.