I was looking on the Stevenson Library database and I found a journal article that talks about the German immigrants became the white southerners because they had moved to South Carolina. The title of the journal article is called “How the Germans Became White Southerners: German Immigrants and African Americans in Charleston, South Carolina, 1860-1880” When my great grand parents first came to America, they had lived in South Carolina and I think that this article would be a good fit for ancestral research.
This journal article is basically giving statistics from the years of 1860 through 1880. Five percent of the total population in Charleston was German in 1860 and by 1880 there was a decrease in the number of Germans in the area of Charleston.
The biggest reason for the decrease in German population was the Civil War. When the Civil War first started, a majority of the Germans had left Charleston and moved to different cities to continue their business. After the war ended, German businesses expanded and as they were expanding they were employing hundreds of residents from Charleston. During the expansion of these business, they had to find more people to run and work the companies. So they started to employ African Americans and white southerners to work along side of the Germans.
A good result of Germans moving to Charleston was that there was a huge cultural exchange for the Germans. The Germans created their own social and cultural institutions and continuously spread the culture to Germany and South Carolina. Germans in Charleston also kept strong roots to their homeland and culture.
Works Cited:
Jeffery Strickland. “How the Germans Became White Southerners: German Immigrants and African Americans in Charleston, South Carolina, 1860-1880.” Journal of American Ethnic History, vol. 28, no. 1, 2008, p. 52. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.27501881&site=eds-live&scope=site.