A City of Immigrants: a brief overview of immigrants in Fort Wayne through 1920

On December 10, 2011, the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a special program entitled “Examining Immigration through Faith and Politics” was presented in what is hoped will be a series dedicated to how faith and politics intersect in today’s prominent issues. The hosts were the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fort Wayne and Temple Acduth Vesholom with support from the League of Women Voters, Catherine Kasper Place and The Reclamation Project. This particular piece was included in the packet of information given to participants. While by no means a definite work on immigration in Fort Wayne IN, this piece does provide a preliminary look at some of the issues that have faced immigrants to our city, the diversity of nations from which immigrants came, and various opinions about immigrants as voiced by leaders in the community. If you’re interested in local history, the History Center has many back issues of the Old Fort News on sale at this time plus copies of the two-volume Allen County-Fort Wayne History published in 2005.

Part II

As you are well aware, immigrants from Germany played a major role in developing Fort Wayne into the city that it is today. There is not time enough in this presentation to go into great detail but you are encouraged to pick up a copy of Mather’s book to read on your own.

German Catholics in Fort Wayne began in the 1840’s to feel a need for a church separate from French, Irish and American parishioners. Three German Protestant congregations had already evolved and a German Jewish congregation was organizing. After the German Catholics moved into their own space, St. Augustine’s was increasingly composed of French and Irish immigrants.

According to Mather, “In 1850, Germans constituted 62 percent of the foreign-born in Allen County, of whom about a third were Catholic. French ‘emigres’ represented 14 percent of the aliens, a majority of whom were Catholic; the Irish were 11 percent of the total, most all of whom were Catholic.”

One of Fort Wayne’s more famous immigrants—Bishop John Henry Luers-- has a school named for him. Luers was born in Westphalia, Germany in 1819 and moved to the United States at age 13 with his family, which settled in Ohio.

Henry Rudisill was an American born Lutheran who came to Fort Wayne to oversee the landholdings of his employer John Barr. He soon learned that local labor was “both scarce and expensive; Rudisill immediately suggested that Barr ‘hire some Germans from Germany and send them out to me. German emigrants are frequently arriving in Baltimore and would be glad of such an opportunity. You can hire them much lower than the Americans and I think they are more to be depended on. … If you can get whole families it would be better….Their women are good in corn fields…They are more industrious and temperate than our Americans.”

In later years, Rudisill was part of a movement to bring the Lutheran Church more into line with American culture. His pastor, upon returning from Germany and wishing to take the congregation back to 16^th century German Lutheranism, forced Rudisill’s hand as did the declaration by two German pastors in the community that membership in a fraternal organization was not to be undertaken by Lutherans. Rudisill was a member of the Wayne Lodge No. 25 of the Free and Accepted Masons and had been since 1830.

The split was amicable but growth of the new English-speaking congregation was not immediate.

Presbyterian minister Charles Beecher, in 1846, was quoted as saying, “The life among the German Evangelicals is a life of miserable toil and disgust to any generous mind. Mostly stingy and stupid, they are excessively bigoted and narrow in their ideas.”

However, with the establishment of a strong German Reformed Church—Fort Wayne’s St. John’s Lutheran was the first in Indiana--Fort Wayne became increasingly attractive to new arrivals from England and France. The French were nurtured by the church, according to Mather, because they were the only congregation in the area where French could be spoken during the services.

Itinerant Jewish peddlers came to this area seeking the freedom to conduct business that was denied to them in Germany or at best made extremely difficult. These Jews did not establish synagogues—this job was left to settled merchants. One of the more well-remembered of these men was Frederick Nirdlinger, born in Hechingen, Germany. He was equally recognized by both German and English speaking residents and was active in the Democratic Party, elected as a township trustee in the mid-1850s, and shared his carriage with Stephen Douglas when he ran against Abraham Lincoln for the presidency.

In the “Reflections” chapter of his book, Mather writes, “In hindsight, the modern reader may feel that there were areas in which the clergy and their congregations were timid. When the Miami Indians were about to be removed from the region, it appears that only a few voices from the local congregations were raised to protest their deportation. Similarly, there is scant record of constructive measures initiated by the religious leaders to bridge the social and political chasm that separated white and black residents. And, despite the fact that Anglo-Protestant church women were the leaders of the emerging women’s rights movement, there is no record of Fort Wayne clergy actively promoting the cause.”

Council of Defense documents provide insight into Allen County during WW I

By Nancy McCammon-Hansen

Civic involvement took a unique turn in Allen County during World War I and recent work by two volunteers provides us with organized documentation to showcase this part of our city’s history.

Jeanne S. Miller and Lorraine H. Weier spent the better part of two years going through our collection of documents from the Allen County Council of Defense (COD), indexing the materials and creating 38 categories so that researchers can more easily find the information they need. The ten boxes of files and the resultant inventory list are now under review by our curator, Walter Font.

Both of these women enjoy Allen County history—Jeanne is a life-long Allen County resident and Laurie has lived here 53 years. This is not the first time they’ve worked on a project together—in fact, it’s the third! Going through massive amounts of paper can be “tedious, dull work” (their words, not this author’s) but they will readily share that the work can some days be fascinating, especially when the opportunity to compare “history” to today presents itself.

The Allen County COD was formed at the behest of the state, which had a state-level organization organized by the United States Council of Defense. The COD was formed by decree of President Woodrow Wilson shortly before the United States entered the WW I. Ultimately, there were national, state, county and township councils.

The Allen County Council “did about everything” according to Jeanne and Laurie, with members who “served voluntarily way past the end of the war. They were prominent citizens who had the time, talent and expertise to do the tasks that supported the war effort.”

Propaganda—on both sides of the war effort—was used by the COD to restrict Germans in their support of the homeland and to promote to “everyone to get on board and support the war effort.”

Fund raising was, as today, a part of the job with a surprising amount of money raised in Liberty bonds and for the Red Cross. Prominent male residents would go to movie theaters to promote the buying of bonds.

Also important to the war effort was the promotion of fair pricing of food stuffs and other vital materials. Farmers were encouraged to produce more crops due to famine in Europe and the Boys Working Reserve was formed to “employ” young men not old enough for the armed services but strong enough to be of service to farmers. A farming background helped, but even city dwellers were encouraged to apply and work for “a pittance”. Jeanne and Laurie found folders full of applications, cards and signatures as well as advice to farmers.

However, no African Americans were allowed to participate in the area’s farming. Integration was not yet a part of our culture. Jeanne and Laurie commented during the interview for this article that among the papers they were sorting was a slip of paper that discussed “black” soldiers not being able to attend local movie theaters and a proposal to change this policy. But they could not find any documentation that the policy was ever changed.

All policies were set at the national level. Jeanne and Laurie were surprised at how much money was raised locally for implementation of those policies as well as the number of citizens who were involved in this war-time effort.

A good example of basic needs by our military was a memo from then Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt requesting that Americans contribute telescopes and binoculars to the Navy, which was unprepared to join in the fighting.

Fort Wayne during WW I was a very ethnic community comprised of a number of German immigrants, many of whom had not acquired US citizenship. One of the more interesting facts discovered during the cataloging of the COD materials was the attempt to forbid teaching and preaching in German. Lists of young people in German language congregations were developed and boys in particular were identified by age group.

The Allen County Public Library was given a list of books that were to be removed from the shelves. They complied.

The result of compliance to COD activities most often occurred through social coercion. You didn’t want to be seen as disloyal and pressure came from neighbor to neighbor to be a good American. People seemed more willing to go along with whatever the Federal government decreed, especially when it came to restrictions on rationing of items such as sugar and wheat as well as building materials.

In this election year it’s important to note that a major effort was made to get servicemen to vote absentee.

In an age where technology was not particularly well advanced, telegrams were the most often used method of communication.

Jeanne and Laurie will tell you that handling original documents almost a century old is a “privilege” and that history “comes alive” when you see the actual words of real people living in a particular age. Walter Font, the History Center’s curator, served as advisor for the project.

“He’s a true professional who knows his business,” said Jeanne. Laurie added that “Walter’s insight on how to make the material available and how to label folders so people can easily find what they’re looking for” were critical to the success of putting the collection into a usable form for researchers.