The Forty-eighters (48ers) were Europeans who participated in or supported the Revolutions of 1848 that swept Europe, particularly those who were expelled from or emigrated from their native land after those revolutions.
In the German Confederation, the Forty-eighters favoured unification of Germany, a more democratic government, and guarantees of human rights."Forty-Eighters", Handbook of Texas Online.http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/pnf01 Although many Americans were sympathetic to their cause and saddened by their defeat, many Forty-Eighters were Freethinkers who were more influenced by post-1789 republicanism in France and the anti-religious ideas of The Enlightenment than by the U.S. Constitution. In particular, their traditional hostility towards tolerating religious practice or Classical Christian education often put them at odds with American republicanism's belief in freedom of religion and the independence of religious institutions from control by the State. Disappointed at their failure to permanently change the system of government in the German states or the Austrian Empire, and sometimes ordered by local governments to emigrate because of their involvement in the revolution, they gave up their old lives to live abroad. They emigrated to Australia, Brazil, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They included Germans, Czechs, Hungarians, and Italians, among many others. Many were respected, politically active, wealthy, and well-educated, and found success in their new countries.
In the Americas Brazil
Disappointed by the failure of the Revolution in 1848, many realised there might be adverse effects on their lives and careers. As a result, some emigrated to South Brazil, from 1852 onwards, including Fritz Müller, Ottokar Dörffel, and Theodor Schiefler. Müller emigrated with his brother August and their wives, to join Hermann Blumenau's new colony in the State of Santa Catarina. There, he studied the natural history of the Atlantic forest in that region, and wrote the book Facts and Arguments for Darwin.
Chile
After being advised by Bernhard Eunom Philippi among others, Karl Anwandter emigrated to Chile following the failed revolution. In 1850 he settled in Valdivia. He was joined there by numerous other German immigrants of the period.
United States
Germans migrated to developing midwestern and southern cities, developing the beer and wine industries in several locations, and advancing journalism; others developed thriving agricultural communities.
Galveston, Texas, was a port of entry to many Forty-eighters. Some settled there and in Houston, but many went to the Texas Hill Country in the vicinity of Fredericksburg. Due to their liberal ideals, they strongly opposed Texas's secession in 1861. In the Bellville area of Austin County, another destination for Forty-eighters, the German precincts voted decisively against secession..
More than 30,000 Forty-eighters settled in what became called the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. There they helped define the neighborhood's distinctive German culture and in some cases also brought a rebellious nature with them from Germany. Cincinnati was the southern terminus of the Miami and Erie Canal, and large numbers of emigrants from modern Germany, beginning with the Forty-eighters, followed the canal north to settle available land in western Ohio.
In the Cincinnati riot of 1853, in which one demonstrator was killed, Forty-eighters violently protested the visit of the papal emissary Cardinal Gaetano Bedini, who had repressed revolutionaries in the Papal States in 1849. Protests took place also in 1854; Forty-eighters were held responsible for the killing of two law enforcement officers in the two events.Officer Down Memorial Page: Deputy Sheriff Thomas Higdon
Many German Forty-eighters settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, helping solidify that city's progressive political bent and cultural Deutschtum. The Acht-und-vierzigers and their descendants contributed to the development of Milwaukee's socialist political tradition.Holzman, Hani M. The German Forty-eighters and the Socialists in Milwaukee: A Social Psychological Study of Assimilation, 1948 University of Wisconsin thesis. Others settled throughout the state.
In the United States, most Forty-eighters opposed nativism and slavery, in keeping with the liberal ideals that had led them to flee Europe. In the Camp Jackson Affair in St. Louis, Missouri, a large force of German volunteers helped prevent Confederate forces from seizing the government arsenal just after the U.S. Civil War began. About 200,000 German-born soldiers enlisted in the Union Army, ultimately forming about 10% of the North's entire armed forces; 13,000 Germans served in Union Volunteer Regiments from New York alone.
After the Civil War, Forty-eighters supported improved labor laws and working conditions. They also advanced the country's cultural and intellectual development in such fields as education, the arts, medicine, journalism, and business.
Many were members of the Turner movement.
Notable German Forty-eighters in the US Architects, engineers, scientists: Louis Burger, Adolf Cluss, Henry Flad, Charles Pfizer Artists: Friedrich Girsch; Wilhelm Heine; Theodore Kaufman; Louis Prang; Henry Ulke; Adelbert John Volck Businessmen, investment bankers: Abraham Kuhn, Solomon Loeb founders of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. Soldiers in the American Civil War: Louis Blenker; Alexander Schimmelpfennig; Carl Schurz; Franz Sigel; Max Weber; August Willich; Peter Joseph Osterhaus; Frederick Salomon; Joseph Weydemeyer; Gustav Struve; Friedrich Hecker Journalists, writers, publishers: Mathilde Franziska Anneke; Karl Theodor Bayrhoffer; Gustav Bloede (see Marie Bloede); Henry Boernstein; Rudolf Doehn; Carl Adolph Douai; Carl Daenzer; Bernhard Domschke; Christian Essellen (editor of Atlantis); Julius Fröbel; Karl Peter Heinzen; Rudolf Lexow (founder of Belletristisches Journal); Karl Friedrich Bauer and Sigismund Löw (founders of Pittsburger Volksblatt); Niclas Müller; Reinhold Solger; Emil Praetorius; Oswald Ottendorfer; Friedrich Hassaurek; Theodor Olshausen; Hermann Raster; Wilhelm Rapp; Carl Heinrich Schnauffer; Kaspar Beetz; Carl Dilthey (publisher of Belletristisches Journal in New York); Heinrich Börnstein; Charles L. Bernays; Emil Rothe;In The German Element in the United States (Boston: Houghton and Mifflin, 1909, Vol. II, Chapter VII, p. 369), Albert Bernhardt Faust gives the following list of 48er journalists: Carl Schurz, F. R. Hassaurek, Carl Heinzen, Friedrich Hecker, Christopher Esselen, Lorenz Brentano, Theodor Olshausen, Hermann Raster, Friedrich Kapp, Franz Sigel, Oswald Ottendorfer, Wilhelm Rapp, Kaspar Beetz, Friedrich Lexow, Carl Dilthey, Emil Praetorius, F. Raine, H. Börnstein, C. L. Bernays, Karl D. A. Douai, Emil Rothe and Eduard Leyh. He also notes: "There were strong men among the political refugees between 1818 and 1848 prominent in journalistic work, as Friedrich Münch (Missouri), J. A. Wagener (Charleston, South Carolina), H. A. Rattermann (Cincinnati). It must be conceded, however, that the great progress in German journalism in the United States came with the advent of the political refugees of 1848, and immediately thereafter. A large number of new journals were founded by these 'forty-eighters', and as a rule they commanded a better German style and furnished a greater amount of desirable information in politics and literature. The presumption of the 'forty-eighters' in many cases offended the older class (of 1818–1848), and a journalistic warfare arose between the two parties ('die Grauen' and 'die Grünen'). The result, however, was favorable to the cause of journalism, and the Grays and the Greens, as explained before, soon united in the great struggle against secession and slavery." George Schneider (who was also a banker); Albert Sigel; Franz Umbscheiden; Edward Morwitz (who was also a physician) Musicians: Charles Ansorge; Carl Bergmann; Otto Dresel; Herman Trost (band leader in Sherman's army who later settled in Lexington, Kentucky, where he conducted the first band at the University of Kentucky; friend of John Philip Sousa); Carl Zerrahn; Carl August Braun, music teacher in Philadelphia Physicians: Abraham Jacobi; Ferdinand Ludwig Herff; Herman Kiefer; Ernest Krackowizer; Hans Kudlich; Wilhelm Loewe, Gustav C. E. Weber; William Wagner Poets: Konrad Krez; Edmund Märklin; Rudolf Puchner Political activists: Lorenz Brentano (later a member of the Congress); Friedrich Hecker; Carl Schurz (later US Secretary of the Interior); Friedrich Sorge; Gustav von Struve; Wilhelm Weitling; Rudolf Dulon; Edward Salomon; Louis F. Schade, Emil Dietzsch, Ernst Schmidt Other: Margarethe Schurz (founder of the first kindergarten in the U.S.); Joseph Spiegel (founder of the Spiegel Catalog); Hugo Wesendonck (founder of the Germania Life Insurance Company, now The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America); Pauline Wunderlich (fought at the Dresden barricades); John Michael Maisch (father of adequate pharmaceutical legislation). George Kilgen, organ builder, saw hard service as a soldier where he was a compatriot of Gen. Franz Sigel and Carl Schurz in the revolutions of 1847–48. He was banished from his native country Germany and first located in New York City. Later he relocated his business to St. Louis.
Notable Czech Forty-eighters in the US Prokup Hudek, one of the "Slavonic Artillerymen" of the 24th Illinois Infantry Regiment, and one of the co-founders of the Workingmen's Party of IllinoisAnarchy and Anarchist: A history of the red terror and the social revolution in America and Europe by Michael J Schaack, 1889 František Korbel, winegrower in Sonoma County, California Vojta Náprstek, Czech language publisher in Milwaukee Hans Balatka, Moravian musician in Milwaukee and Chicago
Notable Hungarian Forty-eighters in the US Alexander Asboth Michael Heilprin Phineas Mendel Heilprin Martin Koszta Lázár Mészáros Albin Francisco Schoepf Julius Stahel Edward R. Straznicky Charles Zagonyi
Notable Irish Forty-eighters in the US Thomas Francis MeagherWittke (1952), pp. 89–90. John O'Mahony Lola Montez (she fled from Bavaria via Switzerland, France and England)
Notable French Forty-eighters in the US Victor Prosper Considerant (also in Belgium for a time)
Notable Polish Forty-eighters in the US Włodzimierz Krzyżanowski, Civil War general and engineer
In Australia
In 1848, the first non-British ship carrying immigrants to arrive in Victoria was from Germany; the Goddefroy, on 13 February. Many of those on board were political refugees. Some Germans also travelled to Australia via London. In April 1849, the Beulah was the first ship to bring assisted German vinedresser families to New South Wales.recruited by Wilhelm Kirchner, who published Australien und seine Vortheile fur Auswanderer in Frankfurt in 1848 The second ship, the Parland, date given as May left London on 13 March 1849, and arrived in Sydney on 5 July 1849.The Board's List, reel 2459, GRK; fiche 851, Germans on Bounty Ships, GRK.