By the time the United States became an independent nation in 1776, Germans had earned reputations as excellent farmers, craftsmen, merchants, and technical innovators.
The German-Americans earned this admiration in the original thirteen colonies, and also helped America to defend its freedom in the war from 1775 to 1783.
As the nation expanded westward, German-Americans pioneered into the new regions, and continued to earn respect from their fellow citizens. German-Americans were seen as hard workers and wise managers of their assets, as Thomas Sowell writes:
German immigrants’ achievement as farmers in the United States remained outstanding in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In eastern Texas, German farmers were by 1880 producing a larger volume of output per farm — and on smaller farms — than other Texans.
Many of the Germans came to America, not from Germany, but from Russia. Large groups of Germans had left Germany, seeking economic opportunities, and gone to Russia. They settled in Russia, but found that low literacy rates and poor financial systems limited the income which they could generate from their farms. So they moved again, this time to America.
In Nebraska, Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming, Germans who had re-immigrated from Russia established good reputations as farmers and had excellent credit ratings at banks. Germans, both from Germany and from Russia, eventually achieved prosperity in Oklahoma, after harrowing years of pioneering in a virgin territory.
Germans in the great farming states in the middle of the country helped to create the best aspects of the nation’s agriculture system, aspects which still benefit the United States more than a century later.
On the East Coast, by contrast, Germans gained their reputations from business, industry, and technological development.
Whether on the coasts or in the interior, whether in agriculture or in urban commerce, Germans maintained a stellar reputation for diligence, cleverness, and superlative work ethic.
