Thread by @SaysSimulation

The Germans are complicated but essential. There were three major waves of German immigration - from different parts of Germany, with different cultures. These different waves intersected with the four Anglo cultural folk ways, with a different mix in each of the four regions

The first major wave was the colonial stock "Pennsylvania Dutch" who had migrated from Southwestern Germany, often to escape religious persecution. These Germans are part of the founding stock of the Lower Midwest in particular - they were there in the land clearing &
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Indian fighting stage, and along with the Scotch-Irish, they are the original Midwest. As in Pennsylvania, they are somewhat insular, and often preferred not to mix. They are also concentrated, mostly in Ohio, then Indiana, and some in Illinois.

These Southwestern Germans
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mostly settled north of Ohio River, with what could best be described as enclaves in Kentucky down to parts of Tennessee.

The second big wave is often referred to as the 1848ers, though the total period of migration was more the 1830s to 1860s. This group also drew from
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Southwestern Germany, but also included leftist liberals from the major urban areas. In the aftermath of the failed Revolutions of 1848, they fled to the US to avoid political persecution, though as always, other Germans were coming at the same time in numbers for economic
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reasons. Virtually none of these Germans went south of the Ohio River, they did not want to settle in slave states. They did help fill in the rural land in the West, and they helped build such cities as Cincinnati, St. Louis & Evansville. Crucially, they were key to the
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early settlement of the Upper Midwest, with cities like Milwaukee, as well as the states of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota.

The third wave was the biggest of all, and it was the mass economic migration from primarily Northeastern Germany - a different kind of Germans!
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