UI Press | Linda Schelbitzki Pickle | Contented among Strangers: Rural German-Speaking Women and Their Families in the Nineteenth-Century Midwest

Contented among Strangers

Rural German-Speaking Women and Their Families in the Nineteenth-Century Midwest

Awards and Recognition:

Winner of the Missouri Conference on History Book Prize, 1997.

German-Americans make up one of the largest ethnic groups in the United States, yet their very success at assimilating has also made them one of the least visible. Contented among Strangers examines the central role German-speaking women in rural areas of the Midwest played in preserving their ethnic and cultural identity. Even while living far from their original homelands, these women applied traditional European patterns of rural family life and values to their new homes in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. As a result they were more content with their modest lives than were their Anglo-American counterparts. Through personal recollections--including interesting diary material translated by the author, church and community documents, and migration and census data--Pickle reveals the diversity and richness of the women's experiences.