Swiss in Greater Milwaukee (Images of America)

Images of America: Milwaukee, Wisconsin Series

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And that's the way we came off the boat. In the first half of the nineteenth century large numbers of Swiss settled in the rural Midwest, especially in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and after in California. Louis, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The socio-economic status of newcomers from Switzerland spanned the spectrum from well-to-do to the poor. A sample analysis from of 5, Swiss men in the United States yielded the following distribution: In a special grant of Congress enabled a group of French Swiss winegrowers to settle on the Ohio and establish the town of Vevay, Indiana.

This viticulture, which they had hoped to introduce as a permanent feature into the Midwestern economy, became insignificant by mid-century and was replaced by the cultivation of maize and other staples. In and Swiss Mennonites founded the agricultural settlements Sonnenberg and Chippewa in Ohio, respectively, and in Berne, Indiana; the latter remains conscious of its Swiss origin.

When gold was discovered on his property in , thousands of goldseekers overran his extensive domain, and the city of Sacramento was platted, and became California's capital in A French Swiss group connected with the Protestant Plymouth Brethren established a community in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the same year. In the spring of a group of Swiss and Germans established a Swiss Colonization Society in Cincinnati, Ohio, to create a culturally homogeneous settlement.

In the post-Civil War era Helvetia was founded in West Virginia in as a result of active recruitment by that state. George on Utah's southwestern border. Between and several thousand Italian Swiss went to California where they established vineyards and dairy farms. Between and some 23, Swiss arrived, and 29, between and Many of these Swiss did not stay permanently.

They were mainly professionals and business people employed in American branches of Swiss firms. The census counted , people of single, and , of multiple Swiss ancestry. In there was a total of , persons of Swiss ancestry of whom 35, 5. Ida Zahler and her 11 children immigrated to the United States from Switzerland in They later joined their father in North Canton, Ohio. Although Swiss in the United States are often mistaken for German, French, or Italian, their involvement in American life has been quite extensive.

Since the Swiss came from western Europe's oldest democracy and have forged a national unity out of ethnically diverse constituencies, they find American culture compatible with their own. For instance, when John J. He paralleled the Swiss with American colonials, the Austrian emperor with the British king, and viewed their struggle as the same quest for liberty. Although Switzerland is a highly industrialized country with a powerful financial and industrial elite involved in global markets, Swiss culture remains identified with an idealized rural tradition.

The chalet, a house style of rural origin, remains identified with the Swiss, although it is common only in certain Swiss regions. Yodeling and the Alphorn, again native only to some rural Swiss regions, continue to serve as emblems of Swiss culture as do the various Trachten —colorful and often beautifully crafted garb for women and men. Trachten originate in distinct regions, but tend to become fused into a blended version, sometimes mixed with Tyrolian or Bavarian motifs.

The so-called Swiss barn is also widely found in Pennsylvania and some midwestern states. It is built into an incline with a large entrance to the hayloft on an upper level and the entrances to the stables on the opposite lower level. The dominance of rural motifs in Swiss American culture points to a central feature of Swiss self-interpretation: Switzerland's origins are shaped by the traditions of rural communities.

Their emblems symbolize Swiss culture however far removed they might be from modern day Swiss and Swiss American reality. Predictably, Swiss cuisine varies according to ethnic influences. Another historic division is equally telling, however: Thus, two dishes eaten today by all Swiss are the simple cheese fondue, eaten for centuries by Swiss in rural regions, and veal with a sauce of white wine and cream, formerly enjoyed by city dwellers.

Cheese, however, is popular in almost any form. As for other regional cuisine, German areas favor pork, often accompanied by rosti, a dish of diced potatoes mixed with herbs, bacon, or cheese, and fried to a golden brown. Swiss Americans follow general trends in Western medicine and health care. People in rural areas have remained connected with healing traditions based on telepathic methods and herbs and herbal ointments.

In mental health the influence of Carl Gustav Jung has been significant. Jung viewed mental problems as soluble in part by a skillful evocation of symbols shared by all in a postulated collective subconscious that transcends cultural boundaries. Numerous Jung Institutes of the United States promote Jungian ideas, which also have influenced American literary scholarship. Most Swiss learn as their first language a regional and older form of German, French, or Italian, which remains the principal form of communication.

Since the establishment of formal schooling, however, Swiss children learn a new, yet related, language such as High German, standard French or standard Italian. The children of the Romansh region learn German or French. To enter a different linguistic world was, therefore, for most Swiss immigrants not a new experience, and they mastered multiculturalism with relative ease. Depending on their local origin Swiss greet each other in many forms. Swiss family life is well-regulated and conservative.

Swiss Americans - History, Modern era, Swiss in british north america

Few women hold careers outside the family, and young people tend to be cooperative and well-behaved. The Swiss American family is indistinguishable from other American families, which have changed from a patriarchal to an egalitarian and child-centered outlook. The Swiss American family is predominantly middle class. Swiss Americans recreate organizations they have known at home for mutual support as well as for enjoyment and social contact.

They celebrate August 1 as the Swiss national holiday and commemorate important battles of the fifteenth century Swiss struggle for independence with parades, speeches and conviviality.

At such events there is yodeling, singing, flag throwing—an artful throwing and catching of a Swiss flag on a short handle high into the air, and sometimes a reading of the Bundesbrief of Swiss immigrants belong to various religions. The first Swiss to arrive in North America in large numbers were the Swiss Mennonites, a group that derived from the Anabaptist communities of the Radical Reformation of the s. They rejected infant baptism, thus declaring the whole of ecclesiastical Christendom as heathen.

They also repudiated the state as symbolized by the sword and the oath. The Swiss Mennonite settlements that emerged in Pennsylvania and Virginia in the first half of the eighteenth century were expert in farming, and formed congregations of some 25 to 30 families. Each religious community was semi-autonomous and guided by a bishop and by preachers and deacons who were not specially schooled.

The only full members were adults who had proven their faith by a virtuous life, the demands of the community, and accepted baptism as a symbol of submission to God's will. Rules set by the religious leaders ordered the manner of dress, forms of courtship, the schooling of children, and dealings with the outside world.

Acculturation and Assimilation

If a member failed to conform, the person would be banned and avoided even by the next of kin. In the late nineteenth century many Mennonite congregations—influenced by the Dutch Mennonites, American Protestantism, and American secular culture—gave up the older traditions.

They moved into towns and took up occupations increasingly removed from farming. Only some conservative Swiss Mennonites and Amish still hold on to the sixteenth-century forms of their creed. Numerous Swiss immigrants belong to the Swiss Reformed church, as formulated by Huldrych Zwingli He adapted Christian doctrine to the needs of a rising urban bourgeoisie. Municipal power increased, monastic institutions were secularized, and the rule of the urban elites strengthened.

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Many members of the Swiss Reformed church settled in colonial Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas. Their views and ecclesiastical organization were similar to those of Presbyterians, with whom they easily merged. Some 50, Swiss Catholics arrived in the United States after the s, including about 20, Italian Swiss who settled in California between and Depending on their language, Swiss Catholics joined either German, French, Italian, or ethnically undefined American parishes.

They found, however, a very different parish organization in the United States that curtailed the Swiss practice of lay jurisdiction over secular affairs. Several Swiss religious orders were actively engaged in establishing the Catholic church in the United States. In monks from the ancient Benedictine monastery of Einsiedeln founded St. In the congregation united some 12 foundations with monks. Benedictine sisters were also deeply involved in promoting Catholic education and charity.

Anselma Felber established a community at Conception, Missouri, which later moved to Clyde. In the eighteenth century Swiss immigrants were mainly farmers and artisans. Like other German-speaking newcomers, their methods of farming differed from those of the English. Mennonite and Amish farmers fenced their properties, built stables for their cattle, sometimes even before their houses, and tilled well-manured fields.

By the mid-eighteenth century they also had developed the Conestoga wagon, a large, heavily built structure that was suited for the arduous trek across the Alleghenies. The occupational profile of Swiss immigrants reflected the general trends of Western economies. A statistical analysis for the years to counted 42 percent in the industrial work force; 25 percent in agriculture; 6. A large percentage of Swiss immigrants also worked as domestics. Viticulture was introduced into the Midwest by French Swiss farmers and was also extensively practiced by Italian Swiss from Canton Tessin who went to California in large numbers after the s.

Bernese Swiss used their expertise in dairy farming, especially in Wisconsin. Nicolas Gerber , for instance, opened a Limburger cheese factory in New Glarus in , as did Jacob Karlen in nearby Monroe in Gottlieb Beller developed a system of storage that allowed cheese production to remain responsive to fluctuating market demand. Leon de Montreux Chevalley founded butter, cheese, and condensed milk factories in Portland, Oregon. Jacques Huber introduced silk manufacturing to New Jersey; by he had established a firm with plants in Union City, Hackensack, and other cities of the mid-Atlantic states.

Albert Wittnauer used his Swiss training in watchmaking to establish a successful business in New York City. The Swiss pharmaceutical companies Ciba-Geigy, Hoffmann-La Roche, and Sandoz emerged in the twentieth century as important forces in the United States economy and diversified their productive activities. Aargauische Portlandcement-Fabrik Holderbank Wildegg, a Swiss cement company, incorporated in with original seat in Glarus, Switzerland, and introduced superior, cost-efficient cement production into North America and dominates today's cement market. In the eighteenth century Geneva was an autonomous city-state, but allied with the Swiss Confederation.

The writings of two of its citizens influenced the founders of the United States engaged in creating a new governmental structure. Jean Jacques Rousseau expounded the idea that government rested on a social contract. Jean Jacques Burlamaqui stressed in his Principles of Natural and Political Law that a government should guarantee its citizens secure happiness. The relations between the United States and Switzerland have been generally friendly, but not without tensions. At times outsiders view Swiss neutrality and direct democracy as inefficient; yet Switzerland's neutral stand allows it to represent American interests in nations with which the United States has broken off diplomatic ties.

The Swiss have had easy access to all aspects of life in the United States, although most did not come to public attention. The selection given below features a few according to field of endeavor. William Lescaze , born and educated in Geneva, Switzerland, moved to the United States in and rose to prominence as a builder of skyscrapers; he also authored several treatises on modern architecture.

Swiss in Greater Milwaukee (Arcadia), by Maralyn A. Wellauer-Lenius

In bridge-building Othmar Ammann , born in Feuerthalen, Canton Schaffhausen, achieved world renown; after studies in Zurich he went to New York City in and in was appointed chief engineer of the Port Authority of New York; he built the George Washington and other suspension bridges noted for innovative engineering and bold and esthetic design. Mari Sandoz , the daughter of Swiss immigrants, published several works of enduring value, among them the biography of her father, titled Old Jules, and a biography of Crazy Horse, the noted leader of the Sioux; her works reveal not only an unusual understanding of the world of the white settlers, but also of the mental universe of indigenous peoples such as the Sioux and Cheyenne.

Jeremias Theus worked in Charleston, South Carolina, as a successful portrait painter. Peter Rindisbacher produced valuable paintings documenting his family's move to Canada's Red River colony in and to Wisconsin in ; his works featuring Native Americans are also highly valued for their accuracy. The same holds for the numerous works of Karl Bodmer who served for 13 months as pictorial chronicler for the Prince zu Neuwied's journey to the Upper Missouri in Fritz Glarner , like Bodmer a native of Zurich, began working in New York in where, influenced by Mondrian, he created works in the style of constructivism.

Adolf Meyer , born in Niederwenigen, Canton Zurich, was influential in American psychiatry; after studies at European universities he worked in various American psychiatric institutions and insisted on the study of symptoms, on bedside note-taking, the counseling of the families of patients, and their further care after discharge; in he published a classical work on neurology and after chaired the department of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School and also directed the Henry Phipps Clinic.

Sigerist taught at Johns Hopkins University from to , directing its Institute of History and Medicine; he had previously been a professor at the University of Leipzig, Germany, and emerged as a leading historian and as an advocate of socialized medicine. At the end of the Civil War another Swiss named Henry Wirz was also hanged for his alleged crimes as commander of the Confederacy's Andersonville Prison where some 12, Union soldiers perished; his responsibility for the terrible conditions at Andersonville remains controversial.

Rudolf Ganz , who immigrated to the United States in , became an influential pianist, the conductor of the St. The composer Ernest Bloch of Geneva, Switzerland, taught and wrote music at various American institutions of the Midwest and the West Coast; among his works the orchestral poems titled Helvetia, America, and Israel intimate his threefold cultural orientation.

In film William Wyler , born in Mulhouse, France, of Swiss parents, became one of Hollywood's most respected directors; his Ben Hur won an Oscar for him as well as for 11 of his actors. The singer, actor, and television producer Yul Brynner, actually Julius Brynner , was of Swiss and Mongolian descent; he starred in various movies, among them The King and I.

In the s John Joachim Zubly of St. Gallen, Switzerland, emerged as a leading critic of the British; he was an ordained Swiss Reformed minister, a member of the Georgia Provincial Congress, and delegate to the Second Continental Congress; yet he rejected independence and viewed the union between the colonies and Great Britain as sacred and perpetual; on his return to Georgia he was tried and ended his life in obscurity. Albert Gallatin became successful in the early years of the American republic; he arrived from Geneva in and eventually moved to western Pennsylvania where he entered politics; he was elected to the state legislature in but was disbarred by the Federalists; he served instead in the House and emerged as a leader of Jefferson's party; from to he served as secretary of the treasury, then as diplomat in France, England, and Russia; after his retirement from politics he became a scholar of Native American languages, co-founded New York University, and was a leading opponent of the War against Mexico in Another leading Jeffersonian was William Wirt , the son of Swiss immigrants; he was a noted orator and jurist and served as attorney general of the United States from to Emanuel Lorenz Philipp rose to prominence in Wisconsin politics, which he entered in ; he served as governor from to and promoted cooperation between farmers, workers, and business.

Michael Schlatter from St. Gallen, Switzerland, went to Pennsylvania in and there organized numerous parishes of the Swiss Reformed Church. Louis Rodolphe Agassiz became internationally known as a scientist and explorer; born in Motier, Canton Fribourg, he studied the natural sciences at various European universities and published a major work on fish and proposed the theory of a previous ice age he went to Boston in , undertook scientific expeditions to South America, and was appointed to the chair of zoology and geology at Harvard University; there he began work on his influential ten-volume Contributions to the Natural History of the United States ; his son Alexander Agassiz also became a noted natural scientist in his own right.

A pioneer in the ethnology and archeology of the American Southwest was Adolphe Bandelier ; he was born in Bern, Switzerland, went with his family to Highland, Illinois, in , and returned to Switzerland in to study geology at the University of Bern; on his return he did extended research in Mexico and the American Southwest, later also in Bolivia, and authored numerous studies on Native American cultures of those regions.

Edison in Newark, New Jersey, in the early s and transformed Edison's ideas into workable instruments; in he became general manager and chief engineer of the Edison Machine Works in Schenectady. The Swiss Louis Joseph Chevrolet came to the United States in , became a successful racing car champion, winning the mile Indianapolis race in ; in he co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Car Company in Detroit, but soon left the enterprise; in he built a workable airplane engine, and later designed a helicopter.

Published by North American Swiss Alliance; explores shared ethnic and bi-cultural interests of the Swiss American community. Published three times a year with a circulation of , this journal offers scholarly and popular articles of Swiss American interest relating to history, literature, genealogy, and personal experience.

Images of America: Swiss in Greater Milwaukee by Maralyn A. Wellauer-Lenius (2010, Paperback)

Founded in under the name Nordamerikanische Schweizerzeitung, this weekly publication provides material in English, German, French, Italian, and Romansh. It has an estimated circulation of 3, and features news from Switzerland as well as the Swiss American communities and organizations of the United States.

Founded in , this quarterly magazine has a circulation of over , It publishes regional news from Swiss communities for the Swiss abroad, and has editions in German, French, Italian, English, and Spanish. American and Swiss corporations and individuals interested in maintaining cultural exchange; provides forum for meetings and discussions.

Involves American and Swiss corporations and individuals interested in maintaining friendship and cultural exchange with Switzerland. Provides a forum for meetings and discussions. Conducts monthly events featuring Swiss and American speakers in New York. Founded in it is today the only national organization. Formerly located in Chicago, it moved to Madison, Wisconsin, in ; it became dormant in the s, but was reactivated in under the leadership of Heinz K. This collection houses 13 volumes of transcripts of materials located at the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln, Switzerland, relating to St.

Meinrad's founding in Despite the fire of that destroyed valuable sources, letters of the founding generation and extensive correspondence with other monasteries and ecclesiastical institutions are preserved and provide insight into the Benedictine dimension of transplanted Swiss Catholicism. Meinrad College and School of Theology, St. Dedicated to preserving and documenting the multicultural heritage of the United States, this organization also houses a collection on the Swiss, including papers of the Swiss American Historical Society.

The materials highlight the founding and evolution of the Highland settlement, which began in , as well as the Swiss in Illinois. Located at Bluffton College, this library has an extensive collection of works on Swiss Mennonite history, and of Swiss Mennonite and Amish family histories and genealogies. This attraction presents artifacts from its early history in several, thematically arranged buildings. An exhibition hall features the town's history and special exhibits of Swiss American interest.

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