Exhibition Opening "Vom Streben nach Glück - 200 Jahre Auswanderung aus Westfalen nach Amerika"
“Life is better here than in Germany”, wrote Peter Horn in 1830 who had emigrated from Germany to Pennsylvania in a letter to his parents. Prosperity, liberty, adventure - those were the hopes that motivated about 300.000 people from Westphalia in the 19. and 20. century to start a new life in the US. The exhibit “Vom Streben nach Glück - 200 Jahre Auswanderung aus Westfalen nach Amerika” opened on Sunday, April 11th, at the Brickworks Museum in Lage. It sheds light on the reasons to emigrate, follows the migrants on their way across the ocean and tells their life’s stories. More than 100 artifacts tell about the emigrants daily life. Postcards and photographs are put on display as well as personal items and symbols of their economic success.
The exhibit was curated by the Center for German American Educational History together with the Brickworks Museum in Lage and will tour through four more museums in the next years. Special focus was put on the state of Indiana. In the 19th century, German Americans made up about 30% of the state's population. They left their mark on the cities cultural but also economic make up. Choirs and turner clubs were founded, German carneval celebrated and beer gardens opened.
During Word War I, the German American community suffered a heavy blow, but until today numerous companies and cultural institution that go back to German American founders can be found in the US.
Link to the exhibit's homepage