Kurzfuehrer_Abt_1_5 1..21 - Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte

1 n From Bavaria to America
Up to this day more than 23 percent of the
American population trace their origins
back to German ancestors. A considerable
percentage of them came from Bavaria
and the formerly Bavarian Palatinate,
America being the most preferred destination
even for bavarian emigrants since
the 19th century.
Hardly anybody left voluntarily. There
were always economical, political or religious
hardships that made the individual
set out on the trip over the Big Pond. Frequently
friends or relatives had preceded,
sometimes several families of the same
village turned their backs on the Old
World, always hoping to find a better life
in the New World.
The exhibition follows the traces of the
emigrants with letters and photographs,
souvenirs and textiles, paintings and graphics;
but also ship models, musical instruments
or ordinary objects from both
worlds show part of the emigrants living.
Individuals will stand as an example:
starting with Levi Strauss from the small
town of Buttenheim in Frankonia, up to
this day maybe the most famous emigrant
of the 19th century, to the fates of
the emigrants of the 20th century, such
as Oscar Maria Graf; from the Franconian
mercenary troops that were on duty in
the American War of Independence and
partly settled in America, to the refugees
of the revolution of 1848 and the persecutes
of the Nazi-regime; from the author
Emerenz Mayer born in Schiefweg in the
Bavarian Forest to the founder of the New
York Times, Simon Ochs from Fürth; from
the former American Secretary of State,
Henry Kissinger, to the so called „soldier
brides“ of the 1950s.
In oral history interviews emigrants
give information about their reasons to
leave their home and tell us about their
experience in the new world.
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