GAHC Book Club

germanamericanheritagecenter

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Museum exploring the German immigrant experience and history of Davenport and Iowa!

🍻 BEER SALE THIS WEEKEND!
We`re marking down our 4 packs to $12. Build your own 4 pack from our selection of German beers and special brews from Twin Span Brewing.
➡️ Member price $9.60

🇩🇪 Our member weekend starts tomorrow Friday 11/21 and goes through Sunday 11/23. Members get 20% off all gift shop purchases this weekend.

🎁 $25 gift card raffle entry with a purchase. Non-members are welcome!

🍪 Visit us Saturday during Downtown Davenport`s Cookie Crawl for special markdowns, new items like holiday chocolates and sweets, FREE cookies, and much more. …

Open

Unfortunately, we will be closed today, Thursday November 20th until further notice due to a water main break in our area.

Check our social media pages for updates. We will post when our water turns back on! …

Open

🧸 We are a Toys for Tots drop off location!

🚂 Bring your new, unwrapped toys and place it in the donation box in our lobby. Donations are accepted until the first week of December.

🎄Toys for Tots is a program run by the United States Marine Corps Reserve which distributes toys to children whose families cannot afford to buy them gifts for Christmas. …

Open

Our member sale is this weekend 11/21-23!

✅ Stop by and get all of your favorites and see our new arrivals. Members get 20% off all purchases Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

🇩🇪 All of our ornaments come from Ingeglas imported from Neustadt bei Coburg, Germany. These hand-blown and hand-painted glass ornaments are truly unique and authentic. They make wonderful additions to your collection, or given as gifts.

🎁 All of our ornaments are carefully packaged in Ingelas tissue and boxes to ensure your treasures are safe for years to come. All ornament purchases come with an informational booklet from the manufacturer that explains their family-owned business, the craftsmanship, and process for creating these ornaments. …

Open

👀 Must-sees at the German American Heritage Center and Museum ⬇️

🛂 Immigrant Passport Experience – listen to stories of immigrants who settled in the Quad Cities!

🧳 Immigrant trunk belonging to Miss Frederike Henningsen. She came to Davenport as a young, single woman around 1864.

👞 Step into My Shoes – hear stories of immigrants and their challenges, sucesses, and impact in the Quad Cities.

🕯️ Immerse yourself into our 1800s restored hotel room. Thousands of German immigrants stayed in our building when it was a hotel. For many, it was their first place they stopped after their long journey from Europe.

🖼️ Visit our rotating exhibition, German Expressionist Prints, to see works by famous artists, Käthe Kollwitz and Max Beckmann. These are on display until December 14th! …

Open

This framed needlework sampler is one of many new objects on display in our permanent exhibition. This piece was brought with Christina Roes when she immigrated to Davenport.

Framed Needlework Sampler – c. 1840
Christina (Dorric) Roes (1829-1905) created this sampler as a young girl in Mannheim, Germany. Samplers served as references for specific handiwork rather than written instructions. Christina, daughter of Mannheim`s wealthy burgermeister, owned a hardware store with her husband Johann. Despite their prosperity in Germany, they moved to America after Christina`s brother Yacob wrote home about the U.S. and “painted it with such glowing colors in his letters.” They wanted to spare their youngest sons from Germany`s compulsory military training and the constant threat of war. War was always imminent, and Christina feared her sons would be killed in battle.

You can see this artifact up close and learn more about immigrant stories this weekend on our next seasonal guided tour of the museum. This Saturday November 8th, explore the museum with our education coordinator and get a deeper dive into the history of Davenport. The tour is open to the public and included with regular admission.

🧑‍🧑‍🧒 The tour begins at 11:00 am in the lobby. No RSVP required. The tour will last until approximately 12:30.

🇩🇪 Visitors will explore our permanent exhibition, The German Immigrant Experience, along with our two rotating galleries.

🧸 Open to all ages. We have children’s activity kits and sensory kits available at the front desk for visitors to use for free during their visit.

Learn more on our website: https://gahc.org/events/guided-museum-tour/ …

Open

🏛️ Our next seasonal guided tour of the museum is this Saturday November 8th. Explore the museum with our education coordinator and get a deeper dive into the history of Davenport. The tour is open to the public and included with regular admission.

🧑‍🧑‍🧒 The tour begins at 11:00 am in the lobby. No RSVP required. The tour will last until approximately 12:30.

🇩🇪 Visitors will explore our permanent exhibition, The German Immigrant Experience, along with our two rotating galleries.

🧸 Open to all ages. We have children’s activity kits and sensory kits available at the front desk for visitors to use for free during their visit.

Learn more on our website: https://gahc.org/events/guided-museum-tour/ …

Open

Artists tend to draw inspiration from things around them and use those themes in their artwork. During her life, Lea Grundig was inspired by emotional hardships and misery of the working class in Germany in the 20th Century. Lea devoted her life to art, focusing on the struggles of the working class and resisting the Nazi regime.

She was shaped by her strict Orthodox Jewish upbringing and as she grew older, she resisted the traditional religious beliefs of her family. She wanted to study art, and attended the Decorative Arts and Crafts Academy in Dresden and went on to the prestigious Saxon Art Academy.

Lea was devoted to pacifism and the anti-fascist resistance in Europe in the 1920s and for the rest of her life. Lea was also a member of ASSO (Assoziation revolutionärer bildender Künstler Deutschlands or Association of Revolutionary Visual Artists of Germany), an artist group from 1928 Germany tied to the Communist Party. They made bold posters and graphics to spread their message.

Through her activities, she met Hans Grundig, fellow artist and active member of the Communist Party in Germany. Their similar interests and partnership developed into a powerful relationship that withstood hardship, separation, and risks to their careers. The couple was separated by separate internments in prison camps, punished for their Jewish heritage and opposing the Nazi regime. After being released, Lea and Hans reunited in Dresden, after being separated for years.

Learn more about Lea Grundig and her work in our exhibition, German Expressionist Prints from the Johnson Collection through December 14th.

Pictured: Die Hexe (The Witch) 1935, etching
Through her artwork, Lea encourages viewers to think about how their beliefs impact children, urging them to consider the social environment around them. This print, “The Witch,” shows a group of children taunting an old woman as they follow her on a long path set against a dystopian landscape. This dark “fairytale” serves to illustrate the juxtaposition of childhood innocence with the darker undertones of societal issues. …

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