This talk explores a history of global migration to the United States through Iowa's immigration history. Iowa's history has been deeply shaped by the history of immigration to the United States. Historical patterns of migration to Iowa reflect changes to U.S. immigration policy over time. This talk explores distinct waves of migration to Iowa (and the United States more generally) and the ways in which these waves of migration have been shaped by U.S. immigration policy.

This presentation will explore the circumstances and stories of Dirksen’s upbringing, and how they helped shaped his personality, his leadership style, and a destiny that he shared with the nation.

Register for this program on Eventbrite.com

The presentation will stream via Zoom on Eventbrite on Sunday, February 18th at 2pm. A short Q+A will follow the presentation. The presentation is free, but donations are greatly appreciated.

This presentation is brought to you by Humanities Iowa.

About the Speaker:
Debra L. DeLaet is Professor of Political Science at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. She serves as the David E. Maxwell Distinguished Professor of International Affairs. Her major research interests are in the area of human rights, global health and gender issues in world politics. She has published three books: U.S. Immigration Policy in an Age of Rights (Praeger 2000), The Global Struggle for Human Rights (Wadsworth, 2006) and (co-authored with David E. DeLaet) Global Health in the 21st Century: the Globalization of Disease and Wellness (Paradigm Publishers, 2012). In addition to these books, she has published numerous articles and book chapters in her areas of interest.

"Witches, Kings, and Architectural Charm: Exploring Folklore, Royal Might and Half-Timbered Splendor in Historic Saxon Germany" presented by Russell Baldner will examine the history and folk culture of Saxon architecture.

Register via eventbrite.com

This presentation will stream virtually on Eventbrite on April 25th at 2pm.

This program is free to the public, but donations are greatly appreciated.

Please note that once you register through eventbrite, eventbrite will provide your confirmation and event link through email. We kindly ask you keep an eye on your inbox and spambox.

For questions regarding programming at GAHC, please email info@gahc.org or call 563.322.8844

About the presentation:
From the summit and periphery of the Harz Mountains, northern Germany’s Saxon landscape is steeped in royal and early medieval history, seven centuries of alluring half-timbered architecture, and elusive mountaintop spirits. Boasting nearly 2,000 Fachwerk timbered structures and dominated by St. Servatii, the Stiftskirche abbey church and final resting place of Heinrich I, one of Germany’s most renowned monarchs, the historic city of Quedlinburg once stood at the very center of early German history. In 2019, Quedlinburg commemorated the 1,100th Anniversary of Henry’s ascension to the throne, the 30th of Germany’s Peaceful Revolution, and the 25th of its designation as a UNESCO* Welterbestadt World Heritage City. Nearby, on the summit of Brocken, the highest point in the Harz, witches and spirits gather on Walpurgisnacht, the night of April 30/May 1, though more conventional visitors may do so by means of handsome vintage steam locomotive and narrow-gauge railway. Join us, as we explore a fascinating and, to Americans, an often unfamiliar landscape rich in visual delight and natural, cultural, and historic treasures.
*United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

About the presenter
From his youth, Russell Baldner has had an abiding love affair with German language and history which led to his degrees in history from the University of Northern Iowa, undergraduate and graduate study in German, a teaching career in German, history, and anthropology, and publications in nineteenth-century German-Lutheran history, genealogy, and Native American archaeology. As a specialty, Russell deciphers and transcribes historical German manuscripts drafted in Kurrentschrift, the archaic seldom-read German cursive script in which documents were formerly written. Including residence in his immigrant great-great-grandfather’s birthplace during his first visit to Germany, Baldner has visited ancestral Germanic turf on eight separate occasions. Occupying a prominent place at the top of his favorites list, is lovely, historic, enchanting Quedlinburg.

We are excited for our rescheduled Volkswagen Car Show at the German American Heritage Center on Saturday May 1st from 10am-1pm.

Admission to the show is FREE!

Join us for a fun-filled day of classic Beetles, Westfalia vans, kit cars and more! Come and see the history of one of Germany’s most iconic car brands right in our parking lot!

This is an in-person event that will follow social-distancing protocol. Please wear a mask and maintain 6 feet of distance.

This is a shine only event.

No registration required

Join Rozz-Tox and the German American Heritage Center every first Friday at Rozz-Tox in downtown Rock Island for a German language film streamed outside in the Rozz-Tox “Kinogarten.”

Friday May 7th, GAHC + Rozz-Tox will stream "The Tin Drum" directed by Volker Schlöndorff. Rated R.

Each film streaming is free and features English subtitles. No registration needed. Film will start at 8pm or sundown.

To keep our audience safe, film streaming will be socially distanced and guests are required to wear a mask.

Food and beverage will be available for purchase from Rozz-Tox (no outside food or drink please!)

Kinogarten film schedule is as follows:
4/2 The Edukators (2004)
Dir. Hans Weingartner
5/7 The Tin Drum (1980)
Dir. Volker Schlöndorff
6/4 Free Fall (2013)
Dir. Stephan Lacant
7/2 Mephisto (1982)
István Szabó
8/6 Transit (2018)
Christian Petzold
9/3 Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder

To learn more about Kinogarten, please our websites or give us a call:

GAHC: 563.322.8844
www.gahc.org

Rozz-Tox: 309.200.0978
www.rozztox.com

The German American Heritage Center is proud to host Dr. Thomas Nussbaumer from the University Mozarteum Salzburg as he shares his research on vocal folk Music in the Amish community in Kalona, IA.

This program is free, but donations are appreciated.

This program is pre-recorded and virtually delivered. Please keep in mind that eventbrite will send you a link to view the program on the day of via email- keep an eye on your spambox.

As things slowly get back to normal, the GAHC is happy to provide the opportunity to attend our programs in-person. We are currently offering limited availability tickets for patrons to view an in-person, live streaming of this program on the fourth floor of the GAHC. All in-person program streamings are socially distanced and masks are required. Registration is required (One ticket per person). If you are interested in attending this program in person, select the in-person ticket at check out.

Program Summary
Between 2005 and 2019, a team consisting of the lecturer and his University Mozarteum Salzburg colleagues Monika Oebelsberger and Peter M. Krakauer conducted field studies of the Old Order Amish in Kalona, Iowa, in cooperation with James R. Dow (Iowa State University, Ames). The Amish are a religious community which has been in existence since 1693, an especially conservative group of Anabaptists who primarily reject technology, whose ancestors emigrated to North America between 1736 and 1914 from southwestern Germany, Alsace and Switzerland, and who today live mostly Midwestern and eastern states of the US.
It was possible to convince a group of 30 to as many as 160 people, of both sexes and varying ages to perform for sound recordings. In several recording sessions the singers allowed us to record a total of almost 200 songs, a representing a cross-section of their repertoire. Among the recordings are 28 "slow tunes" and some yodels, sung by two former Amish who had grown up in Berne Indiana.
The tradition of "slow tunes" is intimately associated with the Ausbund, the Amish hymnal which has been in print without interruption, since 1583, and the hymnal Eine Unparteiische Leidersammlung, which is used by the Old Order Amish of Kalona instead of the Ausbund (but containg many Ausbund hymns). The extremely melismatic "slow tunes," handed down primarily through oral traditiona, trace back to spiritual and secular songs of the Reformation and the 17th century. the "fast tunes," also recorded in this fieldwork, are Anglo-American and German hymns of the 18th and 19th century, sung in three and four vocal parts. The presentaiton will also include brief comments on Amish culture, a survey of scholarship on Amish music, a description of the Old Order Amish songbooks and Amish singing style, as well as their singing occasions in Kalona.
Singing plays an extraordinarily important role in the social life of the Amish people. Singing together perpetuates Amish values and Amish identity. In general, the Amish sing at home, both during their work and with their children (even German folk songs and yodels), at their alternate "singings" of the young people on Sunday evenings. Typical recordings of the Kalona field studies will be presented.

About the presenter
Thomas Nussbaumer, University Mozarteum Salzburg, Innsbruck, AT
Thomas Nussbaumer, born in 1966 in Hall in Tirol (Austria). Studies of musicology and German philology at the University of Innsbruck, conferral of a doctorate in 1998. Publication of his dissertation Alfred Quellmatz und seine Suedtiroler Feldforschungen (1940-42). Eine Studie zur musikalischen Volkskunde unter dem Nationalsozialismus in 2001. Since 1995 Nussbaumer is employed as an ethnomusicologist at the Innsbruck branch of the Music University Mozarteum Salzburg. Since his postdoctoral lecture qualification at the Univeristy of Music and Performing Arts Vienna in 2010, Nussbaumer is associate professor for folk kmusic research at the Mozarteum. Numerous field researches and publications focused on Alpine Folk music (West Austria and South Tyrol), music and custome (e.g. carnival), historical sources of traditional music. Also field research in Kalona, Iowa, on the vocal music of the Old Order Amish.

This free program is virtual. Donations are appreciated.

Registration is required. Eventbrite will provide you with a link to join the live virtual program via email- keep an eye on your spambox.

We are pleased to offer an in-person option for the viewing of this program. Interested patrons may register for an in-person ticket at check out and come to the GAHC on May 23rd at 2pm to watch the program streamed on the big screen in the community room on the 4th floor. Seating is limited and socially distanced. Masking is required.

About the program:
In Nazi Germany, female fashioning was political. If it is true that clothes are “a poster for one’s act,” then the Third Reich put several fashion posters on display – the folk costume (Tracht), the uniform, the latest modern fashion tied to international trends, or an often conflicting conglomeration thereof. Examining the Third Reich through the window of women’s clothing is revelatory. Clothing served as a means to visibly convey many of the notions spewed by the Nazis’ propaganda machine. Women’s clothing was utilized to support and implement Nazi gender ideology and anti-Semitism. It was employed to enhance the power and status of the regime, as well as to consolidate society and manipulate behavior. Additionally, women’s clothes provided a tangible sign of inclusion in and exclusion from the racially-constructed national community. What women wore or were required to wear and how they chose to fashion themselves spoke volumes in Nazi Germany.

About the presenter:
Irene Guenther specializes in 20th-century American and European history. She received her doctorate from the University of Texas. Her teaching interests include genocide and human rights, the construction of ‘race’ and the consequences of systemic racism in the United States, Nazi cultural policies, and comparative Second World War home fronts. She has published on the Nazi takeover of the German-Jewish fashion industry; the contested politics of women’s clothing in the four occupied zones of Germany after World War II; Magical Realism from 1920s Germany to 1940s Latin America; and the German anti-war artists of the First World War. Her first book, Nazi ‘Chic’? Fashioning Women in the Third Reich, won the Costume Society of America’s Millia Davenport Award for ‘best fashion history book’ of the year and the Sierra Prize, given by the Western Association of Women Historians. Her second book, Postcards from the Trenches: A German Soldier’s Testimony of the Great War, was published in late 2018 and was accompanied by a centennial exhibition of WWI soldiers’ art, which traveled to Washington, DC, Houston, New York, and Berlin. She has received the Ross Lence Teaching Award, the Wong Student Engagement Award, the Lerner Family Faculty Award, the Honors College Dean’s Master Teacher Award, and the UH Provost’s Teaching Excellence Award.

For the past 75 years, Germany has been synonymous with war, tragedy, oppression, and yes, beer and parties. Hannah Hogue spent the past 6 months on a journey to reclaim her heritage and honor her German ancestors with a project through the Illinois State University Honors Program. Coming from a long line of seamstresses, Hannah chose to research traditional German dress; studying the cultural origin of these pieces of clothing, the use of traditional dress in Nazi propaganda, and how we can reclaim these symbols to show our pride in being German. This research project cumulated in the creation of her own unique dirndl.

This virtual program is free, but donations are appreciated.
A link to the event will be sent via Eventbrite. Please check your spam box.
Limited tickets are available for in-person viewing of the virtual program at GAHC. If you are interested in this option, please select an In-Person ticket.

Join Rozz-Tox and the German American Heritage Center every first Friday at Rozz-Tox in downtown Rock Island for a German language film streamed outside in the Rozz-Tox “Kinogarten.”

Friday May 7th, GAHC + Rozz-Tox will stream "Free Fall" directed by Stephen Lacant (2013). 18+.

Each film streaming is free and features English subtitles. No registration needed. Film will start at 8pm or sundown.

To keep our audience safe, film streaming will be socially distanced and guests are required to wear a mask.

Food and beverage will be available for purchase from Rozz-Tox (no outside food or drink please!)

Kinogarten film schedule is as follows:
4/2 The Edukators (2004)
Dir. Hans Weingartner
5/7 The Tin Drum (1980)
Dir. Volker Schlöndorff
6/4 Free Fall (2013)
Dir. Stephan Lacant
7/2 Mephisto (1982)
István Szabó
8/6 Transit (2018)
Christian Petzold
9/3 Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder

To learn more about Kinogarten, please our websites or give us a call:

GAHC: 563.322.8844
www.gahc.org

Rozz-Tox: 309.200.0978
www.rozztox.com

The first picture postcards were published for the 1889 Paris Exposition, celebrating the completion of the Eiffel Tower. In America, the first picture postcards were printed for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago — making Illinois the birthplace of the American picture postcard. Since those flowery Victorian originals, uncountable billions of postcards of every aspect of life have been printed, depicting: train stations and bandstands; street views and cartoons; ads for products and services; beauties and freaks; social history both whimsical and dark; and everything in between. An early mention of postcards is in the late nineteenth century diary of a Welsh curate, who called them ”a happy invention.”

In 2016, the world’s largest public collection of postcards and related materials, the Curt Teich Postcard Archives, was given to the Newberry Library by the Lake County Forest Preserve District. Katherine Hamilton-Smith, the founding curator of the Teich Archives, presents a look at the documentary power and significance of picture postcards. She touches on the Curt Teich Company of Chicago, the role Illinois played in the history and development of postcards, and on the picture postcard as a cultural icon.

This presentation is a lavishly illustrated PowerPoint of about 50 minutes in length, plus questions/answers at the conclusion of the prepared remarks. Each presentation is tailored to the town or area in which it is being given, by weaving examples of postcards from that town into the program.

For the German-American Historical Society, Katherine will emphasize Curt Otto Teich (1877-1974), who was born in Lobenstein, emigrated to the United States in 1894, settled in Chicago, and founded the Curt Teich Company.

This program is free to the public. Donations are appreciated.
This program will stream live through eventbrite. Please use the link supplied by eventbrite to join the event- keep an eye on your spam box!

About the presenter
Katherine Hamilton-Smith is Director of Public Affairs and Development for the Lake County Forest Preserve District in Chicago’s north suburbs.

Ms. Hamilton-Smith has maintained career-long professional activity in archives and museums, including service on the Illinois Historic Sites Advisory Council, the Illinois State Archives Advisory Board (former chair), the Visual Materials Section of the Society of American Archivists (former chair), the Society for Commercial Archeology (Board of Directors; journal editor), and the David Adler Art Center (Board of Directors). She is a recipient of the Curator of the Year Award for the State of Illinois. She studied art history and music history at St. Andrews University in Scotland, holds a B.A. in art history from the University of Nebraska, an A.M. in art history from the University of Chicago, and is a Certified Archivist. She was a contributor to the American Alliance of Museums’ National Research Demonstration Project to Expand Education in American Museums.

Ms. Hamilton-Smith was responsible for creating and developing the Curt Teich Postcard Archives for the Forest Preserve District. For over three decades, she managed its growth, working with private collectors and other institutions to create the magnificent and unparalleled assemblage that was acquired by the Newberry Library in October 2016, and is now one of the Newberry’s 11 core collections.

Ms. Hamilton-Smith is a native Nebraskan and lives in Libertyville with her two sons.

The cost of this program is $5 for non-members, free for members.*

This program will be streamed virtually via eventbrite.

Eventbrite will send you a link to the program- keep an eye peeled on your spambox.

The GAHC is proud to offer the option to view the live-stream in-person. This in-person live stream is socially distanced and masking is required. Seats are limited. Registration is required. If you are interested in watching this program in-person, please select an "In-Person" ticket upon check out.

About the program:
By the mid-nineteenth century, Germans were among the largest immigrant populations in New Orleans. They were part of every level of society, and both condemned slavery in the most active slave trading city in the US and served the Confederate army in the Civil War. Eventually, Yellow Fever dramatically reduced the population, and German names and heritage gradually integrated into the Cajun culture that originated in French-speaking Canada.
This presentation explores the many roles that Germans played in the thriving city of New Orleans, and also refers to the settlements surrounding New Orleans that still celebrate Germanic culture, like the German Coast and Roberts Cove. Nineteenth century German societies and periodicals provide insight into the point of view of this group of New Orleanians.

About the presenter:
Caroline Huey is Associate Professor of Germanic Studies at the university of Louisiana at Lafayette.

*The GAHC is dedicated to providing access to quality educational and cultural programming. The GAHC has recently decided to resume charging for programs. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience. As always, GAHC members receive free admission to all programming. To learn more about memberships, visit https://gahc.org/joingive/memberships/