Photo by Peter Jakubowski

Five of the students involved in writing the book, “Images of America: German Milwaukee” gathered at the Pabst Mansion to show the results of their spring seminar project. Left to right are: Matt Hamacher, Melanie Anke, Derek Schaefer, Anne Schumacher and Zlato Sadikovic .

The students in Jennifer Watson’s spring semester seminar at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee wrote the book on German Milwaukee – literally.

“Images of America: German Milwaukee,” a book researched and written by the 17 students in German 341, was published this summer by Arcadia Publishing. Students and Watson, associate professor of German and Scandinavian Studies, celebrated with a book signing at Boswell Books.

“This was the first book the publisher had done this way,” says Watson, who also is chair of the Foreign Languages and Literature Department. “The students were the researchers, writers and editors. They got the whole experience.”

The new history may not make the students rich – royalties go to the College of Letters and Science, which supported the project – but it enriched them academically.

“It was the best way to learn,” says student Anne Schumacher. “I’ve always loved to do research because of the extra things you learn; the incidental learning that happens.”

No textbook? Write your own

Photo by Peter Jakubowski

Jennifer Watson, associate professor of German and Scandinavian Studies, led the seminar on German Milwaukee and the book research and writing project. She’s pictured here with students Matt Hamacher (right) and Derek Schaefer (left) at Karl Ratszch’s restaurant, one of many historic Milwaukee sites with German roots.

The book that became a class project grew from a number of factors that converged at about the same time, says Watson.

In going through the papers of the late Gerhard Rauscher, a professor of German at UWM, she came across information about a previous course on German Milwaukee and thought it would be interesting to offer it again. About the same time (2007), a sister university in Giessen, Germany, contacted her about a seminar on German immigration to America.

“This all coincides with a growing interest among Germans about immigration and emigrants to America,” says Watson. Milwaukee, which attracted several waves of German immigrants, was known as the “German Athens of North America” in the 19th century, and is a focal point for scholars studying the subject.

When she went looking for a text for her seminar, however, Watson found there weren’t any. A bookstore referred her to Arcadia Publishing, which specializes in regional histories. “They didn’t have a book, but were very enthusiastic about doing one and asked me to write it,” recalls Watson. She decided instead to make the project an in-depth learning experience for the students in the seminar.

“We did look into John Gurda’s book (“The Making of Milwaukee”), but our book is a more visual look at the subject, organized by topics,” says Watson.

The students worked in teams, focusing on eight subject chapters ranging from “Building Milwaukee” to “German Americans During Wartime.”

The students, mostly then juniors and seniors who are proficient in German, spent countless hours at the Milwaukee County Historical Society, libraries and sites around Milwaukee researching their subject areas and gathering photos.

Discovering a rich heritage

“It was a great, rewarding experience that taught me a lot,” says Melanie Anke, a German native. “I realized how much of an influence Germans had on this city. To this day, German-designed buildings remain landmarks of Milwaukee and continue to inspire further generations.”

“Milwaukee is a place where German immigrants have contributed so much and left such a huge imprint on the city,” adds Zlatko Sadikovic, who also worked on the book’s section on buildings and architecture. Sadikovic is not German himself, but grew up in Munich. “I felt this community needed something such as this book to celebrate its strong German background,” says Sadikovic.

Derek Schaefer, who worked on the politics and labor chapter, says he found it interesting that Milwaukee’s system of government is similar to the German model of the late 19th and early 20th century.” Reading the stories and seeing pictures of those who made Milwaukee what it is today,” he says, “makes you really appreciate the city and the hard work that was put into it”.

The biggest challenge was not in compiling material, but in writing, rewriting and editing to boil the information down to its essence. “They really learned the rigors of publishing,” says Watson.

“We could have written a whole book on just German tanneries and breweries,” notes Matt Hamacher, who worked on the book’s section on business and industry. In fact, the research inspired his interest in eventually writing a book on Milwaukee breweries sometime in the future – after he completes school.

Schumacher, an educator who is working on her master’s degree in German, helped write and edit the chapter on religion and education. “What really struck me was how fervent the Germans were that their children get a high degree of education.” Many of the reforms and improvements they introduced to Wisconsin soon spread across the nation, the student researchers found. For example, Margarethe Meyer Schurz, a German immigrant to Wisconsin, started the first kindergarten in America. And German immigrants opened the first school for the deaf in the Midwest and formed the technical and trade schools that eventually evolved into Milwaukee Area Technical College.

Schumacher, who grew up in northern California, found herself fascinated by Milwaukee’s rich history. “I’d never heard about all the culture that was here – Russians, Serbians, Croatians, Poles and Germans…. The city is such a gem of culture in this area of the country.”

Along the way, the students had lively discussions about immigration, comparing the parallels and differences between the German immigrants of the 19th century and new waves of emigrants, says Watson.

The seminar and project have planted seeds for future scholarship. Watson is organizing a 2011 conference on German immigration in collaboration with Giessen University.

“Images of America: German Milwaukee” is now available in local stores, a fact that the students take pride in.

“We can look back and see that we wrote a book,” says Schumacher. “That’s pretty exciting.”