|
Emergence of a New Identity - Twentieth Century
As Over-the-Rhine entered the twentieth century, it continued to change. The German-American community expanded and settled throughout the city, and Over-the-Rhine lost some of its old German character. While the area lost economic and political significance, it gained importance as a social-cultural center, with numerous German restaurants, churches, bakeries, markets, beer gardens and shops remaining in the district. The area continued to serve as the cultural center of the German-American community throughout most of the first half of the twentieth century. The neighborhood's population slowly declined form a high of 44,475 in 1900 to 27,577 by 1960, with a slight rise between 1940 and 1950 with the first influx of Appalachians into the community.
Prior to America's entrance into World War I in April 1917, local support for Germany divided the city. Imperialism in Europe and the onset of the war created great distrust among the general citizenry towards German residents in the United States. The newer German immigrants, most of whom were lower-level white collar and higher-level blue-collar workers, supported the rising importance of the "Fatherland". Several organizations were formed locally to coalesce and foster this support on an organized basis. Cincinnati Germans, however, primarily focused their sympathies on humanitarian war relief projects and collected over $400,000. Non-Germans, native-born Americans met German-American support for the old country with unsettled feelings and emotions. By 1916 the local German community experienced increased anti-German suspicion and hatred and a backlash of anti-German harassment. Following America's entrance into the war, however, the attitude of German-American society largely reversed itself. The German-American community then spoke of what America had done for German immigrants and how much they owed America. Support for Germany and its war efforts became silent.
Continue >
|
