Studies of the Max Kade Institute

The gazette averaged only one article per year on general
questions of migration, reflecting the goal of the authorities to
deemphasize emigration. At the same time, notices from shipping
agents and announcements of intention to emigrate were frequently
printed.
The image of America conveyed was a distorted one for two
reasons. The German Society in New York, the only society to
have its reports reprinted in Hessian gazettes, saw no reason to
describe conditions in America to its largely American members in
its annual reports. Unfortunately, in its leaflets in German written for
thoseathome,17it neglected to present basic information about the
geography and Constitution of the USA. The Hessian Consul Faber
seems to have recognized this deficiency, but he also restricted his
comments in 1834 in the Lower Hessian Gazette to the minimum:
"die groBe Flachenausdehnung des Gebiets der Vereinigten Staaten
von Nordamerika sei so verschieden in Klima, Produkten und Lage,
daB es unmdglich sei, mit Bestimmtheit anzugeben, in welcher
Gegend der deutsche Ansiedler am besten gedeihen diirfte" ("The
great expanse of the United States of North America has such
variation in climate, products, and situation, that it is impossible
to state with certainty in which area a German settler would find the
greatest prosperity").18 Therefore the Kurhessian learned nothing
about the Constitution of the USA, of the rights and duties of the
citizens, and above all nothing about the universal conscription which
played a great role in the emigration plans of many young men.19
There was nothing about religious denominations and their church
organization, nor even the number of states, let alone the relations
between them; nothing about the political and social conditions or the
political parties and political debates or, most importantly, about the
American counterpart to the social welfare net which the emigrant
relinquished by ending his citizenship in a Hessian community.
A second source developed for information about the USA in
Hesse. If the basic tenor of the American annual reports tended
toward discouraging emigration in order to minimize the burdens of
the Society in New York, this tendency was amplified by Hessian
reporting. The Americans knew very well the chances for success,
especially for emigrants with capital or special skills. Success stories
were withheld from the Hessians, although not completely, given
the difference in censorship between the nineteenth and twentieth

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