Description: This study of Civil War-era politics explores how German immigrants influenced the rise and fall of white commitment to African-American rights. Intertwining developments in Europe and North America, Alison Clark Efford describes how the presence of naturalized citizens affected the status of former slaves and identifies 1870 as a crucial turning point. That year, the Franco-Prussian War prompted German immigrants to reevaluate the liberal nationalism underpinning African-American suffrage. Throughout the period, the newcomers' approach to race, ethnicity, gender, and political economy shaped American citizenship law.
Brief description: Alison Clark Efford is Assistant Professor of History at Marquette University. Her 2008 doctoral dissertation won the Friends of the German Historical Institute's Fritz Stern Prize.
Review Quotes: '... German Immigrants, Race, and Citizenship in the Civil War Era impressively links the German American narrative, too often buried in German-language newspapers and its own subculture, with the larger American narrative of citizenship and nationalism during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Efford carves out an important path that should affect how ethnic historians tell the stories of immigrant groups in America.' Paul Fessler, Journal of American Ethnic History