For German-Americans of the early days of the 19th and 20th centuries, humor was definitely a laughing
matter.
And the jokes they told in newspapers – and how they told them – serve as a chronicle of their transition
from immigrants to Americans.
This was the topic of the annual German-American Day program last week presented by BGSU Professor of
German Dr. Geoffrey Howes. The program was held at the Wood County Historical Center and Museum.
"On the one hand, if you look at German humor there isn’t that much to laugh about, but there is a
tradition of German humor," Howes explained.
"What I find in German humor, there is sublime humor that you find in literature" and also in
sources such as satire, but there is also a slapstick sense of humor.
Among America’s great German-American humorists was noted cartoonist Thomas Nast, famous for his work for
the periodical "Harper’s Weekly" during the 19th century. Nast was born in 1840 in the
principality of Hessen, before Germany was unified as one state. Known for unflattering caricatures of
himself, Nast also created the image of Uncle Sam, originated the use of the elephant as a symbol of the
Republican Party, revived the donkey as a Democratic image, and was the first to depict Santa Claus as a
jolly, plump character – he had formerly been tall and spare, an image connecting him to St. Nicholas,
Der Weinachtsman ("The Christmas Man" in German).
"One might ask, ‘is there any thing particularly German about this?’" Howes said. He noted that
there is a great tradition of satire in Germany and Nast, as an immigrant, with an outsider’s
perspective, was well-positioned to let that cultural proclivity towards satire have free reign.
Howes said that he began looking also at issues of the German-language newspaper the Defiance Herold from
1901-1913 and noticed patterns of humor throughout. He said that while such newspapers spoke the
language of their readers, they also helped to Americanize them.
Typically, humor in these papers, restricted to a weekly column, would consist of caricatures and jokes,
printed in "Franktur," the German print script.
A typical joke, accompanied by a cartoon, could be:
Author: "Why do you keep holding the door shut during the performance of my play?"
Usher: "Well, ya know, I get plenty of nickels as tips for letting the people out!"
Making fun of a poet is not a typically American pastime, Howes notes, but "in Germany, literature
and intellectuals are held very high, and the higher you go, the harder you fall."
"I found quite a few author jokes in this run of the newspaper."
Other joke topics included items poking fun at marriage as a purely financial arrangement, or husbands
misbehaving with the hired help. Political cartoons were almost non-existent, though nearer World War I
items humorously criticizing the United States’ cozy relationship with Great Britain did appear.
Around 1912 and 1913 appeared columns – first, written by the fictitious "Lizzie Hanfstengel"
and later by a "kid" named "Karlie" – that used clever Germanicization of English
words to poke fun at the speech of the Pennsylvania Dutch. Howes pointed out that much of today’s humor
relating to the Pennsylvania Dutch highlights German syntax transposed into English – through phrases
like "Throw me downstairs a towel" – while these pieces’ humor was focused on the use of
English words while speaking German.
"The humor is dialect humor, which is always good. There’s a tradition of dialect humor in American
of various kinds."
The kind of humor, he said, allowed the German-Americans to recognize themselves in a transitional period
when German was being used less, and use of English was on the rise. A German-only speaker wouldn’t have
gotten the joke.