Changes in German Surnames and Personal Names--Changes in City and Village Names--Mennonites, Quakers and the Settlement of Pennsylvania--The Wandering Menno Simons--The Beginnings of English Quakerism--William Penn's Travels in Europe--Early German Quakers: A Small Minority--The Frankfort Companie--Germantown and the Susquehanna Subscribers--Protestantism and Books: Driving Forces behind the German Migration--The Froschauer Presses of Zurich--The German Americans--The Land of Wars--Of Kings and Queens and Lesser Nobility--The Rhine as a Migration Route.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [341]-376) and index.
Contents
A new year and a fresh start -- Politics and the social milieu -- James Buchanan : President-elect -- The President, the Chief Justice, and a slave named Scott -- The heart of the matter : slavery and sectionalism -- Popular sovereignty, Kansas style -- Dog days -- Flush times and an autumn panic -- Northern politics : the parties in equipoise -- Politics as farce : the Lecompton Constitution -- Politics as tragedy : Buchanan's decision -- 1858 : the fruits of Lecompton.
Summary
It was a year packed with unsettling events. The Panic of 1857 closed every bank in New York City, ruined thousands of businesses, and caused widespread unemployment among industrial workers. The Mormons in Utah Territory threatened rebellion when federal troops approached with a non-Morman governor to replace Brigham Young. The Supreme Court outraged northernRepublicans and abolitionists with the Dred Scott decision ("a breathtaking example of judicial activism"). etc.