[Amendments, corrections, and additions: Joy Watkins filled in the vacancies in my mind and gave us the names of two of her uncles who were governors of Arkansas. These were James Sevier Conway and Elias Nelson Conway, who were great-great-grandsons of John Jacob Rector, the 1714 immigrant.]
In going through these names of German immigrants and their descendants who made contributions to American life, we tend to overlook the ones who have acquired an English name or an English spelling. The two Conway governors of Arkansas are good examples.
The next group on the list is the doctors. There is no dearth of names here, but public recognition is low. Therefore, I am going to skip over the group and go on to the musicians. The selection of musicians has 247 names, of which 82% were European born. This merely shows that the contributions of the second, third, and later generations were not on the same level as the immigrants. In turn, this shows their talent arose from the training they received, not from the genes.
Fifty-two composers made the list. The contributions ranged from hymns (Johann Kelpius), popular songs (Jerome Kern), to symphonic works (Arnold Schoenberg). Among conductors, another fifty-two are listed. Of these fifty-two, forty-eight were foreign-born, two were second generation, and two are unknowns. In no other field, or even sub-field, is this attribute shown so strongly; however, composers and instrument makers are close behind the conductors.
Among the instrument makers are David Tannenberg, who built the organ, in 1802, for the Lutheran Church (Hebron) outside Madison, Virginia. This organ, and about seven others that he built in the eighteenth century, are still playable. As the leading organ producer of the eighteenth century, he produced about sixty. The Hebron instrument is used regularly. Henry Engelhard Steinweg made pianos. Before he went into production, he changed his name to Steinway, which means the same thing. Then we have the Wurlitzer organs. Two particular units are well known, the theater organ, and the jukebox.
Recently, the United States Postal Service issued twelve stamps honoring Hollywood composers and Broadway composers. The men honored were:
Are there any names in these combined lists which are not German? Hart could have been Hardt, and Newman could have been Neumann.
(03 Aug 00)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.