Overview

During the third period of settlement, Germans came to Missouri came, once again, in search of economic opportunity. Just as Americans sought economic innovation during the era of the rise of big business, so, too, did their German counterparts, such as entrepreneurs Adolphus Busch in St. Louis and Jacob Moerschel in Jefferson  City. Also during this period, German migrants such as Herman Jaeger came to Missouri, engaged in agriculture, and joined the movement to transform agricultural production from a subsistence level to an active, scientific, commercial economy. Likewise, many German immigrants of this era retained close connections to relatives back in the Old World, corresponding often with relatives and friends and sometimes even sending their children back to Germany for post-elementary education, believing that the German schools were better than those they found in America.

Historical Context

The belt of German settlement continued to expand across Missouri along the Missouri River, taking up land abandoned by planters deprived of slave labor for their plantations. The postwar period saw vast increases in industrial development, which in St. Louis was associated particularly with industrial chemicals and the brewing of beer. The Anheuser- Busch brewery pioneered the development of methods to manufacture and preserve beer so as to create a “world beer” capable of being transported throughout the United States and overseas. The Lemp brewery also became one of the largest undertakings in St. Louis. The Mallinckrodt company in north St. Louis, established by a German immigrant made wealthy by property development, prospered in the manufacture of heavy chemicals. The political unification of Prussia and the German Empire in the early 1870s spurred strong connections between industrial interests in Missouri and back in Germany. These firms had many German-speaking employees, often immigrants.

Emigration of the German middle-class and skilled workers from Europe continued in the late nineteenth century as part of the development of a solid German international working and professional class.