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The Washington Journal at the Tricentennial [1983]
by Nancy Pierce For most of us who subscribe to the paper today, the Journal has always been a welcomed weekly. It may be difficult to contemplate a time when newspapers were the only source of information in a community, and if that community were German speaking, it required a German Language paper every day. For many years the Journal met that requirement; then it gradually evolved through tri-weekly, bi-weekly to a reliable weekly issue. It has outlasted all the other German papers which preceded it or were congruent with it, such as the "Columbia", the "Täglicher Washington Anzeiger", a tiny "Treffdusia", and the "Volks-Tribune".
Ornate illustrations and the old German type gave the paper a schmaltzy flamboyance from the start. Advertisements, announcements, and the first chapter of a serialized novel appeared on the front page of that first issue. Ads proclaiming the excellence of products of local German businesses, such as Christian Xander's "Wild Cherry Bitters (for the stomach)" and ads from non-German establishments like the "5 Cents Savings Bank" were directed toward the thousands of native Germans in Washington at that time. Announcements informed readers on the activities of all their organizations which grew in number with the burgeoning community.
There were the Concordia Church (Protestant and still standing), St. Mary's (Catholic and still standing), the German Benevolent Society, German School, Orphan Home, including clubs supporting it, home for the aged, Turnvereine (sports clubs), Schuetzenvereine (shooting clubs), Gesangvereine (singing clubs), a German Literary Society, theater club, clubs representing all of the German states from Prussia to Bavaria, and the Steuben Society.
The paper instructed newly arrived Germans on the part their countryman, Baron von Steuben, played in the American Revolution. Such accounts gave them a sense of participation in the history of their adopted homeland. The community was dazzled by reports of the famed German immigrant, Carl Schurz-diplomat, Civil War General, Senator from Missouri, and Secretary of the Interior. During his career as a prominent Washington jurist, writer, and lecturer, there were weekly articles on Simon Wolf, as well as advertisements for his law firm, Wolf and Cohen. The long lived brewer, Christian Heurich, is also featured in articles and in ads for his Heurich Brewing Company.
In 1880 the Journal covered the entire week-long Schuetzenfest of all the Washington shooting clubs. Accounts of all of the events which took place occupied major space in eleven issues. These events were astonishingly diverse for an occasion called a Schuetzenfest. There were men's and women's shooting matches, concerts by the Marine Band, soloists, the Washington Saengerbund, Germania Maennerchor, Columbia Turnverein Maennerchor ( The Arion Quartette and Washington Liederkranz were two other singing clubs whose announcements appeared regularly in the Journal), and Tyrolian singers. These shared the stage with ventriloquists and gymnasts.
Added to all this were fireworks displays, bands provided for public dancing, and naturally, food and beer. The entire Schuetzenpark was illuminated by 2,000 gas lamps. If one subscribed to the Journal at that time, he would know from its pages that the Schuetzenpark was a large acreage out the Seventh Street Pike (now Georgia Ave.) with a hotel, restaurant, dance pavilions, gazebos, shooting ranges, etc., where many outing and important events took place. In 1879 a fire had destroyed the main buildings.
He would also be familiar with all of the halls where the clubs held their concerts, dances, "Maskenbälle", "Narrenfeste" (fools' fests), etc: Wagemann's Hall on Pennsylvania Avenue, Metropolitan Hall also on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington City Garden, Old German Hall at 606-11th St., N.W., Masonic Hall, Odd Fellows' Hall, National Theater, Abner's Summer Garden and Hall, Charles "Baldy" Dismer's Restaurant and eleven years site of the Washington Saengerbund Hall, and finally the Concord Club at 314 C St., N.W., once the Saengerbund clubhouse and which site is now buried beneath the United States Court for the District of Columbia. At that time the Journal itself was at 7th and G Sts., N.W.
The paper recorded the births, anniversaries, weddings, and deaths in the German community and of well known officials outside that community. The death notice of Abraham Lincoln was enclosed in the same heavy black borders as were all other such announcements mourning the passing of a member of the German community.
Long after the Civil War, one could read of meetings and banquets held by the Veterans Club of the Eighth Battalion, a German battalion which served as the President's guard and in other capacities in and around Washington during the War.
In 1903 the Journal covered an event which was even more spectacular than a Schuetzenfest. It was an enormous German Fair in the City in which nearly all of the German clubs participated. By that time the paper had increased its use of illustrations and advertising became more graphic-presaging the liberation of German-American and all American women from one kind of constriction, ads for Nuform Corsets displayed a dimpled, heavily bustled lady in one of their horrid contraptions and boasted of "that torturing pressure on the chest and abdomen". The paper has always carried German and English language advertisements in which two are mixed.
German-Americans loved President Theodore Roosevelt, and the affection was returned. This mutual feeling was reflected in frequent articles on the President and his active family while they lived in the White House.
By 1909, the use of photography was extensive in the Journal. It featured a large photography with accompanying text on the dedication of the statue of Baron von Steuben in Lafayette Park on December 7, 1910. After years of fundraising, the Steuben Society was able to present the statue, as a gift, to the Nation.
In his speech at the unveiling, President William Howard Taft praised German immigrants for their contributions to the United States. The following summer, more than a page in pictures and text was devoted to the President's Silver Wedding Anniversary Celebration.
To the German community, the highlight of that occasion was a concert at the White House by the most prominent of their singing clubs, and the only one still in existence, the Washington Saengerbund.
As communication between Europe and America increased, the paper printed more news from Germany, and pictures of Otto von Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm II appeared.
On April 17, 1909, the Journal gave an account of a celebration in honor of its publisher, Werner Koch, whose papers had recorded and served the largest German immigration the City was to know. Koch had come from Kriesstadt-Alsfeld, Germany. He had worked in his trade as a printer, adventured in the West Indies, and served with a New York Volunteer Regiment during the Civil War, all before and during the period in which he established himself as a publisher in Washington, D.C. He also served as President of the local Chamber of Commerce. A speech in praise of his accomplishments was addressed to the celebrants by Simon Wolf.
At that time, Dr. Christian Strack served as editor of the paper. He was an avid collector of and writer on, local German-American history and headed the German Historical Society of Washington, formed in 1904. In 1914, fearing the inevitable entry of the United States into the war in Europe against his homeland, he lost his sanity; he burned his collected research on German-American History and ended his life in dispair.
In 1915, during the worst period in history for German-Americans in Washington and the Nation, Herman G. Winkler took over the publication. He could not understand the U.S. brand of neutrality, which preceded our entry into World War I, and continued to publish news, including photographs, from Germany up to and during our participation in the war, although the extent of coverage decreased as the paper shrank.
In 1917, a banner appeared at the top of the front page authorizing publication of the "Washington Journal" under special permit by the President of the United States, and it was signed by A. S. Burleson, Postmaster General. Winkler was never found to have illegal connections with Germany. After the Armistice was declared, he led war relief efforts, saved his paper and helped save other German organizations from financial ruin, and suffered with his brewery friends and advertisers through Prohibition. German-Americans never understood the Temperance Movement or Prohibition. They could only persevere until Repeal.
Herman Winkler was also a general, all around printer and publisher. The "History of the Prospect Hill Cemetery" (at North Capitol and W Sts., N.E.) and the "Mayflower Log" were two large pamphlets for which he was printer and publisher. They were written by Dr. Paul G. Gleis, a professor of German at Catholic University and frequent correspondent on cultural affairs to the Washington Journal. The printing business and newspaper offices had been moved to 710-6th St., N.W.
As part of the big, long suffering world outside, the small German-American publishing world of Herman Winkler suffered through another World War with censorship, readership and financial losses, and relief efforts in the peace which followed.
His son, Carl Winkler, became publisher in 1954, by which time Washington, Baltimore and other cities across the country were benefiting from the skills of a small, young group of German immigrants who needed newspapers in the German Language to ease them into American life, as much as their countrymen who had come before them.
[from The Washington Journal, 27 October 1989; originally published 23 September 1983]
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