Born Then
1840–1893

Life during the German emigration to the Americas

Be born in a place it hit, a few years before it began, and see what it did to five ordinary lives.

What it meant for ordinary people

From the 1840s to the 1890s Germans were the largest group of immigrants to the United States, about five million people. Small farmers and craftsmen left after bad harvests, the failed revolutions of 1848 and the decline of hand weaving.

How hard it hits each person in the game (risk of death, of being conscripted, of leaving) comes from our model, estimated from the sources.

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