Objekt des Monats
Jedes Objekt in der Sammlung des Deutschen Auswandererhauses erzählt eine ganz persönliche Auswanderungs- oder Einwanderungsgeschichte. In dieser Rubrik stellen wir Ihnen jeden Monat ein anderes Objekt vor – eine Fotografie, ein Dokument oder ein persönliches Erinnerungsstück.
September 2015
Photography in Iowa from 1910
Historical Context
Photographs represent important memorabilia of migration history. They depict family and friends, images of people and things that were and are dear and important to individuals. The photo of Nikolaus Dumont shows the emigrant in front of his own house in Iowa. This documents for his family in Germany that he has ‘made it’ overseas. To this day, his descendants proudly preserve the image. It symbolizes the success and respect the young man achieved in the USA.
For historians, photographs are often just silent witnesses, especially when it comes to personal family images. To bring them to life, the researcher needs the help of interpreters: the descendants. If they still know the names of the individuals depicted, the locations, or the time period, the images can tell us their story.
Brief Biography
Nikolaus Dumont was born in 1854 in Besch in the Saarland. To avoid Prussian military service, the young man emigrated to the USA in 1873. His parents, Peter and Anna Dumont, as well as his two sisters, followed him in 1876. On board the ‘Vaterland,’ they reached the port of Philadelphia on April 17. From there, they continued to Keokuk County, Iowa, where the family reunited with Nikolaus. Together, they farmed there. In 1879, Nikolaus married Margaretha Schmall, who also hailed from the Saarland. The couple had eight children. Nikolaus died in Keokuk County on August 31, 1944. His descendants still live there today.
A fortunate coincidence led to a letter from America, which had been lying at the post office in Besch for ten years, finally being delivered in 2010. This sparked an active correspondence between the descendants of the Dumont family in America and those in Germany. In 2013, there was a first family reunion in Iowa.
Significance of the Object
Unlike traditional forms of art like painting, photography is a relatively young technology. The two Frenchmen, Niepce and Daguerre, are considered its discoverers. In 1837, Daguerre succeeded in developing an exposed silver plate coated with silver iodide in mercury vapor and subsequently fixing it in a warm saline solution. He worked on this process for about two years until it was presented to the Paris Academy of Sciences and thus to the public on August 19, 1839. This day is regarded as the birth of photography, fulfilling a human dream: it became possible to create a lasting and accurate representation of reality for the first time. However, initially, no copies could be made from these images – each photo was unique. Decades of technical development and refinement followed, and methods for reproduction were invented. Electronics and digitalization eventually enabled photographic processes as we know and use them today.
Do You Also Have …
… a story of emigration or immigration in your family that you would like to share with the German Emigration Center together with the related objects and documents for its collection? Then please contact Dr. Tanja Fittkau by phone at +49 471 / 90 22 0 – 0
or by e-mail at: t.fittkau@dah-bremerhaven.de