Shellac record, 1926
The first German-American male choral societies emerged in the mid-1830s, about 20 years after their counterparts in German cities. Following the mass immigration from Germany since the 1840s, there was a growing need to unite the numerically increasing societies into regional associations and to host recurring festivals. These “singer festivals” took place regularly every three years since 1882 and reached their peak importance just before World War I, where the Northeastern Singer Alliance (including societies from Maryland to Massachusetts) had up to 6,000 (active) participants. The accompanying “folk festivals” drew tens of thousands of visitors. The singer festival was canceled in 1918 due to the war. Resuming in the 1920s, the three-year cycle restarted in 1950 after a twelve-year interruption. Even today, “singer festivals” still occur in the USA, albeit on a much smaller scale. The recording was made on June 22, 1926, during the 26th National Singer Festival in Philadelphia. The recording venue was the auditorium on the grounds of the World Exhibition, which was simultaneously held in Philadelphia in honor of the 150th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence. What this mass choir from the Northeastern Singer Alliance sang almost a hundred years ago can still be heard today thanks to the recording on shellac. The preservation and nurturing of one’s native language through and beyond song is observable among many immigrant groups; for German-Americans, it was additionally part of the brought-over self-image of a specific “German inwardness,” which found its unique form in “art songs” and “folk songs.” This self-image provided many German-Americans with a way to distinguish themselves from the supposedly “soulless” and “culturally deficient” Anglo-American “pragmatism”—stereotypes that have been part of German ideology well beyond the 19th and early 20th centuries. Preserving the “native language” can also mean remaining trapped in its prejudices.
