Ohio
Ohio is a state of the United States of America. Ohio was the first state admitted to the Union under the Northwest Ordinance. Its U.S. postal abbreviation is OH; its old-style abbreviation was O. Natives of Ohio are known as Ohioans.
History
The Midwestern state is part of the Great Lakes region. Ohio has long been a cultural and geographical crossroads in North America. At the time of European contact and in the years that followed, Amerindians in today's Ohio included the Shawnee, Iroquois, Miamis, and Wyandots. Beginning in the 1700s, the area was settled by people from New England, the Mid-Atlantic States, Appalachia, and the upper south.
Prior to 1984, the United States Census Bureau considered Ohio part of the North Central Region. That region was renamed "Midwest" and split into two divisions. Ohio is now in the East North Central States division. Ohio also has the highest population density of any state not on the Eastern Seaboard, and is the seventh-largest state by population in the U.S.
German Americans
- Germans were among the first immigrant groups to arrive in Ohio, and they established communities, churches and newspapers across the state. Many settled on the Ohio River, in Cincinnati, but communities of Germans were also found in the urban centers of Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo, as well as smaller cities and towns such as Delphos, Newark, New Philadelphia and Portsmouth. For many years, they were the most populous immigrant group in Ohio, and by 1910, made up half of Cincinnati’s population. Germans opened breweries, operated farms and started factories, including Ferdinand Schumacher’s Quaker Oats. To support craftsmen and artisans, they established mutual aid societies, or labor organizations, and were active in their communities’ local politics. Although Germans continued to immigrate to the U.S. throughout the late 19th and early 20th century, most had arrived by the mid-19th century and were well-established by the time of the Second Industrial Revolution (1870-1914). For immigrant communities like German-Americans, newspapers published in their own language were particularly important. Ohio was a stronghold for German-American newspapers prior to World War I, and their influence often reached well beyond city and state boundaries: the Cincinnati Volksblatt was the first German daily to be published in the U.S., and the Columbus Westbote was often referred to as the “Democratic Bible.” New immigrants looked to these publications as a way to bridge the gap between their old and new homes, by keeping connected to their countries of origin and learning about their new country through news reports. Not only were German-American newspapers an important tool of Americanization, but they captured a segment of history that is often given less attention than mainstream history, providing insight into German-American people and their daily lives, business, politics, opinions and more, in their own words. With decreased immigration, anti-German sentiment during World War I, Prohibition and increased Americanization of future generations, however, the German-American press declined in the 20th century and relatively few newspapers remain today. Most German-American newspapers were published primarily in German language, although more English content appeared the longer a newspaper survived. Because of this, if you are performing a keyword search in one of these digital newspapers, your search term will need to be in German too. Dictionaries and online translation tools can help you translate your English term to German if you don’t speak German, but you’ll also need to become familiar with reading German in Fraktur. German-American newspapers often used this font, and because so many letters look similar, it can be difficult to read and translate these materials.[1]
