Incubator escapee wiki

Turners

Article Discussion

Template:Short description Template:About Template:Use mdy dates

File:Milwaukee Bundesturnhalle.jpg
Gymnastics room in Turner Hall, Milwaukee, Template:Circa
File:Bundesturnfest Milwaukee 1893.jpg
3,000 Turners performed at the Federal Gymnastics Festival in Milwaukee, 1893.

Turners (Template:Langx, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}) are members of German-American gymnastic clubs called Turnvereine. They promoted German culture, physical culture, and liberal politics. Turners, especially Francis Lieber (1798–1872), were the leading sponsors of gymnastics as an American sport and the field of academic study.

In Germany, a major gymnastic movement was started by Turnvater ("father of gymnastics") and nationalist Friedrich Ludwig Jahn in the early 19th century when Germany was occupied by Napoleon. The Turnvereine ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}; "gymnastic unions"; from German turnen meaning “to practice gymnastics,” and Verein meaning “club, union”) were not only athletic but also political, reflecting their origin in similar ethnocentric "national gymnastic" organizations in Europe (such as the Czech Sokol), who were participants in various national movements for independence. The Turner movement in Germany was generally liberal in nature, and many Turners took part in the Revolutions of 1848.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

File:St-louis-german-turner-shooting-club-medium.jpg
Group portrait of the St. Louis, Missouri Turnverein in 1860

After the failure of the 1848 Revolution in Germany, the Turner movement was suppressed, and many Turners left Germany, some emigrating to the United States, especially to the Ohio Valley region, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Texas. Several of these Forty-Eighters went on to become Union soldiers, and some became Republican politicians.<ref>Gruen, Mardee. "Milwaukee Turners, local Jews go back 141 years." Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle April 29, 1994; p. 6, col. 1</ref> Besides serving as physical education, social, political, and cultural organizations for German immigrants, Turners were also active in public education and labor movements.<ref name="Hofmann">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref name="LeCompte">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> They were leading promoters of gymnastics in the United States as a sport and as a school subject.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In the United States, the movement declined after 1900, and especially after 1917.<ref>Annette R. Hofmann, "Transformation and Americanization: The American Turners and their new identity." International Journal of the History of Sport 19.1 (2002): 91-118.</ref>

History in the United StatesEdit

File:American Turners stamp, Scott 979.jpg
Postage stamp commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the American Turners

The Turner movement was preceded by the first wave of gymnastics in the United States in the 1820s, led by Germans, such as Charles Beck and Charles Follen, and Americans, such as John Neal. Beck opened the first gymnasium in the U.S. in 1825 at the Round Hill School in Northampton, Massachusetts.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Follen opened the first college gymnasium and the first public gymnasium in the States in 1826 at Harvard College and in Boston, Massachusetts, respectively.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Neal was the first American to open a public gymnasium in the U.S. in Portland, Maine in 1827.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He also documented and promoted these early efforts in the American Journal of Education<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and The Yankee, helping to establish the American branch of the movement.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The Turnvereine made a contribution to the integration of German-Americans into their new home. The organizations continue to exist in areas of heavy German immigration, such as Iowa, Texas, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota, Missouri, Syracuse, New York, Kentucky, New York City, Sacramento, and Los Angeles.

About 1000 Turners served as Union soldiers during the Civil War. Anti-slavery was a common element, as typified by Carl Schurz. Many Republican leaders in German communities were members. They provided the bodyguard at Abraham Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861, and at his funeral in April 1865. In the Camp Jackson Affair, a large force of German volunteers helped prevent Confederate forces from seizing the government arsenal in St. Louis just prior to the beginning of the war.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> After the Civil War, the national organization took a new name, Nordamerikanischer Turnerbund, and supported German-language teaching in public high schools, as well as gymnastics. Women's auxiliaries were formed in the 1850s and 1860s. The high point in membership came in 1894, with 317 societies and about 40,000 adult male members, along with 25,000 children and 3000 women.<ref>Steven A. Reiss, ed., Sports in America from Colonial Times to the Twenty-First Century: An Encyclopedia (2011) pp 913-916.</ref>

In the 1904 Olympics several competitors represented various Turners organizations in Missouri, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, and some of the teams at the Olympics were sponsored by Turners organizations.

Like other German-American groups, the Turners experienced suspicion during World War I, even though they now had very little contact with Germany. German-language instruction ended at many schools and universities, and the federal government imposed restrictions on German-language publications. The younger generation generally demanded the switch to the exclusive use of English society affairs, which allowed many Turner societies to continue to function.<ref name="Hofmann" />

Cultural assimilation and both World Wars with Germany took a gradual toll on membership, with some halls closing and others becoming regular dance halls, bars, or bowling alleys.<ref name="LeCompte" /> As of 2011, 54 Turner societies still existed around the U.S. The current headquarters of American Turners is in Louisville, Kentucky.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1948, the US Post Office issued a 3-cent commemorative stamp to mark the 100th anniversary of the movement in the country.

The Turnverein in Sacramento, founded in 1854, claims to be the oldest institution within the city still in existence.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The Turnverein Vorwaerts of Fort Wayne, Indiana, owned the Hugh McCulloch House from 1906 until 1966.<ref name="SHAARD">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }} Note: This includes {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }} and Accompanying photographs.</ref>Template:Rp It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.<ref name="nris">Template:NRISref</ref>

GalleryEdit

Vintage photos of the Milwaukee TurnvereinEdit

  • Milwaukee Turnverein 1866.jpg

    1866

  • Milwaukee Gymnasium 1869.jpg

    1869

  • Milwaukee Turners 1875.jpg

    1875

  • Milwaukee Turners 1879.jpg

    1879

  • Milwaukee Turnverein.jpg

    1915

Other Wisconsin Turners in 1915Edit

  • Kenosha Turners.jpg

    Kenosha

  • Madison Turners 1915.jpg

    Madison

  • Madison Turners 1915 - Bears.jpg

    Madison Bears (seniors)

  • New Holstein Turners.jpg

    New Holstein

  • Sheboygan Turners.jpg

    Sheboygan

Monuments in the United StatesEdit

  • Friedrich Ludwig Jahn monument in Forest Park - plaque.jpg

    Jahn Monument in St. Louis, Missouri

  • Davenport, Iowa Turngemeinde Monument.jpg

    Davenport, Iowa Turngemeinde Monument

Jahn Monument in Berlin with memorial plaques from American TurnvereineEdit

  • Jahn-Denkmal in der Hasenheide.jpg

    The Berlin monument

  • Gedenktafel aus Chicago.jpg

    Chicago, 1861

  • Gedenktafel aus Cincinnati.jpg

    Cincinnati, 1865

  • Gedenktafel aus Philadelphia.jpg

    Philadelphia, 1861

  • Gedenktafel aus Washington.jpg

    Washington, D.C., 1911

Turner HallsEdit

See alsoEdit

ReferencesEdit

Template:Reflist

Further readingEdit

  • Barney, Robert Knight. "German Turners in America: Their Role in Nineteenth Century Exercise Expression and Physical Education Legislation." in Earle F. Zeigler ed., American Sport and Physical Education History (to 1875) (1975): 116+. online
  • Barney, Robert Knight. "Knights of Cause and Exercise: German Forty-Eighters and Turnvereine in the United States during the Antebellum Period." Canadian Journal of History of Sport 13.2 (1982): 62-79.
  • Barney, Robert Knight. "America's First Turnverein: Commentary in Favor of Louisville, Kentucky." Journal of Sport History 11.1 (1984): 134-137. online
  • Hoyt, D. J. (1999). A strong mind in a strong body: Libraries in the German-American Turner movement. New York, NY: Peter Land.
  • Kramer, William M., and Norton B. Stern. "The Turnverein: A German Experience for Western Jewry." Western States Jewish History 16 (1984): 227.
  • Metzner, Henry. A brief history of the American Turnerbund (1924) online
  • Pfister, Gertrud. "The Role of German Turners in American Physical Education," International Journal of the History of Sport 26 (no. 13, 2009) 1893-925
  • Pumroy, Eric, and Katja Rampelmann. Research guide to the Turner movement in the United States (Greenwood, 1996).

External linksEdit


Template:Commonscat

Template:Physical culture Template:Gymnastics in the United States

Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "https://zalansite.site/mediawiki/index.php?title=Turners&oldid=20520"