Page:The Yankee and the Teuton in Wisconsin.djvu/90

 saloons. There were also several German clothing stores, confectioneries, and bakeries. That their business men expected to sell almost exclusively to Germans is indicated by the fact that for the most part they advertised only in the German language papers—the Wisconsin Banner and the Volksfreund,—not in the English papers. On the other hand, the American merchants, as we have already seen, catered to the German trade by providing German salesmen, and they also advertised extensively in the German papers.

There were German taverns which did a thriving trade; the restaurants made the sojourner from Berlin feel at home; and the German beer gardens were the despair of the pious Yankee mothers of boys. So indispensable did German musicians become, that when the Sons of the Pilgrims banqueted, a brass band directed by a German bandmaster discoursed "martial as well as festive" music.

One other form of coöperation between Yankee and Teuton deserves to be mentioned—the employment of German girls in Yankee homes. This custom, testified to by German writers and indicated unmistakably by the census, was widespread. Such service was an immediate resource to the poorer immigrant families, and a boon to the American families as well. By that means numbers of future German homemakers came promptly into possession of the manners and customs of the Yankees, acquired their speech, and gained some insight into their distinctive views of life.

The least numerous of the special classes into which we have analyzed the German population of Milwaukee, in 1850, was the professional class. Yet it is not for that reason least important, for the little group of forty-five