Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter
Keywords
Swiss Texans, Book Review, Institute of Texan Cultures
Abstract
This is an illustrated, indexed brochure, 26 double-columned pages in length. The Swiss are introduced as "The most cosmopolitan immigrants to come to Texas with the least reason for coming ... " This statement contains important clues about the nature of Swiss emigration and the difficulties of writing about it. Due to the absence of strong outside determining factors such as "ideological oppression, economic depressions and natural catastrophes," decisions to leave Switzerland were almost always individually colored. There were no more or less uniform mass emigrations and very few large-scale settlement enterprises. The phrase "most cosmopolitan" in the introductory quotation undoubtedly is intended to mean most diverse and, perhaps, versatile and again refers to the fact that there was no unifying nature or character to the movement of Swiss immigrants to Texas. This, of course, is a fact with which all those who have dealt. with the subject of Swiss immigration to the New World have long been familiar. They have been struggling with the problem on a national scale while the writers of the booklet under review confronted it on the relatively small scale of a single state, albeit one of the largest in the union.
Recommended Citation
Meier, Heinz K.
(1978)
"The Institute of Texan Cultures, The Swiss Texans1978,"
Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter: Vol. 14:
Iss.
2, Article 5.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_newsletter/vol14/iss2/5