Annals of German New Orleans” 1842.
MSS 395, folder 18J
Hanno Deiler (1849–1909), perhaps the most important name of New Orleans’s turn-of-the-century German community, came to New Orleans in 1872 as a teacher at Saint Boniface German School and organist of the church. In 1879 he was appointed professor of German at the University of Louisiana (now Tulane University). Actively involved in a number of German organizations and singing societies, he was one of the most zealous preservers of German ethnicity in New Orleans. He played a central role in attracting—and later organizing—the 1890 North American Sängerbund Festival to New Orleans.
As a scholar, Mr. Deiler, together with contemporaries such as Rev. Louis Voss, practiced a sort of historicism exemplary of an important trend in the German New Orleans of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. At a time when immigration was dwindling, and the majority of the many organizations that had previously provided charity and support to the German community either dissolved for lack of need, or became, essentially, social clubs, Deiler was leading the cultivation of a sense of nobility among New Orleans’s Germans. His scholarly work and activity in the community alluded heavily to the virtue present in Louisiana’s German history, from D’Arensbourg’s ur-settlers through to the masses of immigrants of his own generation. He documented this history prolifically and sought adamantly to heighten awareness of its significance in his own time in works such as The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana and the Creoles of German Descent, Germany’s Contribution to the Present Population of New Orleans, the journal Annals of German New Orleans, as well as many other monographs and speeches.
The J. Hanno Deiler Papers (MSS 395) contain hand-written and typescript drafts of the scholar’s major books, articles, and speeches (including a translation of Friedrich Schiller’s Wallenstein). The papers also include a number of genealogies of Louisiana-German families and correspondence related to the acquisition of information for them. These genealogies reveal a great deal about the painstakingly thorough method of a nineteenth-century historian-collector, the likes of which no longer exist in today’s age of instant communicaton.
Another important interest of Deiler’s was to rekindle the connection between his contemporary New Orleans and the German Fatherland. In an attempt to attract new immigrants, his pamphlet “Louisiana: A Home for German Settlers” (“Louisiana: Ein Heim für deutsche Ansiedler”) glowingly describes the vibrancy of New Orleans and the fertility of the surrounding farmlands. Also, as president of the Deutsche Gesellschaft, he worked to reestablish regular German ship connections with New Orleans. Although his endeavors were eventually successful, the fledgling enterprise was disrupted with the outbreak of World War I. In the decades leading up to that war, Hanno Deiler and his fellow German New Orleanians had much to be proud of. As immigrants, they had had much success and had become an important part of the larger community of the city. Times were good for Germans in New Orleans, and they wanted to share their prosperity with their brethren still in the Fatherland. One can imagine, as well, that they may also have felt that New Orleans could only benefit from becoming a bit more German.
Materials on this page are divided into the following categories:
Manuscript resources
Visual resources
Library resources
Deutsches Haus Collection. MSS 609. Ca. 90 linear feet. The archive of the Deutsches Haus organization, including materials from preexisting groups that aligned themselves to form the Deutsches Haus. These organizations include Die deutsche Gesellschaft von New Orleans (The German Society of New Orleans), Deutscher Verein im 2. Distrikt (The German Club of the 2nd District), Der Turn-Verein (Turners’ or Gymnasts’ Society), Das deutsche protestantische Waisenhaus zu New Orleans (The German Protestant Orphanage of New Orleans), Das deutsche protestantische Heim für Alte und Gebrechliche (The German Protestant Home for the Aged and Infirm), Der deutsche Protestantische Bethanien-Verein (The German Protestant Bethany Society), Das deutsche Ev.-Luth. Bethlehem-Waisenhaus (The German Evangelical Lutheran Bethlehem Orphanage), and the Deutsch-Amerikanischer National Bund— Staatsverband für Louisiana, (The German American National Bund—Louisiana State Chapter). This collection also includes 400 volumes from the organization's lending library.
Deutsches Haus Collection: Deutsches Haus Musik Archiv (German Music Archive 1888–1983). MSS 609, Series 7. Collection of the music sung and performed by the musical societies of the Deutsches Haus. Includes sheet music with color-lithograph title pages for musical comedies, as well as choral music. Also includes programs and music from the “Sängerfeste” (annual gatherings of German singing societies from around the country) attended by these societies, song books, and other various materials from the musical societies of the Deutsches Haus (New Orleanser Quartett Club, Frohsinn, Deutsches Haus Sängerchor, Deutscher Männergesangsverein, Liederkranz, Harugari Männerchor), as well as material from the 26th annual Sängerfest, held in New Orleans in 1890.
See also German Study File.
Charles L. Mackie Collection, 1887–1917. 82-43-L. 5 items. Programme: Women's Social Industrial Assoc'n., "Lend Me Five Shillings." Invitation: Tulane University of Louisiana. Admit Card: German Reading, Professor Hanno Deiller. Dance Program: "Society Francaise," Theatre de l'Opera Francais, with signatures. Announcement: Wall and Co., Ltd. Lithographers and Printers, of the Association of Henry Clavarie.
J. Hanno Deiler Papers, 1849–1909. MSS 395. 118 items. These papers are the basis for the work of John Hanno Deiler. They contain genealogies of prominent Louisiana German families, as well as draft and final versions of Deiler's writings concerning Germans in the southeastern United States.
J. Hanno Deiler Papers at Loyola. 96-38-L. 75 items.
Dr. Karl J. R. Arndt Collection of J. Hanno Deiler Papers and Deutsche Gesellschaft Records, 1852–1919. 97-5-L. 813 items. Includes scrapbooks, files, photocopies of articles, typescripts, insurance policies, photographs, pamphlets, programs, news clippings, fliers, financial documents, Deutsche Gesellschaft letters and records.
"Germany's Contribution to Pres. Population of N.O." by J. Hanno Deiler. 1886. Anonymous photograph of title page from between 1950 and 1973. Acc. No. 1974.25.28.84.
German Heritage Festival Association honors J. Hanno Deiler. Print poster by Raymond N. Calvert (designer) and C. Willem Printers, Inc. (Printer) celebrating the Oktoberfest Parade. Features a sketch showing an oval, bust-length portrait of a man flanked on either side by an American flag and a German flag and surmounted by an eagle. Created for 1989. Acc. No. 1994.141.3.
Deiler, J. Hanno. The settlement of the German coast of Louisiana and the Creoles of German descent. With a new pref., chronology, and index by Jack Belsom. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1969. 24 cm. LC: F380.G3/D29 1969.
Deiler, J. Hanno. The settlement of the German coast of Louisiana and the Creoles of German descent, by J.Hanno Deiler. Philadelphia: American Germanica Press, 1909. 26 cm. F380 .G3/D29 Copy 1.
Deiler, J. Hanno. Die ersten Deutschen am unteren Mississippi und die Creolen deutscher abstammung: Vortrag, gehalten am 16. September 1904 vor dem ‘Germanistischen Congress’ in der Congresshalle der St. Louiser Weltausstellung / von J. Hanno Deiler. New Orleans: Im selbstverlage des verfassers, 1904. 24 cm. ["The First Germans on the Lower Mississippi and the Creoles of German Descent: Talk Held on September 16, 1904, in the Main Hall of the St. Louis World’s Fair / By J. Hanno Deiler."] LC: F380.G3/D28.
Deiler, J. Hanno. A history of the German churches in Louisiana: (1823–93) / by J Hanno Deiler; translated and edited by Marie Stella Condon. Lafayette: Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1983. 24 cm. LC: BR555.L8/D413 1983.
"Family Evening" of the New Orleans Quartett Club, Odd Fellows Hall. Prof. J. Hanno Deiler, president (in German). [New Orleans]: April 28, 1908. 1974.25.36.153 a,b, and 1974.25.36.154
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