Negotiating hyphenated identities: Transnational identity formation of the German-American residents of St. Charles, Missouri, during World War I

This dissertation examines the First World War experiences of soldiers and civilians from the majority-German-American city of St. Charles, Missouri. They were loyal U.S. citizens devoted to American civic culture who also maintained cultural ties to Germany, which created hyphenated identities. The assimilationist rhetoric and overzealous patriotism of the Great War period challenged their abilities to be both loyal American citizens and cultural Germans, but St. Charles German-Americans did not succumb to pressure or persecution and assimilate. Instead, they shifted their identities in response to external pressures during the war without abandoning either national component. St. Charles soldiers serving in the U.S. military and civilians on the homefront relocated their identities along the spectrum between German and American as the changing contexts of the war in Europe demanded to express their loyalty to the U.S. and preserve their German cultural practices. The dynamic wartime relationship between Germany and the U.S. at particular moments and in particular places shaped the form and expression of St. Charles German-Americans' identities.;This project uses photographs and methods from transnational American Studies to expand our understanding of German ethnicity in the U.S. Photographs, as sites of German-American identity formation, are particularly important to my project and allow my project to add visual culture components to studies of German ethnic identity. St. Charles German-Americans also participated in national and transnational networks---constituted by individuals, groups, and governments at the local, state, and national levels in the U.S. and in Germany---that functioned as overlapping circles of influence and shaped their responses to the changing contexts of the war. Using transnationalism as a method and exploring it as a condition reveals how ethnic identity formation took place in concert with global events in a city geographically isolated from the frontlines of war. St. Charles German-Americans negotiated these broader national and transnational structures, dynamics, and historical processes to express and maintain their identities during World War I.