ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the place of port cities in the self-narratives of German-speaking Forty-Eighters in the second half of the nineteenth century. The myth of the Forty-Eighters is still deeply entrenched in national historiographies on both sides of the Atlantic. After the revolutions in continental Europe failed, scores of politically active men and women emigrated together with their families. In the post-revolutionary decades, these individuals came to symbolize either the failure of European liberalism or the triumph of democratic ideals in the United States. As a result, experiences of transience, which constituted an integral part of their transatlantic migration, have typically been overlooked. Critically analyzing ego-documents, this chapter traces the group’s migration experiences via three biographical snapshots. In doing so, it conceptualizes port cities not only as transit stations within the process of transatlantic migration but also as spaces that shaped the self-stagings of Forty-Eighters in the decades following the revolutions. Such an “eclectic” approach reveals that port cities came to hold a unique and central place in revolutionaries’ memories. Whether points of departure, destination, or transit, port cities helped structure their self-narratives in a spatial as well as socio-cultural sense.
